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Category Archives: UMBRAGE!!

Mailboxes

I like snail mail and the USPS.  I think you probably already know this.  Well, recently I’ve been looking into getting a new mailbox to replace the one we have.  For…reasons.  Anyway, I decided that I liked some of the offerings from Architectural Mailboxes and purchased both the mailbox and a decorative post via Amazon.

This is totally normal and not noteworthy except for the fact that Amazon didn’t have the post in stock and I had to buy it via one of their Marketplace vendors.  That’s fine, but I have noticed that the third-party vendors are of varying quality.  The result of this is that…I have two mailboxes, one white, like I ordered, and one sand, like I didn’t order and doesn’t work at all as a decorative post.

Yup.  My order got mixed up with someone else’s order from what I see on the packing slip, and I have two mailboxes now.  I think the other guy has two posts.  It looks like they had everything packaged correctly and even put the correct packing slips in the sleeves, but then slapped the wrong mailing labels on the packages.  Because…you know…a white decorative post looks so much like sand mailbox.

This is great.  And not at all useful.  Now let’s see how long it takes for me to get everything fixed so that I get my decorative post and preferably, the guy gets his mailbox too.  If he can’t get the mailbox, well…I’m not as concerned about that right now as I am about getting my post.  In white.  That’s decorative.  Like I ordered.  But it would be nice of this guy also got his mailbox.  In sand.  That’s not at all decorative but I can’t really say anything because I ordered the same mailbox but in white.  And this also puts be behind schedule and getting the new mailbox up.

ANYWAY!  Did you know that the USPS has standards on size and functionality of your mailbox?

Why are these things?

I like games a lot.  I like digital games a lot.  It’s much easier these days to find a few minutes to play a short game of something on my phone than to sit down at my computer for a few hours of gaming.  Or find people who are willing to have a board game session with me.  I support silly digital games.

But this…this is ridiculous.  Why do these things exist?

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Do we not already have a board game called Scrabble?  Off of which Words with Friends was based?

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Do we not already have a game called Pictionary?  Off of which DrawSomething was based?WP_20130125_005 WP_20130125_004And how do you even play these games?  (I didn’t look at the boxes before taking pictures of them.)

For Where’s My Water, you have to dump a glass of water into something?  And hope it gets to Swampy’s bathtub?  What about that weird green sludge?  Or that purple acidy stuff?  Does the box have that stuff too?  Isn’t it kind of a safety hazard for kids?

For Cut the Rope, do you constantly have to replace the rope?  And what’s playing the position of Om Nom?  Do they include trained spiders that want the candy?  Also, aren’t most kids scared of spiders?  Will the kids eat the candy themselves and not feed whatever monster thing they include with the game?

For Angry Birds, it’s more straight forward.  There have already been live games of Angry Birds.  I don’t really understand why they need more than one version though.  Do these bird figurines actually do things when you tap…the board?  How does that work, exactly?

Are people so creatively tapped out that they can’t make board games anymore?  Actually, no.  I know there are lots of really great board games out there.  You can just check out Tabletop and find so many really great games to play.  Whoever published these games is just dumb.  Why would I buy an inferior, physical version of a game for so much more money than the digital version?