The Princess Bride (never read the book, but it's one of my Top 10 favorite films):

The book's actual roots are in stories Goldman would tell to his daughters, one of whom had requested a story about "princesses" and the other "brides". Goldman describes the earliest character names from the "kid's saga" as "silly names: Buttercup, Humperdinck".

The countries are both named after coins. The Florin was originally an Italian gold coin minted in Florence, and later the name of various currencies and denominations. The Guilder was originally a Dutch gold coin, and later the name of various currencies used mainly in the Netherlands and its territories. The two names are often interchangeable.

Thanks, JD -- interesting.

The scammers are more stupid these days.

Mrs D got a letter from Canary Wharf, GB telling her that she was the sole surviving heir of her uncle Hiroshi D who died in a traffic accident in Burma. Except for the inconvenient facts that her maiden name is not D, she has living siblings, and Burma is not a country anymore, what are the odds of her Japanese uncle having my (uncommon and non-Japanese) last name? I'd say higher than her chances of getting even one of those £17 million.

Then there was the phone call from the "IRS agent" who spoke such terrible English that even I could't understand him. We would have reported him to the IRS (left a voice mail!) but we couldn't make out the number.

I see a lot of spammy ads, trying to get you to click on what is probably a Trojan-horse link, like the following. Apparently they are trying to grab searches for computer-related terms and direct people to a site that will download virus software. Only their search string processing isn't very good. Last night, I was searching for parts for an exercise machine, and saw this on one Web site I visited:

"A problem has been found with your computer: '33 mm roller wheel'. This is causing slow performance on your computer. Click here for recommended fix." They must think my computer was built by Charles Babbage.

Got a call one time in which the caller identified himself as calling "from Windows." He went on to say that my computer had been identified as being infected and if I didn't let him clean it, I would be banned "by Windows."

When I asked him why Microsoft was calling individuals instead of sending out a notice, he said "not Microsoft, Windows."

If you're gonna scam somebody, at least Google a few things first.