It’s now 9:50 and it’s STILL not here dammit!
Where is the justice?
WHERE IS THE JUSTICE??
Fenris
(Yes, I WAS fun to travel with as a kid. “AreWeThereYet?AreWeThereYet?AreWeThereYet?AreWeThereYet?”) 
Don’t make me come back there!
Quit kicking the seat!
I said QUIT!
Anyone else getting a “Misery” vibe from Fenris if Pratchett decides to do something else?
Here is to hoping he has strong ankles and a high tolerance to blowtorches…
Not to deviate too much from the OP, my gripe is with the people who do the actual delivering (or not). I do like UPS. Unlike Fed-Ex and the USPS, the UPS guy will drive right up to my door and leave the package there. He even carries Milkbones for my dogs if they’re outside to greet him. The USPS always leaves the mail in the mailbox (across the road–about an 80-yard trudge), and if there’s something that can’t be crammed into the box, I get one of those annoying yellow pieces of paper with boxes checked to convey conflicting information about where the package is, where it came from and how I might get them to actually deliver it. And Fed-Ex? The guy will drive as far as the gate and honk his horn until I come outside. He won’t get out of the truck until I’ve sworn on my life that the dogs are confined or sedated or otherwise under my complete control. I can understand that, but he also freaked out one day when he saw squirrels playing in the front yard. He asked if I wasn’t afraid they’d get into the house somehow. (And do what? Attack me while I sleep? They’re squirrels!)
All in all, though, I think it’s pretty amazing that we can have things brought to us from practically anywhere on the planet, even if it does require a little patience sometimes.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaargh.
The Mailman came by, dumped some junk-mail in my box and left.
I still don’t have it and I don’t wanna wait until tomorrow.
AAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaArgh!
Pfenris
That’s because I, as a power-user of the USPS (500,000 pieces dropped per year), have used my ‘contacts’ to ship your book to Tierra del Fuego where it is now being inspected by Patagonian Postal Inspectors who only approve of Joan Wilder novels.
Fear me.
" ‘Jyoan’ Wilder? ‘JYOAN’ WILDER?! I read ALL your novels!" (Even Romancing the Stone!)
And Jonathan? I knew you were kidding, of course. But if I thought you were standing between me and a box of three Pterry books (Night Watch, The Science of Discworld Two and Discworld Diary 2003: Vampyres), I’d haveta (slaps fist into palm) “deal” wit’ choo.
Poimanantly.
Pfenris, pfrustrated.
I hate when I drop my keys and I have to pick them up. I hate when my pencil gets dull and I have to sharpen it. I hate how my TV doesn’t come on automatically and I actually have to press the button on the remote.
no no no, silly blowero…
Those are things you can control if you get off your fat ass and make the effort ^^.
Mail is completely in someone else’s hands. Someone you’ve paid to deliver your items to you in a timely manner. Its a SERVICE. It frustrates people when this service fucks up.
[hijack]We moved into my grandparents’ house after Grandpa died and Grandma had to go live in one of those assisted living facilities. One of the conditions of living and buying the house was that we were to clean the place up, and throw away all the trash.
My grandfather had a COMPLETE Galaxy collection, as well as Playboys from the very first issue to the mid 80s.
Guess what my husband considered trash and threw out?
We won’t even speak of all the paperback SF novels, first editions, all of them…
He’s SOOOOOO lucky that my cousin Vinnie is simply a figment of my fevered imagination.[/hijack]
Lynn: Not that I’m disparaging your otherwise fine husband, but um…you know no jury in the world would convict you.
'leastways if the jury was made up of fans.
Pfenris
(Early Galaxys? Aaargh. Those things are impossible to find.)
I bought it last weekend. I’ve read it already.
Want me to tell you what happens?
Pfran.
:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
Pfenris
(Seriously, no spoilers, please. I’ve been trying to keep myself completly in the dark about it. Other than the fact it’s a Vimes/Guards novel, I’ve suceeded)
Me too 
I read last Friday (in the Guardian) that it was out, so I hot footed it to my nearset Waterstones, raced frantically through the shop to find it. Bought it, and read it on the train to Edinburgh later that day
Its very good
But back to the OP; I agree totally - fuck the lot of them! I ordered a book through Cambridge University Press (it was on radio astronomy!) four weeks ago. They duly dispatched it using Securicor (hello!!! They’re crap!!). Four weeks later, still no book. So I called the CUP’s customer service who told me that it had been dispatched and was in the hands of Securicor. The very nice customer service guy looked up the status of the delivery on the Securicor website, and…
…they were returning the damned book to CUP!!! WTF!!! Their reasoning was that there was no one in to sign for it. Well leave a bloody card saying that you freaking called!! I can then arrange to be in, and sign for the damned thing!! Aaargh!!!
Anyway, CUP are sending me a replacement order - to my University, so there’ll at least be someone in the mail room to sign for it. But the best thing is - its free of charge! So, something good came out of Securicor’s incompetence.
Mind you, IME, Amazon are absolutely crap at delivering overseas. I have first hand experience when I tried to buy a book from Germany!
I’ve had really good luck with Amazon.UK. As the American covers have serious suckitude I decided to wait. Little did I know how LONG I’d be waiting.
(Clueless marketing exec “I dunno. It’s supposed to be funny. I KNOW THAT FUNNY BOOKS DON’T SELL! But he’s the best-selling author in the UK. Yeah. Go figure. They like Mr. Bean too. Look, I’ll tell ya what: why don’t we just toss some stupid looking clip-art on the cover. It’ll be post-modern. No. I don’t know what it means either, but it’ll give us something to say when they ask us about it.”)
(plus the UK site had a deal for getting The Science of Discworld 2 for like 50% off if ordered with Night Watch and since SoD 2 isn’t available in the US…)
Aaargh. 23 hours to go 'till tomorrow’s mail delivery.
Pfenris
So you don’t want to know about how the…
I’m just kidding.
It’s a decent book. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it when it finally arrives 
I’m currently waiting on Sondheim merchandise to be shipped from the US. We should just do a cultural swop really, shouldn’t we?
Re: the covers.
This is the first hardback novel (not counting The Last Hero) since Pterry’s long-time friend and cover artist Josh Kirby died. I’m so used to Kirby’s covers that I actually missed Night Watch when I walked past the display in the shop because I was automatically looking for Kirby’s art.
And wow, the US cover sucks.
Can I quote you a sentence from The Science of Discworld 2? Just to give you a taste? Not anything from the discworld plot, just part of The Science Bit.
I only had to read this sentence 20 times to get it.
Yeah, I almost missed it too. Its certainly in a different style to what us Pratchett fans are used to. Still, I have an A2 print of the cover of Soul Music, which is very cool.
Ans yes, the US cover sucks big time. I clicked on the link, and went WTF?!!! :eek:
Still… at least our books have decent covers
::Angua runs and hides under the desk to avoid Fenris’ wrath::
A2 print? Link? Picture? Cite? Explaination?
**
And that’s a much improved cover from the dreaded Darryl K. Sweet covers or even worse the make-your-eyes-bleed US cover to Hogfather. US Pratchett covers suck
Fenris