Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with post

Do you know a good mail forwarding service from the UK - Canada?

everydayanewday — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:34:43 -0800

Does anyone know a reliable, cost-effective mail forwarding service so I can get my ebay stuff and hot chocolate delivered without pissing my friends/family off? I've googled, but there don't seem to be any customer reviews of these services anywhere. Any help or tips appreciated!

International postage stamps from a domestic source

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 10 May 2013 12:45:19 -0800

I have a bunch of postcards I'm mailing out from within the US to people in the US, UK and Switzerland. I can put domestic stamps on the cards sent from within the US to our US address, so that the recipients can just drop it in a mailbox. Does the USPS or another entity within the US sell stamps that I can put on the postcards sent from the UK and Switzerland, such that the recipients don't need to buy their own stamps?

Postcard to Japan

Evstar — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:33:31 -0800

I want to send a postcard from France to this restaurant in Japan where my friend is a cook. There appears to be an address on the front page of the website, but I'll be damned if I can make out what it says, much less recreate it on a postcard in a way that the French post can parse. I'm sure I could ask him myself, but I would prefer to surprise him. Can anyone help me with this?

Type font for numbering on old post office boxes

eaglehound — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 08:33:09 -0800

I'm looking for a type font that was used for the numbering on early-to-mid twentieth century post office boxes. The font is brass or gold in color, with slight shadowing or some other contrivance that gives it some dimensionality or relief or shadowing. It's sort of the same font that you see from the 1950's on lawyer's office windows or doors in cities, although that's a fleeting impression I have. It may have a bit of serif, but not much. It's a 'thick' font, although not like Bauhaus, where the lines are all the same thickness. Sorry to be so hazy in recalling it, but I haven't seen it in 30 years.

I've tried type finder services, but they want me to answer questions about the letters in the font, and I don't really have an impression of those, just the numbers. Thanks, font detectives!

So creamy!

mon-ma-tron — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 09:40:35 -0800

My Google-Fu has utterly failed me on this. Can anyone help me find this specific blog post about baking steel-cut oats? Okay, so this is a little odd, I make baked steel-cut oats all the time. I'm not looking for a recipe for it.

What I'm looking for is a blog post I read about a year ago, written by a woman, about how she makes baked steel-cut oats. There was a story in it about her husband having steel-cut oatmeal while they were on vacation? At a bed-and-breakfast, maybe? He loved them because they were "so creamy!" But, no time to make in the AM at home, steel-cut oats take too long, so she bakes them the night before (1 cup oats, 3 cups water, pinch of salt) at 300° F for 1 hour, cools them and keeps the oatmeal in the fridge to be microwaved in the mornings. I think the post title might even have been called something like "One Minute Steel-Cut Oats."

I've searched using Google, Google Reader, FoodBlogSearch.com, Foodily.com (my regular recipe search engines). It's not a post from any of my regular foodie blogs (101 Cookbooks, Amateur Gourmet, Bitten Word, Danny/Gwyneth Project, Homesick Texan, Kitchn, Last Night's Dinner, Orangette, Poor Girl Gourmet, Thursday Night Smackdown [RIP, sniff!], Smitten Kitchen, or Spice Spoon).

I feel like it might have been a link from the Kitchn, but I've been through all their posts about steel-cut oats and couldn't find anything.

I can't for the life of me remember how I came across this blog post. Hope?

How do I send these perfumes?

ohmy — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 12:23:42 -0800

Can I ship bottles of perfume from Canada to the US? Can I ship them within Canada? I can't stand perfume, but I received three expensive fragrance box sets as Christmas gifts. I'd like to list them on ebay, but Google tells me that perfumes are considered flammable, hazardous materials and are often refused by postal services, or only shipped via ground service. I know this applies to USPS and am almost 100% sure that it also applies to Canada Post.

So I'm pretty sure that shipping to the US would be a real problem because I don't think any Canada to US shipments are ground shipments, but I just read on the Canada Post website that perfume is a non-mailable item... period? I think? So... how do fragrance vendors do it? Can I actually sell this stuff on ebay and mail it out - even if it's only within Canada? Or will I have to rely on the unreliable and hostile crazies on Craigslist to offload this stuff? (I listed these items on Craigslist and have only received ridiculous offers and responses from random anonymous aggressive trolls)

Do any of you guys have experience with this? I'm especially interested in hearing from Canadians.

