ArticlesI moved to a new part of Sydney about April last year. It is a tricky place to find.
In the ten or so months since I moved here, I have never figured out a short phrase to explain that: the entrance isn’t on [Foo] Street (which is the address on my driver’s licence), but around the back, via [Foo] Lane North (which is broken into sections, so be sure to go to the western-most one). The entrance is numbered, but not very prominently, so no-one ever sees it. Come in through the blue gates, down the stairs, and knock on the big door at the rear… which is to say (because you are entering via the rear), closer to the front.
Oh, and for goodness sake, don’t deliver mail to my residential address; the postie won’t go down the lane, so use my P.O. Box – except it isn’t really a P.O. Box so don’t use that in the address because it isn’t a post-office. It’s just a newsagency with mailboxes out the front, so you need the mailbox number and a street number, unlike a P.O. Box. What’s that? Your computer software doesn’t handle “mailbox”? Leave it blank, with just a number. Not possible? Well, call it the unit number, even though it is just a box number. The postie will understand.
Every courier delivery I have had has been a saga. I hail taxis from the street. I haven’t a home-delivered meal since I moved here – it is just not worth it.
Comment by John Y. on March 24, 2010
Postmonitional indeed! (Though your “postmotional” almost kinda works too.) I was one of the saps who tried to follow the link to …something/something/404-julian-not-found in your earlier-appearing post, and wound up with an actual 404. Even before clicking it, I did have misgivings, but curiosity did me in. I figured there was approximately an equal chance that you’d (1) written a post about being difficult to find or (2) provided a bogus/broken link. Of the latter possibility, I figured there was approximately equal chance that you’d (2a) done it deliberately, to show off a custom OddThinking 404 page, (2b) done it deliberately, but without going to the trouble of making a custom 404 page, or (2c) done it accidentally.
Comment by John Y. on March 24, 2010
Oh, I should mention that a couple of sub-subpossibilities for (2b) had also crossed my mind: (2b1) you were simply being lazy and (2b2) it was a sort of meta-post about being difficult to find; i.e. the post about being difficult to find was itself so difficult to find that the browser simply got lost.
Comment by Mr Rohan on March 24, 2010
This looks like a great way of sorting out those who really want to get to you and those who don’t..
Comment by Julian on March 24, 2010
It amuses me that my reputation for stupid games means that simple blunders can actually make me look cleverer in the eyes of my readers than I could ever actually be.
Comment by Julian on March 24, 2010
Rohan, the dilemma is that the taxi driver doesn’t really want to get to to me as much as I want the taxi driver to get to me… If I was a taxi driver, I would drive off to find an easier-to-reach fare.
Comment by Alastair on March 24, 2010
I know this probably won’t help you, but it’s pretty cool anyway. Apparently you can put geo tags into those QR codes. Here is a web-based generator.
Also: now that we’ve all got ubiquitous GPS devices, I’m kindof surprised that there isn’t a widely accepted practice of texting geo location information. Would at least put an and to these types of conversations: “Where are you?” “I’m around the back of Foo Street” “Where is that?” (etc)
Comment by Alan Green on March 25, 2010
I hope you never need to call the fire brigade 🙁
Comment by David on March 25, 2010
And yet the gate-crasher at your house-warming were able to find you easily.