So, lacking anything better to do on a cold and dreary Saturday morning, I decided that I would type up a Christmas list to send to my parents since it’s only two and a half months away.
After thinking of the things I wanted (Frou Frou and Zero 7 CDs and the Garden State DVD, mostly) off the top of my head, I figured I’d check out amazon.com to see if I could get any more ideas so my parents could have a wide variety of things to choose from in getting me a present and, on a whim, I typed in cultural anthropology to see if there was anything interesting that it suggested.
Big mistake – an hour later, I am still clicking on related items, suggested reading, and all other manner of links and my Christmas list and things I just want in general is increasing exponentially. I have fifteen Amazon tabs open right now, about a dozen more links already bookmarked or copied and pasted in a word document, and plenty more URLs to follow once I close out this window to look again.
I really need to hide my credit card. This is all too tempting.
My experience with Amazon’s related/suggested stuff is that it is always 100% completely and totally unrelated nonsense. Of no use whatsoever. Waste of screen space and download time. Clutter is always bad, completely stupid clutter even more so.
E.g., search for a book on Perl, other buyers also bought these books on Bar-B-Que. Huh?
I have an old friend that’s an Amazon tech big shot. Next time I see him I’m giving him an earful.
It’s not been that way for me. While some of the suggestions have been a bit odd, they’ve always been at least tangentially related. For example, I’ve got a few cosmology books bookmarked too but it makes sense to me that if you’re interested in one, you’ll have at least a passing interest in the other.
Aesiron, Do you have an amazon.com wish list? It too is evil, but it’s easier than cut-and-paste to a document. Your friends & family can look at your wish list for gift ideas (and in fact can order items off the list with minimal effort). I use my wish list to keep track of things I’d like to buy someday (in other words, I can’t afford them right now). I have a very big wish list.
The suggestion feature can be bizarrely fascinating, especially if you buy gifts for other people. And sometimes I see my own purchases in the “also bought” feature. For example, people who bought the Yu-Gi-Oh gift set (me, for my niece) also bought the Branson entertainment guide (me, for my mother).
Frou Frou is awesome. Amazon is evil indeed, it does a pretty good job of forewarning me when something I really, really want is going to be available. It also probably thinks I’m interested in gardening though, since I just had to follow a link to the listing for 20,000 count live ladybugs.
My wishlist is for other people to buy for me. My shopping cart is for that which I will buy for myself. I keep stuff in there for months at a time. Works for me.
I look at my wishlist every now and again to see if something I wanted suddenly got really cheap (you know, the sellers who really want to get rid of their stuff). Having an Amazon.com credit card certainly doesn’t help the situation! (but the free gift certificates I get with it are spent very easily!)
Amazon.com is heading into Sam’s Club territory, I refuse to get a Sam’s card because that place is FULL of useless crap that I can’t live without. Amazon got me the other day, I went looking for the new Elvis Costello record and I ended up with all 5! Oggy and the Cockroaches DVD’s.
I was searching for a good translation of The Nibelungenleid (it was talk from dopers here that got me interested in it). But when I typed that into the search box, I of course got a lot of books completely in German. Not much help for me. So I tried the advance search, and saw the “Search in Language:” menu. Aha! Search in English only, and I’ll find what I’m looking for!
No. The only options I got were “Spanish” and “All Languages.” Because that’s precicely what I was looking for… :rolleyes:
I finally did find what I was looking for, after sifting through the mostly-German entries. You’d think Amazon would do something about that, wouldn’t you?
Amazon credit card? What kind of special features does it have? I’ve been thinking about buying all my gifts for friends and family online already but if the credit card offers discounts and so on, I’ll definitely have to apply and use them.
Every 2,500 points you get (1 point for every dollar you spend anywhere, but 3 points for every dollar you spend at Amazon!), you get a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.com. So if you’re planning on buying your family/friends gifts at Amazon, it might be a worthwhile venture as you’ll get triple credit.
Zero 7? Frou Frou?
[puts on recommendation cap]
You’ve probably heard of Jem. Her album Finally Woken is a real treat. Much like Frou Frou.
I bet you’d also like The Postal Service’s Give Up. Sort of a mix between 80’s pop and electronica with some grunge thown in. Definitely not as depressing as the title makes it out to be. Sort of a poppier/darker Zero7.
And of course there’s Santessa. Her album Delirium is a real treat, much like Frou Frou but a little less ethereal. (This one’s a bit of a risk, though, since it’s an import and a bit pricey, and you’re not likely to have heard any of the songs.)
Did I mention Emiliana Torrini? She’s much like Frou Frou, and her album Love in the Time of Science is a real treat.
No discussion like this is complete without mentioning Hooverphonic. Very good music, I recommend Blue Wonder Power Milk. This was my gateway into the world of trip-hop, and sounds somewhat like Zero7, though a bit more abstract.
Last but not least, Massive Attack’s Mezzanine is one of the best albums to come out of the 90’s. Much darker than Zero7, though.
[/recommedation cap]
Also, don’t miss Zero 7’s new video for In Time, possibly their best song.
I’m glad to hear someone else likes Zero 7. I got the chance to see them in concert here in Seattle, and wow, what a treat! I’d have to say it was better than even the Sarah McLachlan concert (though not by much)!
Anyway, I totally agree that Amazon is not a good place. Just too much good stuff there for any good to come of it.
Almost forgot to mention the best internet radio station, which is in league with Amazon to steal all of my money from me. Radio Paradise: often I’ll come away from an extended listening session with numerous CDs headed to me from Amazon.
Oh, boy! I only have to spend $833 on Amazon to get a $25 gift certificate! I know it would be easy to spend that much on Amazon TODAY, but it would be a bad idea and I don’t think that 3% savings is going to be much incentive for me.
I do love Amazon though. I kill tons of time at work browsing around and adding things to my wish list. If only I had $833, I’d have a lot more DVDs, CDs and books. Oh, and kitchen stuff.
