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Voss wrote:
with the caption 'Spare the rod, save his life.'
...
advocacy for child abuse as my first impression of the state.

Surely "Spare the rod, save his life" is advocating against beating your child?

("Spare the rod, save the child" is a fairly common anti-corporal-punishment slogan.)

Well now....

I’ve got a mystery DHL Delivery coming today. Will it be seeds, or something I ordered online after a few beers I’ve since forgotten about entirely?

Seems it’s scheduled to arrive 11:19 to 12:19, so there’s not long to wait.

Really hoping it’s something cool I forgot I ordered.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well now....

I’ve got a mystery DHL Delivery coming today. Will it be seeds, or something I ordered online after a few beers I’ve since forgotten about entirely?

Seems it’s scheduled to arrive 11:19 to 12:19, so there’s not long to wait.

Really hoping it’s something cool I forgot I ordered.

Great now I'm curious in more mystery mail!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well now....

I’ve got a mystery DHL Delivery coming today. Will it be seeds, or something I ordered online after a few beers I’ve since forgotten about entirely?

Seems it’s scheduled to arrive 11:19 to 12:19, so there’s not long to wait.

Really hoping it’s something cool I forgot I ordered.

I got a Tea Strainer I ordered in ... September 2019 in July 2020. Wasn't even the correct one! I ordered (or thought I ordered) a dinosaur shaped one. It was a present for my wife in October :p :p :p I had forgotten about it.

I'm curious to see what you get.

It could be my new face masks, but the place I ordered them from didn’t provide a tracking ref, as it’s standard shipping.

It could also be a bread maker I ordered months ago off Amazon. But again, there’s no shipping information, and I’ve already raised it as a dispute with Amazon for non-delivery as of 5 August.

Other than those two, I’m not expecting anything. And I don’t recall entering any competitions?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It’s arrived.

It’s a bread maker. And the internal packaging has previously been opened. And all the instructions are in Mandarin.

Hey ho, time to organise a return via Amazon. There’s no way I’m accepting it. At all. Not only can I not read Mandarin, it wasn’t advertised as a Chinese market import, but not using what may well be a second hand model. Not in this climate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear.

Just tried to arrange a return. Except Amazon are saying I can’t, as the deadline for a return was 15 August. Yeah. Three days ago. When I didn’t have the item to return.

Hey ho. Time to rip into them I guess....

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Just tried to arrange a return. Except Amazon are saying I can’t, as the deadline for a return was 15 August. Yeah. Three days ago. When I didn’t have the item to return.

I think you'll need to resolve it through your existing "item never arrived" ticket. There should be an option to add new information to that ticket. I had a similar situation a couple of years ago. The system won't let you arrange a return for an item you've already reported as having not arrived.

I figure Amazon has seen companies do this before where they likely lag the release of the product to "JUST" beyond the return threshold. Hopefully Amazon can realise this and arrange a return without much fuss. But yeah if you've already got a ticket open you should be able to update it and stick to just the one ticket.

Ticket updated. I’m aware Amazon have delays at the moment, so just gonna be patient.

Oh, I did remember that Amazon’s “your item has shipped” notification came literally a couple of days after the order.....and that’s when the ludicrous “with in a few months” thing was revealed.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Ticket updated. I’m aware Amazon have delays at the moment, so just gonna be patient.

Oh, I did remember that Amazon’s “your item has shipped” notification came literally a couple of days after the order.....and that’s when the ludicrous “with in a few months” thing was revealed.

I've seen that sort of shipping delay on a few items - I believe it means that it is shipping from China, or from someone who is ordering from a supplier in China, anyway.

Abroad, at the very least.

 Duskweaver wrote:

Voss wrote:
with the caption 'Spare the rod, save his life.'
...
advocacy for child abuse as my first impression of the state.

Surely "Spare the rod, save his life" is advocating against beating your child?

("Spare the rod, save the child" is a fairly common anti-corporal-punishment slogan.)

Oh. That's what I get for posting late at night about a horror story from years ago. 'Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child; Don't spare the Rod, Save his Life!' was the actual text. Along with some homily or other.

Ah, well. Late and still off topic. Ignore me.

That’s much worse.

Mystery seeds: Amazon bans foreign plant sales in US - BBC

Kind of a fun and extensive follow up article.

Some people ate the seeds, of course.

People fear bio-terrorism in the form of an engineered disease but actual bio-terrorism would have something invasive in those seed shipments. Or something illegal/restricted. Imagine if marijuana seeds were in those packages.

Its not exactly difficult nowadays to get MJ seeds in the US. Sending some weed seeds through the US mail would not be an effective bioterror attempt.

Now some invasive plants designed to choke out crops and be resistant to herbicides would be a concern. But again, mailing them to random people is quite ineffective as the rate of people just tossing them in the garbage would be pretty high. Better to mail them to a few operatives who just throw them out a car window at opportune locations.

Cannabis Sativa needs "male" and "female" plants for a decent spread, though (and for propagation to get the flower buds ... leaf will only go so far ... ).


I doubt they go to that much trouble ...

