Spooky Post Office

[Nomen Nescio]

I've recently moved, many, many miles from my old home, but within the same state.  I did not however inform the post office of my new address, hoping to ditch the 2-3 lbs a week of junk mail and crap.

I did inform most of the important services/places of the address change (credit card co's, bills, etc.)

One magazine, I did forget to inform.  The mag in question is the NRA's America's First Freedom, which spooks me even more...

Among several other mails bearing my NEW address, last night, this magazine arrived at my NEW address, however it bore the OLD address.  

So somehow the post office was able to redirect the mail to my new address without the label on this magazine stating the new address!  

Again, if you move and inform the post office, your old-addressed mail arrives at your door with a yellow sticker with the new address.  THIS WAS NOT the case here!!!

I must say, I'm quite spooked by this!

I have also seen this happen before with snail-mail spam where the address was mangled (wrong street, or wrong number, but same zip code) so I figured that the post office figured it out and got it to me since it was the same particular branch (same zip).  But this is in a totally different zip code, about 50 miles away from my old residence.

How the fuck did they do this?  It's certainly means that addresses are snarfed and kept in a database, but further more, how is the post office delivery guy able to figure out which house to send it to without the explicit address on it?

It's enough to make one very paranoid.

[This was not an old issue of the 1st Freedom.  It was the January 2001 issue and I hadn't received it, so it's not a question of it falling off the moving truck and having some kind soul put it in my mail box.  It was recently mailed just after I moved!]


I've had another (possibly unrelated) strange incident occur at this location.  Shortly after moving in, I drove out to meet a friend for dinner.  As I left the house, I noticed a rental van pull in and make a u-turn so he was parked exactly outside my house.  Around this area, there are ample garages and driveways, so it's very unlikely to see anyone parked on the street.

As soon as I pulled out of the drive way, the van followed for a while.  Noticing this, I pulled off to the right, as if I was going to visit another house.  The van was behind me and hesitated for about 10 seconds behind me, then drove off.  He pulled over about a block infront of me.  As I took off and passed him, I saw in my rear view mirror that he was shining a flashlight out of the right side - aiming it at the house which he now pulled infront of.  As I passed him again, he followed again for a bit, and then made a turn.

This guy was being way too obvious, so it's not a Fed or a spook (unless they want to be obvious.)

I took this as a possible theif and beefed up house security... but this along with the mail incident is just bizzarre...

Any ideas?  (No, I'm not smoking crack or wearing tin foil hats.)