(no subject)

Looks like sales rankings have been reinstated -- at least some of the books listed here have sales ranks again.

And yet...still no actual communication from Amazon, except for a lolariously ill-written email about "fixing the glitch".

Huh.

They did post about Barack Obama's new dog, though.

Guys, are we really coming across as that distractable by cute?

ETA: FWIW, hearsay from feministing is, essentially, glitch my ass.

ETA II, The Archiving: insixeighttime has put up a website chronicling the fail, including a timeline.

(no subject)

This weekend I was starting to get worried about R because I hadn't heard from him in a week, even after I texted him a few times, so finally I said TEXT ME BACK OR I'M GOING TO CALL YOUR MOTHER AND ASK IF YOU DIED. And he did. I know all the buttons to push!

Not that it would have mattered, he's been staying with her since Wednesday for some kind of Easterstravaganza (they're Catholic. Well, sort of). His second text message said "Meatloaf on Tuesday?" and I texted him that Mum had sent him a cookbook and we will be cooking something from that. He's scared now.

Meanwhile:

Sam: Yeah, my Easter Sunday was a little intense.
BossBoss: Oh?
Sam: *massive explanation of Amazon Fail* So the internet kind of went apeshit about it.
BossBoss: Oh, like that Sliders episode.

And the sad thing was that after staring at him for a second in shock that he watched SLIDERS, I knew which one he meant. Everybody who remembers the Sliders episode about the Constitution being banned, hands up!

It's funny too because the last thing they do in that episode is release the Constitution onto the internet and you see a monitor tracking how fast it got around the country. And I kind of scoffed, because sure, WHATever, one little piece of information is never going to travel that fast and get that much attention on the internet.

Uh. So, there's that.

Talking of, Amazon has sent out a new email! (thanks, swordage!) It sez:

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles - in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon's main product search.

Yeah, that last part, I think the internet grasped that, kids. It's good spin, really, reminding people that not just LGBT books were targeted, but the fact still remains that LGBT books were overwhelmingly targeted while books with similar but heterosexual themes were not. So it still begs the question of what the "cataloging error" was, precisely. Further on:

...we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

Oh, sweethearts, I bet you do.

Ayway, now I'm home, and there's stuff I should do, I should cook dinner or work on my Big Bang fic (which, btw, TARDIS Big Bang still needs artists!) or write up a book report on Pale Fire or sit and think a bunch more about Extribulum but you guys, I am all thought out. I am dead of internet.

I'm going to go watch Psych. :D

(no subject)

Poem for poetry month! In under the wire.

I'm not usually a fan of free verse, but vivichick shared this one with me and I was quite taken with it.

Ode to Pepper Vinegar
by Kevin Young

You sat in the tomb

of our family fridge
for years, without

fail. You were all

I wanted covering
my greens, satisfaction

( I've since sought... )