 Ouze wrote:
Kind of a fun and extensive follow up article.

Some people ate the seeds, of course.

Is it time for the Albert Einstein quote? I think it is time for the Albert Einstein quote.

One thing about this is that many years ago I got some junk mail from some place, i don't remember the actual place but the paper had a big "Don't throw this away!!!" notice on it and when I felt the stiff, somewhat thick cardstock, which had pics of flowers on it, i felt these smooth little flat bumps in it.

Curious, I read the blurb and it explained the mail had seeds embedded in it and i should plant it for some pretty flowers.

OK, it must have been a slow day or i was in a good mood, I actually did it, I have a small rose garden patch in front of my place and just dug a hole in it, dropped the paper in and covered it up.

Weeks later it grew into some like 2' tall plants with some fairly pretty flowers, like 2" across, magenta colored with bright yellow centers.

Hmm, nice little curiosity, and the flowers were good looking but apparently not perennial as they never returned.

Some places make business cards that can be planted and produce plants.

https://buddyburst.com/products/plantable-seed-paper/business-cards/

The thing is that in the junkmail case I had aeons ago and these cards is that the sender is telling you what you're getting and these seed bags are just unmarked completely. (Of course he might be lying, but at least there is some sort of statement as to what he sent you.)

Also it's from china, and I have extremely negatives views towards the chinese government so view anything that must be sanctioned by it in a bad light.

Quick thought: Does anyone else think that packets of mysterious unlabeled seeds being sent around the world to people would make a good set up for an episode of Dr. Who?

 chromedog wrote:
Cannabis Sativa needs "male" and "female" plants for a decent spread, though (and for propagation to get the flower buds ... leaf will only go so far ... ).


I doubt they go to that much trouble ...

It isn't about creating invasive cannabis, it is about handing a huge number of Americans the ingredients to grow their own illegal drug and the sheer amount of disruption that would cause. The government would spend a ridiculous amount of time & money dealing with it, far FAR more than the comparative pittance it would take to enact.

We don't need china to send us invasive hi power cannabis, canada has plenty of high potency strains of weed that you can carry across the largest most open border on earth.

Now if they were sending in genetically engineered opium seeds made easy to grow in america that would be a far different matter.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 chromedog wrote:
Cannabis Sativa needs "male" and "female" plants for a decent spread, though (and for propagation to get the flower buds ... leaf will only go so far ... ).


I doubt they go to that much trouble ...

It isn't about creating invasive cannabis, it is about handing a huge number of Americans the ingredients to grow their own illegal drug and the sheer amount of disruption that would cause. The government would spend a ridiculous amount of time & money dealing with it, far FAR more than the comparative pittance it would take to enact.

Marijuana is already super, super easy to find, though. I think the reason most people don't grow their own marijuana plants isn't "access to seeds", it's a combination of (all the many reasons why people don't grow their own vegetables), coupled with draconian federal asset forfeiture laws that mean potentially losing your house for doing so.

 Matt Swain wrote:


Quick thought: Does anyone else think that packets of mysterious unlabeled seeds being sent around the world to people would make a good set up for an episode of Dr. Who?

I saw this classic and some of the reboot. The novel implied triffids were genetically engineered as an oil source.

 Ouze wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 chromedog wrote:
Cannabis Sativa needs "male" and "female" plants for a decent spread, though (and for propagation to get the flower buds ... leaf will only go so far ... ).


I doubt they go to that much trouble ...

It isn't about creating invasive cannabis, it is about handing a huge number of Americans the ingredients to grow their own illegal drug and the sheer amount of disruption that would cause. The government would spend a ridiculous amount of time & money dealing with it, far FAR more than the comparative pittance it would take to enact.

Marijuana is already super, super easy to find, though. I think the reason most people don't grow their own marijuana plants isn't "access to seeds", it's a combination of (all the many reasons why people don't grow their own vegetables), coupled with draconian federal asset forfeiture laws that mean potentially losing your house for doing so.

You know there is a big difference between that and having the seeds delivered to people's doorsteps with a built-in excuse of 'I didn't know what they were!' Remember, it doesn't have to be everyone or even a majority, or even anyone at all who actually plants them. You know our government, you know it would flip out disproportionately based on what COULD happen instead of what will. The actual seed is just a means to get that response.

Yeah, that is surely true.

You know if china wanted to smuggle a plant into america that's highly addictive, harmful and causes a lot of financial damage all they'd need to do is send over tobacco seeds.

It isn't about getting citizens hooked on drugs, it is about causing social disruption via goading a disproportionate government response. Accordingly the actual properties of the drug are largely irrelevant. Terrorism is all about perception. Though in this cause it wouldn't literally be 'terror' per say, but in the same vein.

 Matt Swain wrote:
You know if china wanted to smuggle a plant into america that's highly addictive, harmful and causes a lot of financial damage all they'd need to do is send over tobacco seeds.

Again, not something difficult to acquire in the US and unlike Marijuana its perfectly legal to grow your own tobacco most places in the US. China would just be hurting their own tobacco industry by encouraging people to grow more of it here.