The Huracan saga 1: The order

Holding a Huracan

It seemed like a good idea at the time

A couple of months ago, as the iso raged, Facebook suggested an app that would be a fun waste of time. Trivia games where you challenge your friends, rack up scores on the leaderboard, and a chance to demonstrate your knowledge of things.

I’m pretty good at this, and I immediately dived in, and I did fine. The only problem from my point of view was that the app’s money-making basis was through long video ads, and I found my time spent not so much answering trivia questions — you get six in a round and three seconds to answer each one — as watching video ads which were the same few for days at a time.

This advert went for over a minute and I must have watched it dozens of times:

Of course, I was unaffected by the blatant appeal to one of my favourite hobbies, but the pricing intrigued me: $89.99 — including postage — for a kit of 1 696 pieces!

So, purely out of a spirit of inquiry I sent off for the thing.

That was mid-April. Two months later, I began to grow suspicious. Usually these things shipped from China arrive within a week or so. The tracking…