Comics I Don’t Understand

A Skim-Scam

Cidu Bill on Nov 23rd 2008

Clearly, the glass company is trying to con him: Since when does a Beijing company deal in yen?

Filed in Bill Bickel, Brevity, China, Guy & Rodd, Japan, comic strips, comics, humor | 20 responses so far

20 Responses to “A Skim-Scam”

Adam Nov 23rd 2008 at 11:15 am 1

There’s all sorts of wrongness floating about in this comic, but the intended “joke” is that he skipped it all the way to China, up a beach, and into some poor sod’s window.

I hadn’t even noticed the yen thing. I more noticed the fact that there’s no way they could have known that he threw the rock.
Scurvy Dog Nov 23rd 2008 at 11:28 am 2

According to Wikipedia, that’s also the symbol for the Chinese Yuan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C2%A5

12,000 Yuan is $1,755 dollars, so that’s a pretty expensive window.
Scurvy Dog Nov 23rd 2008 at 11:31 am 3

According to Wikipedia, that’s also the symbol for the Chinese Yuan.

The price quoted is more consistent with the Japanese Yen, unless it’s a $1,755 window.
heather Nov 23rd 2008 at 11:52 am 4

Well, maybe the fact that it’s a glass company means that maybe he broke a LOT of windows.

But even aside from any issues of the currency… in order to hit Beijing, the rock would have to skip over Japan, and the Koreas, and a good chunk of China… Beijing is an inland city, not coastal.

The premise of them knowing who threw the rock, and the fact that the rock made such an epic skip, I can live with — that’s the ‘joke’ part, it’s unreal but it’s funny. But the whole think would work better if it skipped to Japan instead… Tokyo isn’t quite on the east coast of Japan but it’s close, it would have worked better.
waferthinmint Nov 23rd 2008 at 12:11 pm 5

heckm for me what didn’t work was that he appears to be aiming at europe via the continental US. the bay bridge is just north of him and you can see the transamerica pyramid so orientation is clear: he’s aiming at oakland
Lola Nov 23rd 2008 at 12:11 pm 6

This is just the cost of getting into the Guiness Book of World Records. Besides, when the endorsements start pouring in, he’ll have no problem paying this.
Morris Keesan Nov 23rd 2008 at 12:16 pm 7

Scurvy Dog, that’s not what Wikipedia says. At least, not in the article for yuan. What it says is that the Chinese symbol for yuan(元, which may not display properly in your browser, depending on what kind of language support you have installed) is also used, in Chinese, to refer to the Japanese yen and the Korean currency unit. The symbol in this comic, which looks like a Y with two horizontal lines across it, is a different symbol, which is not a Chinese character.
Size Nov 23rd 2008 at 01:35 pm 8

Maybe there is a company in Japan called Beijing Glass Co. Or maybe the reason it was so expensive was because someone living by the ocean (in whatever country) hired a company all the way from Beijing to come fix their window.

What I learned from this comic is, never write your home address on a rock before you skip it.
furrykef Nov 23rd 2008 at 01:42 pm 9

but the intended “joke” is that he skipped it all the way to China, up a beach, and into some poor sod’s window.

Bill got the joke, Adam. You don’t have to explain it unless the post has the “CIDU” tag.

I more noticed the fact that there’s no way they could have known that he threw the rock.

That’s part of what makes it humorous, I think.

The symbol in this comic, which looks like a Y with two horizontal lines across it, is a different symbol, which is not a Chinese character.

Well, if we go by your logic, ¥ isn’t a Japanese character either. The character for “yen” in Japanese is 円 (which is, oddly enough, pronounced “en” and never “yen”).

The symbol ¥ is used for both yuan and yen, though. You see, it’s similar to how in English we have “dollar” and “$”. 元 and 円 are like “dollar” — that is, they’re complete words — and ¥ is just a symbol.

- Kef
heather Nov 23rd 2008 at 02:01 pm 10

Morris, Scurvy Dog is right. You have to keep reading the wikipedia article. Further down, it DOES specify that the Y-like character is often used in mainland China.

And I had assumed the bridge in view was the San Fransisco Golden Gate bridge… but I’m no expert…
brien Nov 23rd 2008 at 03:14 pm 11

All them foreign currencies look alike.

… and yes, that does look like the Golden Gate Bridge. If it is, this vantage point cannot exist.

If the cartoonist drew the Golden Gate Bridge where the Bay Bridge should be, though, it’s more plausible - but then, as waferthinmint points out, he’s throwing the rock east across the bay (I’d say at Alameda).
Elyrest Nov 23rd 2008 at 03:21 pm 12

Heather, even if it was the Golden Gate Bridge the guy still wouldn’t be sending it to China. No matter which way you orient this comic if that is indeed San Francisco (looks it to me) the best he could hope for would be the Marin headlands or somewhere across the bay.
heather Nov 23rd 2008 at 03:47 pm 13

Ahh… I just looked at the map to see where the bridge is and I gotcha. (Hey I’m not American, I’m impressed enough with myself that I got the bridge right heh)

Maybe in the first panel, he’s throwing it at an angle, a bit towards the bridge, so that it will actually pass under the bridge and head out across the Pacific.

Of course, it would STILL run into Japan first…
Arvy Nov 23rd 2008 at 05:37 pm 14

It’s hard to make out the text under the handwritten note, but if my rough translation is correct, the bill is for the broken porthole on a Japanese freighter that was docked in Oakland Harbor. And, as everyone knows, the only vendor that can produce replacement portholes on demand is in China.
Jack Nov 23rd 2008 at 06:37 pm 15

Reminds me of a “Foxtrot” a few years ago where Jason and his buddy marvel at the range of the new-model squirt guns; Jason then fires his straigh ahead of comic him and a voice balloon from off-screen announces “Achtung.”
Jack Nov 23rd 2008 at 06:39 pm 16

Sorry, a computer malfunction cut and pasted a word out of sequence from my response above, hopefully you can all still understand what I was saying; just take out the word “comic” and it will make sense.
enfueago Nov 23rd 2008 at 08:54 pm 17

The Beijing Glass Group Company is china’s largest manufacturer of laboratory glassware. Thus the rock probably broke many test tubes when it came through the window and, having lots of lab equipment on hand, the company was well equipped to track down the miscreant. Its funny because of how common all the CSI stuff has become.
Trish Nov 23rd 2008 at 09:56 pm 18

Since we seem to have identified this as San Fransisco, maybe the rock hit a window in Chinatown?
Hunt Nov 24th 2008 at 09:08 am 19

If this guy can skip a rock all the way to China, why should anybody be surprised that he can make it go around little obstacles like Japan?
Morris Keesan Nov 24th 2008 at 10:06 am 20

My mistake. I somehow missed noticing Scurvy Dog’s first comment, with the link to the Wikipedia page about ‘¥’, and I was looking at this page instead, and also didn’t read far enough down the page.