Hey Mr. Postman

I'm going to start off by saying never buy anything from Buy.com. This blog post will hopefully serve as that huge inflatable rat that you'll sometimes see in front of stores in NYC that violate union labor issue(s). So whatever you do, don't buy stuff from Buy.com, they've made my life miserable for the past week. And while I do exaggerate, they really have made purchasing a digital camera a royal pain. Bottom line, Buy.com's verification process makes buying a gun seem like a walk in the park, or so I've heard.

Rat.

Some of my friends are abroad right now. Study abroad in business school probably is as much of a joke as it sounds. Anyway, one friend is in Barcelona, so last night before we went to the hockey game a couple friends got together and did a skype video chat with him. I came in a little late, but they were doing a Power Hour (shot of beer every minute for an hour) via Skype. You gotta love technology. So every minute we'd stop our conversation say "drink" and take a shot of beer and then continue the conversation. It was like we were all right there looking at each other in the living room and drinking. I still think the whole video chat thing reminds me too much of Dateline: How to Catch a Predator, but it actually is a pretty awesome thing, especially when you are talking to a friend who is overseas. But then I got to thinking, and I guess this is how my mind works, but back in the 1800s how could they have pulled this off? This is how I envisioned it going down.

So it's 1866 and your sitting around your wood-burning stove and wifey is over by the mortal and pestle grinding some oats for tomorrow's breakfast and off in the distance you see a moving speck. As that speck gets closer you see it is the courier on horseback approaching your house. The courier comes in, and being the cordial folks that you are, you fix the man some toast and tea and talk about the weather. You say, "How long do you reckon this cold spell will last?" The courier sips his tea and says "About a fortnight". You look out at your crops and know that a fortnight's worth of frost will surely make it difficult to make ends meet, especially with your youngest entering kindergarten. That $15 prep school tuition won't pay for itself, and don't even try to suggest to the wife that maybe you should consider public school. The courier finishes his tea, mounts his steed and rides off to deliver his next letter two towns over. The envelope is from your friend living in the old country, England. The postmark indicates that this letter was sent about two months and three weeks ago, after all, overseas travel does take a long time. Your wife yells from the next room "who is it from?" and you say "jesus woman, I just walked in the door, can you give me 30 minutes to myself and stop breathing down my neck. Thirty minutes. That's all I ask". You grab your hunting knife off the mantle and cut open the envelope. In the envelope there's a small piece of paper. The paper is a fine paper, and you admire the density of this European papyrus. You turn over the note and this is what it says...


So you go over to the icebox, pour yourself a cold one, and take a sip.

I don't know how else this could've gone down. I guess they just do this and then after a few years they've taken 60 shots of beer. It's something to think about. Or not.

Two nights ago basketball game, last night hockey game, and tonight the Business School Follies show. I'm keeping busy, and I hope you all are too.