Well, dear readers, my hatred of the United States Postal Service just tripled. It was bad enough when they made us begin putting small customs forms on packages under sixteen ounces. It was bad enough when, for larger packages, they began making postal workers hand enter all the information on the large customs form into their computers, thereby tripling the time it takes to bring those packages to the postal office. It’s bad enough that the post office branch itself tells you these new rules, but when you call the USPS customer service line they don’t know anything about them and tell you completely contrary information. And now they have NEW small customs forms – instead of the one little sheet, there are now four sheets (which duplicate when you write on sheet one), so where I was able to stamp our address before, we know have to fill it in by hand or stamp each of the four pages. Unbelievable. Then there are things to be checked that make no sense, so I don’t know how anyone would know what they meant. Furthermore, the post office branch hasn’t even seen these new forms (I got them in the mail) and said we could keep using the old ones until they get the new ones in. I intend to keep using the old ones until they actually return a package because of it or until I can’t get the old forms anymore. No other country in the world requires this crap – just the good old U.S. of A, and I’m beginning to really understand what the A stands for. I send one CD, sometimes two or three in a small cardboard box. One shouldn’t have to do ANYTHING but address and send, which, of course, is exactly what we’ve all been doing with overseas packages under sixteen ounces forEVER. So, something that used to take no time is suddenly adding hours on to the addressing process AND the shipping process (all those labels cannot be affixed until the CDs are in the packages and sealed), and they do not care that it costs someone time and money. If a group of strong-willed citizens and a great pro-bono lawyer filed a class action lawsuit about this, my guess is that while it would take a long time, the class action lawsuit would prevail and the rules would change and restitution for time and money would have to be made. Or maybe I’m just an idealist living in Fantasyland, but they should not be allowed to cause this sort of unnecessary grief for people. But for customer service people to tell you one thing while the branch tells you something wholly other – it’s amateur night all the way. Of course, we don’t even need to mention the fact that they have raised their rates about six times in two years and each time they have done so their service has declined even further.
I believe that is what is known as a rant. I have now ranted. Ranted I have. I am now through ranting. Now I shall write some notes and no one can say boo about it. Well, wouldn’t you know, the phone just rang and someone said boo about it. I gotta tell you. Yesterday was a day that went by. I don’t even remember much of it. I got up early, I answered e-mails, I went to the tape transfer place, I had bacon and eggs, I packaged up a couple of orders, I picked up a USPS package which annoyed me (the new forms), I finished the liner notes and sent them to the designer, and then I had a really long ninety-minute phone call.
The ninety-minute phone call was with the co-director of The First Nudie Musical film. He has been angry with me since the DVD came out because of something in the documentary, although he wasn’t specific. But when I told him that I was just a participant and had nothing to do with the editing or production he seemed to make peace with it, and we had a really nice chat catching up. The good news that came out of it is that he is going to sell me the internegative on the film, plus five prints that came with it. I was supposed to buy that package back in 2002, but I was in the midst of the nasty business and couldn’t do it, so he did it. I’ve then tried to get him on the phone about it for the last few years but he would not return the calls. Happily, when I called him last night, he just happened to pick up. So, the good news is that we may now have an element that I feel would be good enough to do a Blu-Ray release for Nudie. I’ll be talking to Image Entertainment as I’m sure they’d like to do it, since they did so well with the DVD. And all I’ll ask for is for them to pick up the cost of the purchase of the interneg, which isn’t all that much anyway. Of course, I won’t know until we actually put it on a machine as to what sort of condition it’s in and how much transfer work would be needed, but it should be much better than any release print, no matter how good the release print may be (I have a pretty good one now, acquired after we did the DVD release). So, sometime in the next couple of weeks a lot of heavy boxes will be coming to me.
After that, I had a few other telephonic conversations, and then it was too late to watch anything, so I just played on the computer and put together boxes for the large shipments, filled out the large customs forms for the few overseas priority packages, and filled out all the UPS forms for the big online dealer order.
Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below whilst I begin my next novel, which will be entitled Why I Hate The United States Postal Service.
Today, Mr. Cason Murphy will be arriving at ten and we will immediately begin packaging CDs, doing the big orders and the overseas orders, and then taking everything to the postal office (which I hate, in case you missed that part). While I dump everything on the loading dock, Cason will go inside and hopefully the line won’t be too crazy and we can get the global priority boxes shipped quickly. Once we finish that, then we’ll take all the big boxes over to UPS and get those shipped out. And that should be that. Then if I hear from Paramount, I may just drive their stash over to them and then maybe eat at Genghis Cohen, which I’ve been craving. Of course, after the copious amounts of cake I’ve eaten on my birthday and last night, I should eat something very calorie friendly, since I also haven’t jogged in almost a week.
Tomorrow morning, I have a breakfast meeting with the co-author of the long musical and I’ve made that a firm ninety-minute thing and I will absolutely leave at that time. I then have errands and whatnot to do and I have to get back to the San Fernando Valley before the traffic gets too nutty.
Let’s all put on our pointy party hats and our colored tights and pantaloons, let’s all break out the cheese slices and the curry ham chunks, let’s all dance the Hora or the Bollywood two-step, because today is the birthday of our very own Bollywood Boy, MBarnum. So, let’s give a big haineshisway.com birthday cheer to our very own Bollywood Boy, MBarnum. On the count of three: One, two, three – A BIG HAINESHISWAY.COM BIRTHDAY CHEER TO OUR VERY OWN BOLLYWOOD BOY, MBARNUM!!!
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, package up CDs, ship CDs, deliver CDs, eat something amusing and calorie friendly and then sit on my couch like so much fish. Today’s topic of discussion: What would your number one rant for today be? Let’s have loads of lovely postings and loads of lovely rants, shall we, while I reiterate at least twenty more times Why I Hate The United States Postal Service.