Valleyschwag 3 arrives

VS3_1
Originally uploaded by adamszki.

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, the valleyschwag care package so longingly expected has finally arrived here in Slovakia. It was a very nice surprise as the paper from the post arrived to let me know that I have a letter from San Francisco there (a letter? hmm). The funny thing was I was at home at the time so I don't know why the mailman (mailwoman actually) left the paper instead of ringing the bell and giving the package to me. But well, that's life. So, the next day (one has to wait till the morning for the letter/package to be ready at the post office), right before going to work I made a small detour and got my package from the post. It looked a bit battered and I was afraid what I will find inside. The first thing I noticed was the postage date: 11th of July 2006, which means that it took only 7 days for the package to arrive here. The funny thing is, that the May package is still "en-route". It probably left the Solar system already and is headed straight for Klingon territory.
The moment I arrived at my desk I opened the package and started pulling the battered contents of it onto my desk. Here is the "loot": 2*2XL T-shirts (imeem, simplyhired), Macromedia keychain-thingy with a compass (that is not really pointing north), eurekster key/pocket light, mozes fortune cookie, abazab tattoo, technorati sticker, Yahoo sticker, Jeteye pen, golden and silver ioda stickers, laughingsquid sticker, snubster sticker, and a yahoo answers button. Images are on flickr.com (http://www.flickr.com/photos/10974863@N00/sets/72157594205416065/).

I cant say I am entirely happy with the haul, but I have to say that it was probably a bit more than most of the others got. My point is that this is the first package I got, almost a 2in1 as this should have somehow compensated for the lost May package, which makes the payment to package ratio 3 to 1 (I guess that is the normal rate for most of the subscribers). I cant help it to be somewhat disappointed as the package did not contain much from the May package (no Rubyred t-shirt, but that can still come, no goatse sticker, no EFF sticker). Also in comparison to the packages some other subscribers got I would not say it is a 2 in 1 package. On the other hand nobody said it would be ;-). Though the communication with the great ppl at Valleyschwag/Rubyred labs suggested that there is something special for me. Plus there is the battered state the package arrived in (thanx postal services of this world), the Hoedown poster is shot, fortune cookie broken, half the stickers look look as if a cow would have chewed them (the pictures don't show this but the Yahoo stickers got it really bad, the ioda stickers are somewhat better off), the first thing the compass did after it stopped pointing north is that it took its leave from the keychain (I guess a drop of superglue will solve this).

Well to wrap it up, it is a great package. It is probably not worth two months subscription, but it is still a great package. And given the fact that it actually arrived and was in a somewhat acceptable state I can't help it to feel somewhat happy, though not as happy as I thought I will be. Well I will see what the future brings as I will stay on board till something really throws me off.

The Fast and the Furious - Tokyo Drift

I am a fan of nice cars, fast cars, dream cars, expensive cars or just cars. I am not that into it like I am into computers, gaming, reading or movies but I do like them. And so naturally when there is a crossection of my interests I feel drawn to it. That's how I came to like the NFS games or The Fast and the Furious movies. I loved the first one and was not that disappointed with the second one and I was full of expectation for the third one. I just saw it and I have to say I did like it. Nice cars, great stunts and a storyline that was not entirely lame, though it was pretty predictable and in my opinion the nice came Vin Diesel made threw it back somewhat, though it made some room for speculation on the fourth movie. But all in all, I think that for most of the people, there will be some beauty of the movie lost as they did not see the Initial D movie. I am not really sure how the Initial D: First stage would fit into the picture as I am sorry to report that I have not seen it yet and I am not sure when or if I get the chance to do so. I think that those who did not see the Initial D movie might get somewhat confused to the race environment of the Tokyo Drift movie and to the simple question "Why are they drifting all the time?". I cant say that there is much effort spent on explaining why it is so. But in the end it was a nice movie and time/money well spent. I am certainly expecting the DVD for this one.

Valleyschwag - still a no show.

June '06 is over. Done for, gone forever. And my first Valleyschwag carepackage is still somewhere out there. I guess the faith I've put into the postal services of the 21st century was incredibly wasted. No normal country can work and exist without a halfway decent and working postal service, and that is exactly it, our postal service barely fulfills the "halfway decent" part. On the other hand, given the results of the last election, held on June 17th, there is some doubt whether we can count as a normal country. It is not an explanation why things are the way they are, but it delivers some idea to "where my frackin package is". The positive side of the whole thing is the reaction I got from the Valleyschwag team, that is probably more concerned about the whereabouts of my package than I am. Though I am pretty sure the Post here does not give a rats rearend about their concerns either. So right now I belong to the small group of people whose waiting for the package did not stop and start again, as the June package is already out, but did not stop at all and goes on without delay. Although I have a dark feeling that the group of continuous expectants consist only of me, but I will be an optimist and think its a group of more than one poor soul.