Totally off topic: The end of an era -- goodbye Law and Order

r.i.p.

Today I received an email about how to reset my Twitter account password and panicked because I hadn't asked to reset it. So I figured someone's trying to get into it (for the life of me I don't know why because I barely use it and then only for book-related things) and went to see if I made any postings I didn't know about in case I had been hacked (which I didn't). However, I was scanning down the tweets I've missed in the last couple of days and someone from Living Social (where I use Visual Bookshelf from Facebook) posted that Law and Order was being canceled. I'm like "WHAT??????????" and clicked on the link for the New York Times that the person left. Imagine my surprise when I found out that this was not just another rumor, but the truth.

Many people wrote in to the NYT  (myself included) to bemoan L&O's fate, and I read one comment there that said  "get a grip...it's just a tv show." While that may be the case, and while the loss of one long-running show may not change how the Earth spins on its axis or make me want to jump out of a window or something, it's still one of my favorites and I'm not alone in that category.

Let me just say that this is definitely the end of an era, not just for Law and Order, but for me as well. I can honestly with no hesitation whatsoever say that there is absolutely nothing left for me to watch on any of the big three original networks. Now that L&O is going away, there won't be a need to look at the on-screen directory to see what's on the regular network channels; it's only cable channels and PBS that will be on in the house when I'm ready to sit down for some television watching. I feel like something of a certain quality and intelligence has been taken away and I'm a wee bit sad -- after all of the many years of watching this show, I'm going to miss it. And to the powers that be at NBC....I have just one question: what were you thinking???????????

Goodbye, Jack McCoy and the DA's staff; see you later, Lt. Van Buren and all of New York's finest working with you -- it's been a pleasure.  You will all be missed. To the actors who played all of these people throughout the years...you rock. Thank you. To everyone connected with producing the show, well, you was robbed by the network.

for those of you who receive ARCs from the publisher, PLEASE READ

I just saw something that really torqued me, and I think that if you are someone who receives or asks for ARCs when they come out, this article on the blog called "Lori's Reading Corner" will be of interest to you. It's about ARCs being sold on Ebay, some for ridiculously high amounts of money.

Now, I know that someone somewhere is going to come up with the statement that the people who sell ARCs on line have a right to make money however they choose, but that's crap. Sheer and simple crap. When a book's cover says "Not for resale" it means that no one, absolutely no one should profit from it. Plain and simple.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I am seeing more and more people taking the attitude of "the rules are not for me" and doing what they want, not realizing that their actions have consequences that branch out past themselves. In this case, if people are making money from selling ARCs, the flow of advanced reader copies is going to stop. Period. I'll be sad when that happens. There goes Librarything early reviewers. There goes first reads on Goodreads.  There go the Booktrib book giveaways.  There goes Amazon Vine.  And who knows what else. My advice to the blogger who wrote this: contact the publisher and author when she sees blatant ARC selling on Ebay or anywhere else. I even offered to help her out. I like getting these free books and guess what? Sometimes after I get an ARC, I like the book so much that I buy it when it's released!

Please read the article. It's important.

Today's post office experience, or ... that's just messed up.

today I went to my local post office in Hobe Sound, FL.  I was mailing a book that I wanted to send out priority mail in the flat rate box (it was a rather large book).  I pick up the box and put it together, only to discover that the bottom of the box is one of those kind where you have to fit the flaps together to make a bottom.  Well, as I'm standing by the Automated Postal Center so I can just zip in and out of the post office without standing in the ridiculously long line caused (a standard feature at my post office), I knock on the customer service door to ask about tape.  Here's the picture: my book's in a priority flat-rate box, that I got from the post office and upon which I'm about to spend $10.70 just for the mailing.  So finally someone comes out and I explained to him that I wasn't sure about the integrity of this box, and that I would like to use the APC to avoid standing in line, and could I please have a piece of tape to seal the bottom.  His answer? Well, he said I would have to go into the main post office area, buy a roll of packing tape and use that.  I asked again, very nicely even the 2nd time, and I said this time that I noticed a roll of priority mail tape on the counter and might I have enough of that to seal up the bottom -- that the purpose of the APC was so that I wouldn't have to stand in the long line inside. He says no. I have to go in, buy the tape and seal the box.

this is just messed up. If they are going to offer these boxes that you have to put together yourself, and you're paying the $10.70 flat rate, they should let you have some tape!!!!!!!!  Not only was I in line a long time, but I had to spend an extra $3.79 dollars to avoid going home, packing up their box and returning to the post office.

seems to me my tax dollars would allow me to have a strip of tape ... what...do they have to account for every inch in the dispenser?  majorly stupid. Who carries tape in their purse when they go to the post office? I will, from now on.