Shipping Woes

Second part of the shipping rant.  As I mentioned before, I ordered some Secret Weapon washes on the 15^th, late Friday.  I received a notification on the 18^th that they had packaged it and the 19^th that it had shipped.  I didn’t order from Amazon, so I expected a delay in getting the order all set up.  Secret Weapon is a small-ish shop and they don’t have people actively working weekends.  No biggie.

But USPS?  The first scan was at 7pm on the 19^th, 12 hours after they received the package.  It then took 2 hours to move a few blocks down the road in Sacramento.  A few hours later it ended up in San Fran.  Ok, I’m thinking this is a major shipping route, no big deal, it should move again.

Nothing until the 22^nd, and then it’s found its way to LA, early in the day.  Then nothing.  Apparently USPS doesn’t work weekends.

In the meantime, I ordered a microSD card on the 19^th, shipped last night, and it’s going to be at my door tomorrow.  And it’s not directly from Amazon either, one of the sellers instead.

Did I mention that I paid for the Secret Weapon shipping and the SD card was free shipping?  So 2 days free shipping (once shipped) and we’re 6 days and counting for USPS.

Minor Hockey

My dad’s cousin’s kid (there’s some technical term for that, thrice-removed?) was in town for a hockey tournament.  He’s only a few years older than my own kids, just how family works when it’s on another branch, I guess.  Anyhoot, we ended up heading out to watch the game with some other members of the family.

I miss minor hockey. I coached it for a few years and it was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.  It’s fun to see kids develop their skills, and have fun while doing it.  Most of them on the ice had giant smiles, which is really what it’s all about.

I spent most of my childhood in arenas.  Either I was playing, my 3 siblings were, or my dad was running the association.  Up until the age of 15, I’m sure I spent half as much time in a rink as I did in school.  I play 3 times a week now, and I think it has more to do with the feeling of belonging in a rink than I previously believed.

I don’t want to push my kids into hockey but it’s one of the few sports I have any actual interest in.  I can play most any sport, as can my wife, but when you’re given the choice, I’ll pick hockey.  We’ll see what the years bring our way.

Android Games

There are a few I’m trying out, aside from reading books that is.

Time Clickers is an incremental game, with clear plateaus for progress.  There’s no real meta to the game and I’m sitting at about 1 million cubes (~40 restarts I guess).  It also drains the battery quite fast, which is an odd one to figure out.

Star Trek Timelines is another.  The UI is neat enough, though pretty cluttered.  It’s very similar to any card/team based game, though there’s no strategy involved, just the computer throwing dice for you.  If it wasn’t Star Trek, I wouldn’t even bother, as there are plenty of games that do a better job mechanically.  It’s the art/setting that works.

Soda Dungeon is the final one.  It’s an infinite dungeon / incremental game with pixel based art.  The first run is a challenge, but after that you get some passives that make a world of difference.  There’s also dungeon loot while progressing, and some element of luck getting the appropriate gear to move forward.  I do like that it has a semi-intelligent auto-play feature. This will likely replace Time Clickers in the daily checks.