[2010-03-29] Sign-Up: Une Enfant Du Siècle Autographs!

[brad]

Yeah what is Scruffy's money situation? Should get him some cash before hand you think Ben? I will also support the insurance thing.

[Customer1]

I would like a copy for myself as well. Please have sign out to Charlie

Originally Posted by brad

Yeah what is Scruffy's money situation? Should get him some cash before hand you think Ben? I will also support the insurance thing.

Yeah, I'm okay with deposit. Lets hope everything will get settle this weekend.

[FanDeAliFee]

1, NATIONAL CRITERION FOR A SIGNED CD

Alizée America is visited by comparable numbers of people who live in the United States and who live outside of the United States. As an American, I think it is wonderful we can welcome so many friends from so many countries at this Web site. My own late parents were born overseas and were naturalized as Americans shortly before I was born in the US.

I hope there will not be undue hurt feelings if few of the signed CDs will reach people outside of the United States. All these arrangements are being made at the very last moment. It will be a real challenge for Scruffy just to get so many CDs signed correctly and then mailed to the right people.

I think the biggest reason for the national criterion for participation may be the matter of payment. Schemes can vary a great deal between nations, even those we think of as very similar in many ways. When I was the membership secretary of a small (3,000 member) international engineering society in the 1980s, I learned more about this. One thing that surprised me was that the type of written "check" documenting a payment amount we have long used in the United States was not used in Japan, where we had very many members. Instead, our Japanese members would give us information about their bank from whom we would request a payment amount we would specify, almost as if we were withdrawing cash from our own bank account.

Alizée America includes people from dozens of nations on multiple continents. It would be an undue burden on Scruffy to negotiate a proper means for payment and then do a currency conversion as well. Here in the US, almost everyone has a checking account to pay bills (or can buy a US-dollar-denominated postal money order) they can use to pay Scruffy. His bank will accept these items and credit his bank account without any problems.

I hope Ronald in Holland and others overseas will now understand that no one in America wants to insult our friends in other countries. I am not anyone's spokesman, but I would be surprised if what I write here is wrong.

2, SCRUFFY'S YOUNG BUDAPEST-RESIDENT ASSISTANT, ARON

Because half of Alizée America lives outside of the United States, I was very pleased I could <a href="http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showthread.php?p=155450#post155450">recruit</a> Aron, our new friend from Budapest, to help Scruffy during his visit with Alizée and also represent our overseas membership.

Some people think that instead of Aron, I should have tried to recruit someone living in Paris, because Scruffy's French is limited. Well, at least one American would disagree with my critics, as proven by the video immediately below.

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Can you imagine this woman working in a bank here and faced with the problem of handling a payment instrument from a foreign country? Perhaps not, but let me tell you a short story which really did happen.

Recall that the 1996 Olympics took place here in Georgia, USA, where I live. People could order attendance tickets by telephone back then. If you lived in the United States, you called one number, but if you lived elsewhere, you called another number.

The United States includes 50 provinces called federal states, among which is one named New Mexico. Sadly, an American living in New Mexico was unable to buy tickets from the US-ticket telephone agent, because she said she could not sell any tickets to someone outside the US. When the caller tried to explain again that he DID live in the US, in a state called New Mexico, the agent told him that "Sir, it doesn't matter if you live in new Mexico, or old Mexico, if you live in Mexico, you simply MUST call the foreign orders number to buy a ticket!" and hung up on him.

If I can paraphrase the late Jimmy Durante, "Good night <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww">Miss South Carolina</a>, wherever you are!"