The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

UPS says that they attempted a delivery at 9:06 p.m. this evening…

…and this is what my front door camera says:

Tap the image to see it at full size.

One of us is mistaken, and I have evidence.

Did you miss part 1? It’s here.

The “Monkeys in India stole the coronavirus blood samples” news story is just one more data point for Elon Musk’s pet theory that we’re living in a simulation. It’s my theory that whoever was running it got bored, walked off, and left the intern at the controls.

Pictured above is CNN reporter Oscar Jimenez, back on the job after being arrested without being given a reason by while covering the protests sparked by the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. He and 2 other credentialed journalists in his crew, producer Bill Kirkos and photojournalist Leonel Mendez, were taken into custody while on camera, which is the sort of thing that you’d expect to happen only in what Donald Trump would call “shithole countries”:

I’m going to get some “Well, actually…” responses for this observation, but it should be noted the one guy in the CNN crew with the white-bread name was not arrested:

CNN’s Josh Campbell, who also was in the area but not standing with the on-air crew, said he, too, was approached by police, but was allowed to remain.

“I identified myself … they said, ‘OK, you’re permitted to be in the area,'” recounted Campbell, who is white. “I was treated much differently than (Jimenez) was.”

Jimenez is black and Latino. Kirkos is white, and Mendez is Hispanic.

Jimenez and crew have since been released, and over the next little while, we need to ask — and keep asking — this important question: Why was this allowed to happen?

I’ve been expecting a package from Amazon that UPS was supposed to deliver on Wednesday. It didn’t arrive on the appointed date, and when I checked the order status, the first lie appeared:

Wednesday, May 27 – 9:14 p.m.
Delivery attempted – Signature is required or unable to find secure location

Thursday, May 28 – 9:34 p.m.
Delivery attempted

For starters, we were home both evenings. It is, after all, still in the middle of a pandemic. Also, the house has a screened-in front porch with a door that does an excellent job of obscuring packages left at the front door:

And finally, we’ve got two Ring cameras that have the front porch in its field of view, and review of the footage shows that nobody — and especially not a UPS delivery person — showed up at our front door on either night:

A screenshot from my Ring app’s display of last night’s front door footage. No UPS delivery truck or person all evening. Tap the image to see it at full size.

Hence this tweet…

My tweet to UPS last night. Tap the image to see it at full size.

…which led to this reply:

I’ve DM’d them the details they ask for, and now it’s time to wait and see.

Here’s another image I meant to post — waaaay back around mid-March, when we’d all moved to our home offices, and about three weeks before the layoff.

In case you’re not familiar with it, it’s an homage to this Clash album’s cover…

…which in turn is an homage to this Elvis Presley album’s cover:

While I’m at it, here’s a classic track from London Calling:

Thanks to Ted Brunt for the find!

In case you’re not familiar with this classic, here’s a synopsis.