I like him a lot, but I don't feel like I have much to give in a relationship. He wants to wait, I have PTSD and I'm not so sure.

proximacentauri — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 15:22:14 -0800

I like him a lot, but I have PTSD don't feel like I have much to give in a relationship. He wants to wait, but I'm not so sure.
So I have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in early july and I met this great guy little less than two weeks after that. It was a random encounter over the internet. We have been talking almost everyday since, but I don't feel ready to meet him at all. My plan was if we are still talking after a year, then we could meet. that's what I'm comfortable with.

The relationship has gone from fun and carefree to more serious lately. We both admitted to having feelings last month and its clear that this relationship has romantic potential. I like him, we relate to each other well, share values and laugh a lot. He's quite dreamy actually. But hes so much more open about himself and he talks much more about things than I do. I'm distant and it happened before that I made myself unavailable on purpose for a few days (kind of a lame move I know). He picked up on something being off, and he said he wanted to be there for me. I told him I liked him a lot and that I didn't intend to break things off but that I needed space and wanted to try a short break. He had an emotional reaction, I could see he was tearing up a little and that caught me off guard. I understand that caused a lot of uncertainty and came out of nowhere for him. Of course though he respected it and we took little more than a week apart.

He's understanding and he knows about where I am right now. I explained about my disorder when I couldn't go with "fake it till you make it" which was my choice of behavior at first when I though it wouldn't last. Let's be real, long distance we-met-on-the-internet stories don't have the highest odds of success.

Since we never met in person and live in different countries (I'm canadian, he's british) I want to keep things friendly and ease up on the emotion side of things, maybe focus on really getting to know the person more than making thinks fluffy and romantic. He dosen't seem to share those views. Also I don't mind being exclusive to him, but I mind the official label, so we discussed it and came to an understanding. He needs/wants me to open up and, well, I feel a bit smothered. He does caring things like phone on a regular basis, sent a christmas gift (so did I) he sent flowers on my birthday and once "just because". Its a really nice gesture :) He mentioned me to his friends and close family, I did too, but they are very protective of me and disapprove the whole thing. Which dosen't help the relationship at all.

Don't get me wrong though, it's still awesome and I feel really lucky, I've never had a guy pursue me like that before and I think he's great. the thing is, I don't know how to react, I'm extremely ambivalent towards relationships, I take a long time to get to know people, I really don't open up easily. I don't enjoy talking about myself really. I've had issues in relationships for that before; me being too laid-back, bit distant, even not jealous enough I've heard. I like things to be low drama. I may have intimacy issues. I've been through abuse before so I guess that has something to do with it all. I plan on going to therapy over the next months for the whole ptsd thing. We talked about this, he says he wants to wait for me to be ready. But me being ready wont magically mean it will all work out.

Basically I'm glad we're apart, he's not. I feel it's going a bit fast, he feels the opposite. So whats the deal? I worry about his feelings and I want to make it obvious that I do care and want him to feel special. But I already feel like I'm pushing my limits on opening up and being there.
Is this a recipe for disaster or making it up to him until I feel ready is worth a try?

It shouldn't be this hard when Toronto is barely 100 miles from Buffalo, OK?

SMPA — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 10:47:25 -0800

I want to change the world. Or at least make it easier/faster/cheaper to send my niece and nephew, currently living less than 500 miles from where I live, a flipping Christmas package. Who should I bother to help get this done? (the first two paragraphs consist of a rant with illustration; you can skip to the first bolded line for the actual questions.)

Okay, fine. We live in a stupid bureaucratic nightmare world, where lines on maps create major hassles. I accept that mailing stuff internationally is a royal pain, as a general concept. Languages, treaties, blah blah blah, whatever.

But this is Canada and the United States. We speak the same language, and have a VERY long mostly-undefended border (and nearly everyone in Canada lives really close to that border,) and we signed a treaty (way back when Bill Clinton was less than halfway through his first term,) saying that commerce should be significantly easier in North America already. These are post-industrial countries! You can drive to Toronto from here in less than two days, and bring all kinds of gifts with you! So, why is it still so flipping hard to mail the junior members of my family some stickers and fake tattoos and Christmas cards - let alone books and toys?

This is the question part - What I want to know is, who do I bother to get some progress on this specific issue?

