rant: international tracking #s

But first, as aside:
Since the last post I've been informed that the boxed set marked BSG Season 2.0 is actually the first half of the second season. The production continued after a winter haitus with a "second half" in January. Still, I'd rather have waited until June for a DVD set if I could've had all of it in one go.

Back to the topic at hand - even thought I really ought to be excited. If I do the math, a small package shipped from Hong Kong should take about a week to reach my door here in Canada. Most often it works out just fine. In fact, I'm expecting my GBP-1S set to arrive today (seems like truck deliveries of this sort always arrive on Thursdays).

But what gets under my skin is the uncertainty of it all. By default, Hong Kong's equivalent of "express mail" (whatever that really is) assigns a tracking number. You don't really pay extra for it (as far as I know, anyway) and it's sort of nice to have. Unfortunately the only thing it's good for is to know when it left Hong Kong. That is, the number is only recognized by the original carrier.

In the case of a typical order from my favourite overseas e-tailer, I can use the on-line facility at the Hong Kong post office to see when the package was dropped off at their local outlet, when it was processed (in my case, for Canada), when it was put on a plane, and when it arrived in Canada... Specifically, I know that my GBP-1S set arrived 4 days ago... but I have not idea where (can only assume it's sitting on a Canada Post truck by now). But the fact is, I really have no idea where it's been for the better part of a week.

Somehow I just wish everyone would use a standard tracking number system. I mean, they all look the same for cryin' out loud. They have 13 digits, 2 letters in the front and 2 at the end and numerics in between. The Canadian and American number systems look remarkably similar and you can't tell me there's no correlation between the two last letters on my number being "HK" and the fact that it's coming from Hong Kong, right? OK, whatever.