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.