Clarke’s book, online

My printer ran out of ink, so I'm stuck here in the house and can't hit the bookstore just up the road to buy Richard Clarke's book Against All Enemies.

The reason I can't leave the house is because I ordered a sixpack of cartridges from the fine folks at Ink4Art and they ship UPS. And UPS is clueless.

The United States Postal Service and private carriers such as Federal Express appreciate that the lobby of my building is a secure, private, indoor location in which it is safe, acceptable and convenient to all concerned for them to leave packages.

But not UPS. UPS would prefer to leave a little yellow sticky note that says: "I was here, at your home, where I'm supposed to deliver this package. And I had the package with me. Then I left. And I still have the package. And you don't. Hyuk. Hyuk. Hyuk."

The third such sticky note will inform you that, after paying $5.95 or $9.95 for them to deliver the package, they now expect you to drive to their trailer in Cargo City — the dump-the-body swampland between the Philadelphia International Airport and the river — and pick it up yourself.

The reason UPS drivers wear brown is so they can hide in the shadows outside your house, waiting for you to leave for even five minutes so they can dash up, slap the sticky note on your door and rush away to do the same to some other poor sucker.

In fairness, I worked for years on a skeleton-crew nonprofit magazine and we used UPS every day. They were great. Convenient, reliable, affordable. But for home delivery? Horrible. Inept. Infuriating. What can brown do for me? How about delivering the @%#$ package instead of a sticky note.

I could, of course, just order the book from here at home, via Amazon via Atrios, but then I'd be stuck here all over again waiting for it to arrive.

Fortunately (and here, finally, is the whole point of this post) Tim Dunlop of Road to Surfdom has already acquired his copy of Clarke's book and he's blogging as he reads. It's like the Amplified Version.

The latest installment (No. 11) is here. Good stuff.