Vox Import

OSCON & Portland

OSCON/Portland 2007

Just uploaded a few photos from my trip to Portland for OSCON.  I was too busy preparing for my presentation to really take many pictures during the conference, so most of these are from afterward with my friend Aaron.  We managed to get in a wine bar, dinner, a visit to the Japanese Garden and the rose garden during my breif stay.  It was fast but fun!

Ship it where the sun don't shine

I am so mad at USPS.  This time however, I actually wrote a letter:

To whom it may concern,

I would like to complement the USPS on its extraordinary level of incompetence. To maintain this level level of internal inconsistency would tax even the most seasoned bureaucrats. They say that the mark of genius is to hold two mutually contradictory ideas at the same time. At this the USPS has excelled.

I am speaking of the USPSs' practice of practically giving away packages that require signatures when they are delivered, yet requiring that only the recipient can pick up and sign for this package if delivery is missed and it is returned to the pickup center.

I have walked in to an office building off the street and been asked to sign packages by a waiting USPS service person; I have signed for packages for neighbors; I have lost packages because USPS said it was signed for but nobody knows by whom. All without requiring any identification. However, when I missed delivery for my girlfriend's package last week, I found out that it is impossible for me to pickup this package for her while she is out of town. This is despite the fact that my ID was checked, which shows that I have the exact address of the package.

If she gets back before the USPS returns this package back to its sender, she will then have to take off work in order to meet the USPS highly flexible pickup hours of 8am to 5pm, a time that neatly coincides with the exact times of possible delivery. Note that anyone who is has missed delivery is guaranteed to be highly inconvenienced by these pickup times since they are probably still occupied by the same things that caused them to miss the delivery in the first place. Here again is that mark of genius.

USPSs' service is an endless source of frustration and confusion. If there were any alternatives available for delivering my package they certainly were not relayed by my curt and unhelpful attendant at the 226 Harrison St. Postal Center in San Francisco, CA.

Waiting to present

Why tax long term memory when you can cram your short term memory?

Lisa & Garth Practice

Whittacker Phones Home

Another dimension

There's a food truck that parks every morning outside our building that we call the "Taco Truck" partly because its horn plays "La Cucaracha" as it arrives and partly because it reminds us of our beloved lunch time taco truck that actually did serve tacos before suddenly dissappearing last summer.  La Cucaracha is what we hear every morning at around 10am for about 5 repetitions as the truck approaches the parking lot outside to setup shop.

About 2 months ago I noticed that the song changed from La Cucaracha to those four unmistakable notes from the Twilight Zone's theme song, played a little too quickly.  I figured that their old horn had broken and they had picked a new, if slighly creepy, song to change things up.

Well, this morning I actually looked outside and found that the entire truck had changed!  Written on the front is "Korean BBQ: Seoul on Wheels".  No longer breakfast burritos and Jarritos soda, but Korean BBQ!  This is truly a new dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of food, a place of bulgogi and kimchi between the pit of Man's stomach, and the summit of his grilling knowledge; The Korean BBQ zone.