Should I set up a petition on WhiteHouse.gov? Send emails to members of the Senate and House foreign relations committees/Western hemisphere subcommittees? Write to the Postmaster General? Harass the Universal Postal Union? File some kind of statement with the State Department? Rail about this in public and hope the media notices?

What I really want is for it to be much easier/faster/cheaper for a normal human being in the United States, Canada, or Mexico to send a package with not-dangerous stuff in it to other normal human beings in one of the other two countries.

I'm not even sure exactly who makes things this way, where the problem(s) is/are, or who could change the way it all works. Does the President of the United States even have any power over this at all? The US Postal Service is a relic of a bygone era mixed up with bizarre early twentieth century standard operating procedures, and apparently everyone and no one is in charge of this kind of policy stuff. I don't know a thing about Canada Post, and I had to go look up who does mail in Mexico just to finish this sentence (Correos de México is apparently the answer, and the article listing postal entities by country needs a lot of expanding.)

Anyway, again: I want to take some constructive action, and vent my spleen to persons in authority, and maybe help in actually improving this situation. Who do I turn to in my hour of need? I am prepared to devote at least 10 hours of my time this year to the effort, BTW, and spend upwards of 20 first-class stamps on a letter-writing campaign, if necessary.

(If there is an advocacy organization already devoted to this issue, I will quite possibly espouse you for sharing it with me, unless that disturbs you or I decide it's too creepy once I calm down. I'll heart you forever no matter what though.)

Anon postings free speech?

lasamana — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 15:58:23 -0800

I am curious if anonymous postings are protected as free speech. Our town has an online newspaper that’s run by AOL. Often the topics are pretty mundane and there is little or no posts. However recently a topic came up and ignited a lot of debate. Most of the posters use aliases which is fine but a couple of times the posts have become really offensive. Particularly calling out a person in our town who behaved a little unseemly. I’m curious as to how much of that is protected since it seems that the online paper is largely unmoderated (the posts appear and are pulled if they too inflammatory), unlike a “real” paper where the editor has the discretion to post the letter. Can anonymous posts trigger the same protections as using your real name? Or would they be exempt for some reason? (PS I realize the irony of posting this here without using my real name).

Help ID uniforms in an old drawing

WickedPissah — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 09:06:13 -0800

Help me identify uniforms worn in an antique pencil watercolor. And maybe a guess as to where it was recorded. Found this little drawing/watercolor at a consignment shop. Overall. I really like it but am struggling to figure out who it is depicting. Trying to pin down the date based on the uniforms but have not gotten very far. Someone suggested mail carriers which might make sense considering one is carrying a bag over his shoulder and the other is holding what looks like an envelope.

Detail Views here:
Detail One

Detail Two

Would love to hear any ideas and also any thoughts on where it might be taking place. It is saying Philadelphia or Washington DC to me.

Can I seal my new fence posts even if they are wet?

cda — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:07:38 -0800

I didn't seal my new fence posts and now the forecast is for rain all week. Can I seal them in the spring? I'm confused about what to do now. Should I go ahead and seal them now even though they are wet? Or would it be better to wait until spring? And wait until they dry out.

I'm going to put some kind of painted seal on the top. Probably something used to patch roofs. Do you have a suggestion for sealant? It would be nice if it was not black color. I think I can get some roof sealant in white.

I bought some liquid wood sealant (spelled something like namptha....) but I think it's just too toxic for me to apply without a gas mask, which I don't want to buy today. I'm going to take it back. I think the roof patch can be applied without a gas mask.

Lost 100lbs, had a baby & gained it all back. Help?

AbsolutelyHonest — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 07:27:50 -0800

Before I had my child, I lost almost 100lbs. I have since gained it all back due to post partum depression. How do I get back on track with a child? More detail inside I have always been really overweight, and in 2009 I started working out for almost two hours a day, 6 days a week. I had a partner, a personal trainer at a gym that I paid for on a weekly basis. I lost almost 100lbs.

The praise I recieved from family and friends was amazing. I started to love going to social events because I had tons of clothes to chose from and felt really confident for the first time in my life.

I found out I was pregnant right before my "goal date" and was devestated. I never reached my goal, but came within 15lbs of it. During my pregnancy I could no longer afford the personal trainer and gained 40lbs.

When my daughter was about 6 weeks old, I was only 15lbs away from the weight I was before I got pregnant and I was so happy about that. I developed really bad post partum depression and since have recovered, but now weight almost exactly the same I did before I lost weight.

