Getting there

The last mile is a phrase often used in connection with the telecommunication industry and the postal service. Getting the items or services to the door of the actual paying customer is where industry continues to fall down. As I sit here waiting for my iPod to be delivered I obsessively log onto TNT's website to track the progress of my life saving equipment (how do they know it isn't?). It's been stuck in Shanghai for the past 4 days and now it magically appears in Belgium. It'll probably take another couple of days to get to the UK and then god only knows when it'll make it through the mess that is our transport system. When it finally gets on the van to be delivered the driver is going to realise that Apple, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to pick and choose what parts of the delivery address they deemed necessary to print on the documentation. My work's full address runs to 9 lines and without all the info you'll struggle to find it. Obviously the computer systems don't have that number of fields in their database so they arbitrarily lose some of the info. Bastards! The number of snotty drivers I've had complain to me as if it's my fault is unbelievable. I want my fecking iPod and I want it NOW!

I'm also waiting on a delivery from RS Components for a much needed power supply to begin rigging up a wireless network in the house, woof, but more on that later. Tracked it to Perth where it mysteriously remains. I suppose it'll arrive tomorrow but then I'll be torn between playing with hi-tech computer equipment or watching the Champions League in the evening. Decisions, decisions.

Shopping on the net is the way to go but delivery needs to be sorted out. "We can only ship to your home address", bollocks to that but when you do give them your works address they turn up on a Saturday, or 7 in the morning or the day you're working from home, arggghhhh! "Allow 28 days for delivery" er... no, I want it now. "Thank you for your order, we'll ship the item when we get some stock in." Oh no you fecking won't.

Did I mention I'm waiting on my iPod?