-+@ Something Pink @+-

I got the card from the post office today that said I had a package? Ooooh, could it be that my He-Man and Beastman from Matty Collector has finally arrived? No such luck. Grrr...

What did arrive was in a small envelope of hard card. When I saw it I wondered what it could be. When I saw the writing (it's funny how I can recognise the writing even though I've only seen it a couple of times before) and where it's sent from I had a good idea what was inside. Here's a photo (with the names and addressed censored):

If you have a closer look, you can probably make out the German stamps underneath the Finnish postmark. Also under the address, Hans im Glück is visible. That should give a good clue what is inside. Yay, my blank tiles from Europe has finally arrived! Thanks nipa!

I had my first surprise when I opened the box. Something pink? Eeek... did nipa send the parcel meant for someone else to me by mistake? Erm... pink... now why is that colour significant? Of course it's significant... it's the colour mostly associated with Geishas!

What's a Geisha? A joke between the few of us at the now defunct CCGW. Stuff like - I walked into the hotel room and saw that there was a Geisha on my pillow. Heh. Oh well, those were the days which I will remember fondly. Here's a close-up of the chocolate bar:


I think the packaging used to have pictures of Geishas on it, but that was supposed to be sexist or racist or whatever, so that got removed. Apparently Geisha is the most popular of the candies made in Finland with really unappropriate names. I don't remember what they are, but I'm sure somewhere on the internet...

Anyways, the story is this: I wrote HiG to ask them if they would sell me those blank tiles - i.e. send them outside Europe. I even told them I'd pay more. They wrote back and said the tiles were not for sale, but were only available as a replacement. They also said that they would not be shipping them outside of Europe. So much for that.

Not long after that, they put out an announcement that there were going to limit the total number of sheets of 12 tiles to 5 per person. Ouch. That's gonna put a crimp in anyone's style. The story is that they did not want others to get those tiles, make bad quality fan tiles on them and then sell those tiles on ebay, because that would just be 1. copyright infringement and 2. dumb buyers will complain to HiG about the badly made tiles asking for a replacement... which won't be available as HiG didn't make those tiles.



Anyways, to cut my story short, I had to find a. a European, b. willing get the sheets for me, c. willing to ship to me, d. doesn't want it for themselves and e. can accept Paypal. Well, since I am still talking to one on a regular basis (the other being Martin, but we hardly talk anymore since, well, he's busy with work and all), I sent an IM to nipa asking him if he would help me get the 5 sheets. He agreed, agreed to scam HiG by using 2 separate addresses to get me 10 sheets.

I paid him a week ago after he has sent it and I must say I'm really happy with the result. He even threw in a Geisha! here are the 10 sheets as the "before" picture. I shall be happy making custom tiles from these! Kiitos Tomi!