I just went to the post office to mail
scalzi's dead laptop and old packpack back to his house so he didn't have to carry it around for the last leg of his book tour. While I was there I noted with interest adverts for a sweepstakes to win a trip for four to LA for the celebration of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars - or a $100 gift certificate for eBay. Just go to uspsjedimaster.com and vote for your favorite stamp, it said.After poking around that website I found that actually you have to play the game to become a "Jedi Shipping and Mailing Master" in order to be entered in the sweepstakes (It's not hard - they recirculate possible answers about USPS services, but each one is only correct once, and the Jedi trivia questions are easy). You're entered once for each level of the game you complete, it says. But then
mishamish read the small print and reported back that the sweepstakes ended on May 7! So the thing in my post office? False advertizing. Very impressive stand-ups of R2D2 and C3PO with LEDs for 3PO's eyes and R2D2's red light. I wonder if the people there know the sweepstakes is over already? Maybe this is something to distract people from the fact that the first class postage goes up to 41 cents on May 15th, hmmm?In the meantime, you can vote for which star wars stamp will be printed on its own sheet in addition to the multi-sheet that will be printed (of the whole batch, I assume). You can vote once a day (per email address) for the next 15 days.
So go vote!
(me, I favor the Princes Leia/R2D2 design, the Millenium Falcon, and well, Boba Fett (sexy as always). Yoda and Darth Vader are in the lead. Which one(s) do you like?)
