Year: 2013

Customer servitude

I know it’s too easy ranting about the post office, but damn, what a staggering level of incompetence they exhibit. They do a great job of delivering unprofitable letters on Saturday at forty-odd cents a pop but they really blow it on the added-value stuff that might actually make them profitable if they did it correctly–like the express package I should have gotten yesterday but will be lucky to see by Monday despite my having followed their instructions to the letter to have it redelivered today. I can’t even track the damned thing. And don’t get me started on the phone call to try to determine its status.

The sad thing is that I’d actually been trying to use the postal service again over the past few years. After my last two run-ins, though, I’m swearing off for anything other than the basics. Mistakes happen but these involved too many distinct levels of them.

Additional awards for staggering incompetence today go to my doctor’s office and the fine folks in Target’s pharmacy department but that’s a rant for another day. Suffice to say that it does not fill me with confidence that my pharmacist can’t tell me which prescriptions have or haven’t been filled and that my physician’s office barely seems to give a shit one way or the other.

Maybe I’m just in a bad mood and should go to bed. Yes, that would be the wisest course.

Randomly Tuesday afternoon

So this post can seem vaguely work-related (since…um…I’m at work) here’s a lovely picture of where my new office will be in May. Enjoy with me my view through the window of one of the oldest dorms still standing on the campus.

Now for stuff:

  • I don’t really want to live in Montreal. It’s too cold and the politics are too complicated. That said, if I had a place in Habitat, I might consider it.
  • Speaking of Canada, is it sad that I listen to so much Canadian radio that Sleep Country Canada is the first place I would go to look for a new bed?
  • Also speaking of Canada (I do that a lot), you probably have Can-con regulations to thank for the fact that anyone still remembers (or plays) songs like this. But I love anyplace where people actually call in and request Martha and the Muffins.
  • What is Frank Lloyd Wright’s relationship to Anne Baxter and Lincoln Logs? Read this and know the truth.
  • The perils of historic preservation.
  • Related to nothing above: I made a really good meatloaf Sunday night.

Now for more random photos:

Got to attend a presentation by the author of one of my favorite books last week. That was fun.

I’ve been a librarian for over three years but this was the first actual book display I’d ever helped with. My second-in-command (pictured above) gets most of the credit, though.

And now I’m off to a two-hour meeting that will no doubt be every bit as exciting as this post was…

Randomly Tuesday: LA, origins of the species, etc.

More random stuff for a Thursday afternoon:

  • My new snack obsession. I find myself shopping a lot at Trader Joe’s now that there’s one in my neighborhood, even for things like produce and meat. It’s amazing how much more pleasant shopping at TJ’s is when you don’t have to do it at one in San Francisco.
  • Hear hear to the assertion that contrary to popular belief, LA is “one of the most urban cities in the world” and also to the recognition that LA is in fact a very densely populated place.
  • Speaking of LA…
  • Despite the fact that I’ve just never gotten that whole “bear” thing (the gay one), one thing I very much believe is that the whole scene was largely inspired by this show. Anyhow, I may have to own the DVDs now that they’re available.
  • Did I mention that this was really cool?

At some point soon, I’ll expand on my exciting weekend in Tennessee, summer vacation plans, and more. But that time is not today.

Videolog: Falling In and Out

Mi-Sex
Falling In and Out (1981)

It apparently took this record three years to make it from New Zealand to the US, where it was released in 1984. Frankly, they could have left the outfits at home. The song may not exactly have stood the test of time either, but it beats some of its competition from the era.