I refuse to go to social events and have actually heard people say they can't believe how much weight I have gained. I am really ashamed and embarassed.

I want to get back into it, especially since I am about to see my inlaws who I haven't seen since I was at my thinnest, and I am so discouraged. My husband works night shift and I work day in order to not pay for daycare, we can't afford a personal trainer, I have no family or friends willing to care for our child for me to go to the gym... it just seems like all my cards are stacked against me.

Can anyone recommend a really good at home routine? An appetitie supplement to help me get started? Anything?

How do I get WordPress authors to show on posts and not pages

antonymous — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 13:15:31 -0800

WordPressFilter: How can I make a WordPress author have their name show up in the posts they make, but not the pages they make? So I have a website that is basically a customized theme for Wordpress. It's mostly used as a static site, but I'd like to extend the blog functionality, and will have multiple authors writing in this blog. But when I try to insert the code I've found into what I think is the proper php page (it's custom and called loop-page.php - the actual code references the_author_posts_link and works), it shows the author's name at the top of every single page. I really only want it displayed on the blog pages - I can provide some php code samples or do some wading through the code if anyone thinks they know how to fix this...

Of course if anyone has other solutions to this problem, I'm all ears! Basically, I just want to get rid of all author information on static pages, but keep author information for my new blog setup. Thanks!

Addressing: the question

Talkie Toaster — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 01:20:52 -0800

Looking at the Universal Postal Union pages on the matter, addresses on envelopes are usually right-justified and appear below the stamp. Why is this the case. Also, are the UK and Ireland the only exceptions?

Take my money already.

halogen — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 11:14:46 -0800

I need to mail approximately $1,000 worth of euros from WA to NY. We received it from our bank through FedEx, but FedEx refused to accept the shipment when I tried to send it and said that the bank must have had third party insurance. What is the best way to get the money to the opposite coast within the next couple of weeks?

Help me find a blog.

uncannyslacks — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 13:15:45 -0800

Help me find a blog. I remember it vaguely as either "Stuff Young Professionals Like" or "Things College Grads Say." Two posts I remember specifically were:

NPR

(sarcastic paragraph)

Their College Sports Team

(snarky paragraph)

I've Googled the hell out of this and still can't find it. Anyone?

Calling all arborists. Need help identifying tree feature.

punkfloyd — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 06:00:42 -0800

What could have caused this unusual feature in the bark of a mature post oak tree? Another view. This is a 150+ year old post oak that is being studied for its potential to be an Indian trail marker tree. I am asking here about the specific bark feature. Our local arborist does not think it was caused by a cut branch. He thinks these features occur when something is embedded in the bark. Thank you!

How do I thank multiple interviewers for a single position?

Groovytimes — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:07:52 -0800

I want to send a post-interview thank you email but I am a little unclear as to the best way of going about it. I had five 30 minute sessions with one to two employees each; the last session was with the head of the group I'd be working for. Should I send one email to all employees, an email to each session group, an email to only the senior interviewers (3 people), or some other iteration?

Maybe something about curtains? Or fieldstone?

Andrhia — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:54:21 -0800

Can you find this essay on what writing is like? Vague memories begin.... now. I am looking for a blog post or essay or article. It was a metaphor for how writing a story (or maybe a book) is like the process of making a doll house (or maybe a gingerbread house? Or a diorama?) The upshot was that you pay attention to all of these careful details, and then set the whole thing on fire, and when your audience looks at it, some of them will think you should have done some things that you tried to do but didn't work out, and you'll quietly hate them; and some people will notice things that you put in, but that you never thought anyone would notice, and you will quietly love them.

It might have been written by Mary Robinette-Kowal? Maybe? Or linked at some point by Making Light, John Scalzi, Elizabeth Bear?

This is going to drive me insane until I find it.

Is My Letter Lost?

Spurious — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:17:07 -0800

I mailed a letter from DC eight days ago. As of today, the letter still hasn't arrived in Phoenix. Is it lost? Last Monday (April 2nd) I mailed a check inside an envelope from my house in Washington, DC. It was being sent to my bank in Phoenix, AZ. I called the bank today and they said that they have not received it.

How likely it is that the letter is lost?

Should I put a stop-payment on the check or wait a few more days?

