Crunch Time

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. We're getting down to the end of the year crunch time. Our class final is due this week, plus we're wrapping up Christmas shopping, Zozer has been sick (nothing major...just a stomach bug) and things sorta piled up from getting ready for the Grand Lighting.

Everything is going well, it's just that posting to the blog has fallen a bit down on the list of priorities. Paying bills and keeping us from incurring finance charges or our electricity being cut, you know, is a bit more important.

Plus, I really haven't had anything particularly witty to post lately.

In fact, I don't have anything particularly witty to post today, but felt that I should indeed be posting something.

I do have several questions for which I can't seem to find specific answers:

1. How can DHL, FedEx and UPS all provide real-time accurate tracking of packages, but the USPS can only say, "Electronic shipping order received. This does not mean the USPS has picked up your package or is in possession of it, or plans to pick it up any time at all in the near future, thereby screwing you out of giving actual gifts for Christmas. Instead, you'll be forced to print out crappy internet pictures of the gifts, wrap them up and give those to your loved ones, with apologetic shrugs and the explanation, 'I'm so sorry...I really thought I ordered it in plenty of time.' System updated nightly; check back later." (I may be paraphrasing a bit, but you get the idea.) It says this message all the way until the package is delivered, which it then tells me is delivered, only after I've found it on my front porch or in my mailbox and pretty much then know the actual status on my own.
2. Is it possible that parents of small children who have stomach viruses (viri?) could maybe, possibly consider that by taking their children to school they are thereby passing said virus along to other children who have, up to this point, been quite healthy? Could they maybe consider that not everyone wants to spend their holiday season cleaning up vomit? I consider this when my child is sick (although I don't actually spend my entire holiday season cleaning up vomit...instead forcing Grandma to spend her holiday season cleaning up vomit - thank you, Grandma!) and keep my child home from school. I understand that some people don't have the options I do, but come on. If your kid is puking, that's a pretty good indication he/she shouldn't be around other kids. Grrrr.
3. Who on earth would pay $20 for the "retro" version of the Candy Land game that comes in a plastic box when the original game (which, ironically, looks just like it did when I was a kid, and is therefore really more truly retro than the new plastic box version) is priced at five bucks. Who does that? Zozer is getting the $5 version for Christmas, in the cardboard box and all. Just like M and I had when we were kids. What brilliant marketing puke decided that the repackaged version of the game, in a plastic box and all, should be called "retro?" Just doesn't make sense to me.
4. Why is it that during the week of the final, when a huge chunk of your grade is riding on your submission, the prof is virtually non-existent? He's not responding to e-mail or phone calls, and we can't move forward with completing one question on the final until he answers some questions we have. I'd cut him some slack and consider that maybe his kid has a stomach bug and he's busy cleaning up barf, but I already know his kid is in college (at my alma mater, no less! MIZ-ZOU!) and therefore he is relatively barf-free at this point in his life. Unless he has the stomach virus. Oooo, that would be bad. Okay, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and consider that. He better be tossing his cookies, though, or I'm gonna be hacked.