Now it's time to go back to the old ways. College style. Not living lousy, no sir, no way. But scrimping, saving, and cutting corners. Every dollar counts. Even though I still intend to buy a few things, if I want to get all the things I want, I must use coupons and my endless well of words to reduce prices. Afterall, as President Eisenhower said, "we've got to keep down the cost of living".
That said, I still have a $50 gift certificate to spend at Amazon for my birthday. Unemployed or not, I was still born and deserve a huge book and a ephemeral book. Why the disparity? Why would I want both a book that weighs 9 pounds (and they claim they won't give me free shipping, a first in all my years suffering from AmazonAddiction) and a book that weighs nothing (although I'm sure it's 500+ pages of depth)? Is it because I'm diverse and unique, like the universe?
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| "I guess it's just the dichotomy of man. The jungian thing." |
$50 gift certificate in hand, I'm ready to spend, but something is wrong. The prices have changed.
Stanley Kubrick's Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made
9 pound masterpiece has shifted upwards in price from $40 to $44. Probably because it was mentioned on BoingBoing (or somewhere like that. A google search turns up nothing but reminders that the Kubrick book once cost $700 in a more limited form only makes me want it more).
And in even more shocking news, the unfinished ebook version of deceased author David Foster Wallace's The Pale King
has increased in price from $12.99 to $14.99. Why should an ebook go up in price? It's already horribly overpriced and packed with nasty DRM that pissed me off rightly when reading DFW's masterpiece Infinite Jest
, which I bought for $9.99 (ebook version) and is still $9.99.I'd like to get the Kubrick Book and the Pale King ebook for $50 combined, out the door, with free shipping, but it's starting to look like Amazon has purposely been raising the prices in honor of my birthday. This doesn't seem right. I've talked to Amazon before and they always seemed incredibly nice (really the kind of company I'd like to work for, if they had a place for someone who likes their products, but has some complaints and only has a background in using computers, interfaces, thinking about computers, but hasn't really said anything yet, but as mentioned before was gifted with an endless well of words, a man who orders his ink by the barrel and has only recently begun shooting out cannonfulls.) and I don't think they'd raise the prices just for my birthday. Surely there must be some mistake. I think I'll contact amazon and see if we can work together to correct these bizarre price changes, but first I should set the scene:
1. I'll Join Amazon Prime for a Free Month - If I set a reminder to cancel in my GoogleCalendar, trying Prime again for a month carries little risk (except for of course that I might buy more things at Amazon). I think this should justify my claim for a shipping discount on the Kubrick Napoleon book.
2. Complain again about the "unstated clipping limit" on Infinite Jest. I bought an ebook, hoping to join "social reading" and share clips while I quested against the massive 1,000 page Infinite Jest, the literary version of climbing Kilimanjaro, a climb few will make, and I thought it would be fun to bring my friends along. Unfortunately I hit an unknown "clipping limit" while still in the first 100 pages or so. It quickly brought my dreams of social reading to an end and has left me kinda bummed about the Kindle ever since. I really wish that Amazon would read this blog and my other blog and let me help them fix the Kindle. It would be great to work on a team toward an awesome goal like Social Reading (something that would actually do good things for people and help them join Virtual Book clubs which would drive them to read and share more (not limiting it!) (Okay I probably won't mention this in my email, but I really dislike clipping limits and won't stop mentioning it. Clipping Limits Delenda Est!)
3. Remind them what a good customer I am. Embarrassing or not I have a small to large Amazon Addiction. I've spent thousands of dollars there over the years and even have an entire shelf of books to read, my own personal bookstore thanks to years of shopping cart based impulse buying thanks to their incredible store. That said, you'd think they'd send me something for my birthday. Even if it was only a percentage based discount attempting to get me to spend more money, that would be something, and help toward my goal:
Goal: Kubrick $40 + Pale King $10 = $50
While I'm begging, Let me publicly announce my Wishlist: (having quickly edited out the slightly embarrassing books on how to impress the ladies, leaving only the WWII, scifi, unread novels, biographies and a few computery books):
Unemployed Geek's Wishlist If you like what you see, think about buying something for me. Of course now while I've been editing my wishlist, I've noticed that Lay the Favorite: A Memoir of Gambling is finally on sale. I tell you this. Never read an excerpt. It's like mental heroin. I've been wanting to read this book forever, but couldn't because the Hardcover was $17 and the Ebook w  as $13. Just seemed incredibly overpriced, but now there's a used copy for $2.99 ($6.78 with shipping) which is quite a good deal New Goal: Kubrick $35 + Pale King $10 + Lay the Favorite $5 = $50 Really mypricetrack.com is quickly becoming my favorite new site. Amazon should put graphs like this on their product pages and allow the users to negotiate with the companies over the discounts. Turn back the clock, time traveling sales. Virtual markets should have such things. Oh well. Enough kibitzing. Time to write a very nicely worded letter to Amazon customer service. |
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