The Curious Incident of the Package that Wasn't There

[mortonfox]

It seems like this year I've just been lurching from one screw-up to another, and most of those were caused by other people. This latest one got resolved fairly quickly though. It started yesterday afternoon when I got a shipment notice on a back-ordered item. I checked the UPS tracking number and saw that it had already been delivered at 3:11pm. Odd, I thought. I was there at 3:11pm but didn't hear anyone at the door and didn't see a package on my way out. I took a look again when I got home but didn't see the package. Checked the front and back entrances and all the way around. Also checked the other road where mail sometimes gets misdelivered but didn't see anything. Talked to a few neighbors but they didn't see anything either.

So I called UPS to find out what happened. They could only tell me the same thing as the online tracking system, that the package had been left by the back door. They advised me to contact the shipper to order a trace on the package. I did that by email. This afternoon, there was a ring on my doorbell. My neighbor had brought the package over. What a relief! It turned out that the UPS driver brought the package to the wrong street number. My neighbor explained that it was probably because her last name was similar to the town where the package came from, but I think the UPS driver just slipped up. Thank goodness for honest neighbors. Anyway, here it is. I'll set it up later.

This evening, I went to the Circuit City liquidation sale in Paramus. I figured there wouldn't be anything good since it is the last 3 days of the sale but I had to take a look anyway. The prices weren't that good from what I saw. It seems that they took the 80% discount off prices that are higher than their usual store prices. If you aren't really getting a good discount and you can't return the item if it doesn't work, what's the point? I also went to Garden State Plaza to take care of a few errands. At the food court, I had pretzel and chicken sandwich. Those were from "buy one get one free" deals so I took the extras home for tomorrow's lunch.

Comments

[furahi.livejournal.com]

You got yourself a sexy present
I'm dissapointed with my Eee, I have a 4G surf... I can almost never connect to any wireless networks.

Wi-fi and Linux have never liked each other :(

[athauglas.livejournal.com]

I'm going to hazard a guess and say that it's more related to reception difficulties than compatibility between hardware and software. Linux has had wifi sorted out for years now :\

Frankly I get crap for signal strength on everything but my thinkpad, which has exceptionally well designed antennae.

[furahi.livejournal.com]

I'm in the same room as the access point though. The times when it does connect the connection is fast and uninterrupted... but to get it to connect...

[athauglas.livejournal.com]

Hm... I suppose it's just using Network Manager (daemon + applet thingy)... you could try a different one. Have you looked at wifi-radar?

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

eeeep wow.... that could be fun to debug... :9

[nuktakupaya.livejournal.com]

Make that sucker triple-boot (OS X, Linux, Windows). It can be done.

[athauglas.livejournal.com]

Windows I can half-way understand, but why the hell would anyone want to run OSX? Why run a proprietary, crippled UNIX-like OS when you've already got a Free-as-in-free environment that's actually happy to be on the hardware in question?

I don't care how pretty OSX is, Apple is a hardware company first and foremost. If you want the OSX lifestyle for cheap, buy a used macbook./grouch

[nuktakupaya.livejournal.com]

Some people do. I'm not hating on any particular OS, I'm not a huge fan of Windows (I don't have a need for it aside from VAG-Com), and neither am I an Apple fanboy. I do have a Powerbook, I like the interface. A friend of mine did triple-boot his Asus (he runs Ubuntu, XP, and Leopard). I like having choices and if you already own the software, it's not difficult to get working on another machine.

If you look directly at costs, even used MacBooks (if we're going to be discussing Intel architecture) are still more expensive in most cases than a new Eee PC is.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Cicuit City screwing people over even in their last throes of death eh? ;p

Sorry to hear about the package.... our postman has poor vision too, lost my insurance bill last month...

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

If there weren't any great deals in the last 3 days of business then it wasn't a good liquidation sale. I went to Grand Union on their last day and they told me I could take everything that was left for $5.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

wow man... I hope you had a truck.. or two! :D

[sandy-hedges.livejournal.com]

:) glad to see you got your package, I'm really glad to hear this from you though in that I work for Fedex and anything I can use against "UPS is better" arguments on the phone is helpful. I mean we'll put traces on packages no matter who calls about it.