So I bitched that Amazon is torturing me with stupid ads. Then I got a delivery faster than reasonably expected and forgave them.
Then I checked the link that I’d used and… those fuckers took it away!
I’m not making this up:
Yesterday evening I was inspired by Lawdog who likes pens. I ordered a set of three cheap pens from Amazon. It wasn’t a mission critical supply run. I’ve got pens. Also I could drive to town and back trying to buy them locally. (Locally I’d probably find those style of pens were out of stock, the store was closed, and fuck you ya’ stupid consumer. Capitalism in the hinterland is a strange thing. Customer service sometimes verges on the Soviet. Don’t laugh, while us deplorable rubes are getting ignored, urbane airline passengers are getting beaten. Same shit, different location.)
So there I was… Amazon wanted $7.79 (free shipping… all hail Prime). But what’s this? A third party seller? I clicked “other sellers on Amazon” and found the same thing for $5.00 (free shipping included) from a company that rhymes with Orifice Despot.
Who wouldn’t want to save a few bucks? I clicked on the $5 option and printed out the “receipt”. It said something about delivery in August(!). Whoa, that’s slow! But it’s just a pen and I did make the cheap choice. I muttered darkly about Sears and prepared to wait a week and a half.
The next day, before the coffee pot was drained, the pens arrived. How cool is that? Just in time delivery really is a miracle! I dashed off a quick apology to the great database in the sky and put up a link to other people who want Lawdog inspired writing implements.
Just now I realized the $5 option I saw yesterday…. is gone. Amazon took the damn thing away! I don’t know if you, my readers, can save $2.79 by ordering from Orifice Despot but Amazon censored it from my view.
Those dirty rotten stinking shitheads!
Apparently I have co-dependency issues with Amazon. (I’m loving the instant and cheap Kindle download of Lawdog’s book while grumbling over the planer ad when I turn the infernal device on. Note: the book is good. I already own a fucking planer. I think I should switch to decaf.)
If you’ll excuse me it’s time to turn off this damn computer. I’m going to stack wood and think about squirrels.
Yes, Mr Mudgeon, Amazon does tend to be quite weird with the delivery schedules. I think they are shooting for “Amazon Branded Instant Delivery” where you get a knock on the door as soon as you press the buy button. They ain’t there yet though.
As to the planer ads happening to you, I’ve found a way to get the ads I like on my screen. I look at the things that are on my wish list. [eg: this weeks wish list includes Polarized sunglasses and Tinney Endurables T-3 hats]… the ‘bots’ think I’m actually in the market for yet another pair of glasses and more sun hats and fills my page with things I want to actually see, and not the stuff I’ve already got.
It works for me here in NC
Rich in NC
Ads? Between uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger I see almost no ads. I do get roped into the chum-box ads once in a while, but nothing is perfect. I don’t mind the ads as much as I will not tolerate the malware that still stalks most of the ad servers from time to time.
Also kill cookies with self-destructing cookies. or something. And turn off 3rd party cookies. They aren’t as big a deal as they were, but the ad companies are still complaining about Safari – which is the only browser to ship with them disabled (opt in instead of opt out for everyone else.)
I see almost no ads. Even on youtube. Makes it even more annoying when I have to live with ads – like in Pandora or Spotify. But hey.
As for the general Amazon fever you are feeling. I am trying to get away from dealing with the big internet firms. I already don’t use Google for anything critical – the email for this blogging thing isn’t important. And I don’t use their search engine as a first or 2nd choice. (DuckDuckGo. Disconnect on TOR browser. or Bing before Google.)
As for Amazon, I am trying to disconnect from them. Most things I can find locally, and I have to pay sales tax on Amazon purchases so there is no incentive there. And I’m not pressed for time.
I still love Amazon’s service. I do not want to go back to only the stuff at my local stores. That would be a huge step back!
I buy locally when I can, but unless it’s something that comes by the shitton from a factory in China it’s not commonly available on shelves. Unavoidable drawback to living in the hinterlands.
I like DucDuckGo but Bing is simply useless.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen any ads when I run the Brave browser:
https://www.brave.com/downloads.html
I don’t think Brave currently supports Flash, however, so you do give up some functionality, at least for now.
And Amazon’s real intent, Rich in NC, is to have that knock on the door occur before you even sit down at your computer, and for the delivery person to tell you that you will be ordering what he is delivering in the next 15 minutes. Of course, there will be a half dozen armed “Law Enforcement” officers standing behind him to make sure you understand what he means. After all, Jeff has to find some way to pay all those Washington Compost “journalists”…
That’s the dream of the Amazon Pre-cognition team. (Now that I mention that, I recall I’ve been meaning to add Minority Report to my winter reading stash. When I do I’ll probably be buried in ads for a Tom Cruise movie.)
P.S. I use Brave from time to time. Not a bad browser at all.
Oops! I could have sworn I closed that bold tag.
Luckily Edna Kampsett is only a grammarian. She’s uninterested in faux pas of the formatting variety. Thus we’re safe for now.
Tom Cruise? What? You like that midget twinkie?
Nope. Cruise is a nitwit. I like reading Philip K. Dick; who was nuts. But Amazon can’t figure the difference.
Don’t know if PKD was nuts, I think that quite a bit of his writing was done when the blotter was kicking in.
TomAto / ToMAto… it’s weird writing whether he was nuts or needed to lick a toad or whatever to get there.
Good writing, but never straightforward. Love most of his books.