has anybody else spotted this? that the canadian government is sort of weird?

let’s see how they’ve been spending their energies lately…

• canadapost.com

  I needed some canadian postage stamps. I live out of the country. “no problem” I thought, “I’ll just go online and order some….”

  Well, they are on their way now, but this wasn’t a standard ecommerce interaction. After navigating through the site to the online store, I attempted to enter. No dice. First you have to get a user name and password. This is a standard irritation for ecommerce sites. In this case however, after entering my name, I received a helpful email indicating, not that I an account had been generated for me, but that due to high volume of requests it would be a while before someone would be able to create an account for me. Now, I appreciate personal attention, but why does an online stamp store require a human being to create each account by hand? Don’t they have computers to do this sort of thing automatically? Like every other web store I have ever seen? They presumably autogenerated the email to tell me that they couldn’t autogenerate the account. Odd.

  Sure enough, a week or so later, I received a “no subject” email from someone who I had never heard of, who turned out to be an employee of Canada Post. This individual informed me of my username and password (neither were my choice). The email started however, by pointing out that it was originating from Antigonish NS B2G 2R8.

  Well then, Linda Moeller of Antigonish NS B2G 2R8, thank you for my account. I have duly placed my order for stamps.

• Arcade Fire on CBC

  The Arcade Fire are a kickass band. I cannot overemphasize how comprehensively good this band is. I just like thinking about them.

  “If you want nothing don’t ask for something… If you want something, don’t ask for nothing!…”

  CBC radio 3 apparently had a recording session or something with them, because if you go to here and work your way through the slightly unintuitive layout (fucking flash) to “The Arcade Fire, Chemistry At Work” you will be accosted by a selection of high quality audio treats, including some covers that I don’t think are otherwise available. And it turns out that Arcade Fire are from montreal. Those are my tax dollars at work people, and I approve.

• All Interns to the Embassy

  today I received an email message indicating that all Smithsonian interns are invited to the Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the Canadian embassy. Hot drinks and maple syrup treats to be served afterwards.

  Um, nice of them to think of us.