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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Manx timburke@*******.com.au
Subject: USPS and mailing items
Date: Thu, 08 Apr 1999 23:23:36 +1000
At 00:54 8/04/99 -0500 XaOs [David Goth] wrote
>> To Australia, anything less than 10-12 weeks is *fast*. I don't care what
>> UPS websites or anything else say; everything I have ever had
>> sent from the
>> states (other than airmail, which is prohibitively expensive) has taken at
>> LEAST two months.
>
>Talk to Tim (Manx) then. If I recall correctly, he got his copy of UB from
>me relatively quickly (any delays were likely my fault. I don't remember how
>prompt I was in getting it to the post office).
>

Um David I actually paid extra that time and got Global Priority for USD$9.
I think that took about ten days which is okay. I wasn't about to let UB
sit on a boat somewhere in the Pacific for three months+. In any case
David's service was faultless and I highly recommend him to trade/deal
with. It's so unfortunate that SR3 spoilt the entire plot of UB in the
"so it came to pass" chapter...And I had new players to run it with too
until one of them actually read that passage and told everone else :(

>Please do not totally discount the site I gave in the other thread. It *is*
>accurate. 10 to 12 weeks is outrageous when compared to what happened in
>actual practice. Those prices, frankly, are not prohibitively expensive. In
>fact, the airmail prices were generally only a few dollars over surface.
>
> -XaOs-

The USPS calculator is relatively accurate when you are talking
airmail. Once you pay less and go surface it takes it sweet time.
You well and truely get what you pay for with that Of course being
a foreigner they really don't give a shite how long it takes because
it's not like I can complain is it.

The quickest I have _ever_ got a surface package from the USA
is 14 weeks. Lady J concurs, three months is the quickest that
snail...um surface will get here.

Thankfully most SR sourcebooks will fit inside a global priority
envelope and can be airmailed. It's when you start talking box
sets that this gets ugly fast :)

Manx
timburke@*******.com.au
#950 of 1000
__________________________________
"Such carping is not commendable"
- William Shakespeare
- Much Ado About Nothing a3.s1.l71
__________________________________
Play SR3 at Maelstrom, 1st-3rd May 1999
http://brisbane.diggycity.com/maelstrom
Message no. 2
From: XaOs [David Goth] xaos@*****.net
Subject: USPS and mailing items
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1999 12:32:29 -0500
> Um David I actually paid extra that time and got Global Priority
> for USD$9.

That's true, but I was thinking of the comparison between:
Global Priority Mail - Flat-rate Envelope (small) : 3 - 5 Days : $4.95 (and)
Small Packets - Surface mail : 4 - 6 Weeks : $3.73

Admittedly, it'd be tough to squeeze a t-shirt into a 6" x 10" envelope, but
my point here is that international surface mail is STUPID! (For lightweight
items of course. There may be situations where a retailer sends something at
a significantly lower price by surface due to weight, but that is irrelevant
to this situation).

> The USPS calculator is relatively accurate when you are talking
> airmail.

Which we are.

> Once you pay less and go surface it takes it sweet time.

Which we/you (hopefully) wouldn't.

> You well and truely get what you pay for with that Of course being
> a foreigner they really don't give a shite how long it takes because
> it's not like I can complain is it.

Heh, they don't really give a shite how long it takes because if I complain
enough THEY WILL SHOOT ME! (Well, y'know...it was meant to be funny).
Seriously though, Americans have enough complaints about their own postal
service. It's not just you.

> The quickest I have _ever_ got a surface package from the USA
> is 14 weeks. Lady J concurs, three months is the quickest that
> snail...um surface will get here.

Fortunately, that complaint is irrelevant here.

One thing that I don't understand that maybe you can help me with. You say
that items from the US usually cost you about three (or more) times what
could be paid for them in the US, by the time you figure shipping and
conversion rates.

Okay, for this example, let's use these conversion rates:

A$4 = US$2 = UK£1

Suppose a sourcebook costs me US$20 if I pick it up in a store. If you want
it shipped to you: it'll cost you A$40 to buy it, A$16 to ship it, add maybe
5% to convert the funds to US$, and now you're up to A$58.8. (Note that I
have no clue what currency conversion places charge for their services).

If we put that figure into our perfect converter above, then the item cost
you US$29.4. Personally, that doesn't seem like an exorbitant difference for
something that was shipped to the other side of the world.

The typical fast food job over here pays around US$6/hr. Unless your
economics are completely different than mine, that would mean that the same
job in Australia pays A$12/hr. (And I'll freely admit that I know next to
nothing about Australia's economic situation or inflation rate).

Now that this message has gotten much longer than I intended (and probably
is sounding much more insulting than I ever intended :), heh), I just went
and looked at the currency converter on Expedia
(http://expedia.msn.com/pub/curcnvrt.dll?qscr=alcc)

US$1 = A$1.58 = UK£0.62 = C$1.50



-XaOs-
xaos@*****.net
-David Goth-
-Mr.G.D.-
Message no. 3
From: Robert Watkins robert.watkins@******.com
Subject: USPS and mailing items
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 08:53:38 +1000
> The quickest I have _ever_ got a surface package from the USA
> is 14 weeks. Lady J concurs, three months is the quickest that
> snail...um surface will get here.

You guys are really unlucky... I've never had a package delivered via
surface mail from the states in more than about 9 weeks, from the date of
POSTAGE. I've had several supposedly overnight shipments take 4 weeks to get
to the post office, though...

For what it's worth, I get stuff surface-mailed from the states at least
once a year, and have been for the last six years or so.

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com

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