How do I add a personal touch to a letter when I have terrible handwriting?

neilb449 — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:09:45 -0800

I want to send a letter with a personal touch but I have horrific handwriting. Someone I care about lives a relatively long way away and we only see each other once or twice a year so I like to send her a letter occasionally. The reason I don't email is that I like the intimacy of a physical thing that she can hold in her hand which I have previously held in my hand and I'll sometimes send a book/CD/small trinket along with it. Also, an actual letter is somehow more 'real' than email.

The problem is that my handwriting is really terrible so if I were to write by hand it would be difficult to read and my intended affectionate tone would be ruined by the psychopath scrawl.

What are some nice ways to make a typed and printed out letter more personal and touching? I've got the content sorted - just the presentation is lacking.

It's important to say that this is not a love letter .... but of course it kind of is. Filling the envelope with rose petals would be too much but there needs to be some feeling behind it.

It's all about the spaces.

2or3whiskeysodas — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:15:58 -0800

What other super-sparse, dance-y, guitar-y, post-y punk-y, minimalist rock band am I missing out on? For example, I love Flin Flon. Of COURSE I love Gang of Four's Entertainment. I love Antelope.

Confusing flat rate envelope

bjrubble — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 18:11:44 -0800

How to I address a USPS Priority Mail envelope? I just returned from a baffling time at the local post office, trying to mail a Priority Mail Flat Rate envelope using the self-serve kiosk.

The essential problem here is that there appear to be three different labeling options:
1. An area on the envelope itself with "To" and "From" areas marked
2. A "Priority Mail" address label, also with "To" and "From" areas, available in a stack right next to the envelopes
3. The barcoded label that comes from the kiosk, which has only a "To" area

It should be noted that there is no commonality among these -- each has a distinct size, shape, style and color. The only indication that they might be interchangeable alternatives is that they represent the same information (well, except for the barcoded label). Needless to say, my past experience with the post office did not leave me inclined to believe I could leave out some paperwork just because it was redundant.

To top it all off, there's yet another type of sticker, available on rolls, which simply says "Priority Mail." I gave up on trying to divine the intent behind that one.

I finally just put the barcoded label (with only a "To" address) on the address area of the envelope (turning it sideways so it didn't cover any of the other markings on the envelope).

I can guess as to the purpose of some of this, but my guesses don't make complete sense -- for example, the "Priority Mail" sticker looks like it's for non-USPS boxes, but I thought the whole point of the flat rate system is that it uses a set of standardized boxes.

Can anybody lay out the system here? And ideally explain why an option heavily advertised on simplicity leaves so much arbitrarily vague? (Other than "USPS is opaque and bureaucratic" -- they do a really good job on a lot of their other processes.)

Meet me slopeside in three weeks.

halogen — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 04:50:15 -0800

What is the best way to get two snowboards (and associated gear) from Seattle, Washington to Aspen, Colorado if we don't know where we will be staying while there? Flying with the snowboards would be hugely inconvenient, since travel plans include two continents and several cities with extended stopovers before we eventually meet up in Aspen for NYE.

We like to dance fast!

Frowner — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 13:47:56 -0800

Accidental DJ would like awesome advice on danceable music. So, I'm co-DJing something that will actually be rather large and a bit fashiony. I'm basically on board for this because I have some expertise with, like, retro dance music. But as I listen to my collection and think about what I want to play, I realize that some of what I like is a bit too oddball. ("We Don't Need This Fascist Groove Thing", a little too much second wave ska, Don Cherry's disco hits, etc)

So now I'm thinking, OMG, what if I run out of music???

Thus, I'm looking for recommendations for fast stuff that's fun to dance to while mostly or completely sober - so things with more song structure. Remixes are fine. Genre is negotiable - R&B, motown, punk, no wave, hip hop, etc etc. I'm not especially looking for what's fashionable now - that's not why I was asked, for one thing.

Pickypants details: This will be a crowd with fairly fancy taste, so "fun to dance to" would be a little more complicated than "Come On Eileen" or "YMCA". And nothing racist/homophobic/creepily misogynist!

Some things I like to dance to include Janelle Monae, early Talking Heads, Gang of Four, Alain Toussaint, Zebda. The crowd likes Gogol Bordello, that kind of thing.

The main thing - stuff needs to be fast! Like, no slower than Tightrope. That's what's hanging me up a bit, actually.