An Amazon Comment Postscript
I seriously doubt people are just breathlessly waiting to hear the next thing I'm going to write on Amazon, but I wanted to wrap up a couple of loose ends from prior comments.Before I do say, have you seen the Amazon TV spots? I don't remember in past years, and maybe I'm simply part of a targeted audience Amazon covets; maybe they have a deal with my cable provider. I know online they do it. I'll suddenly see an item I looked at on Amazon, a past purchase maybe, in ad space on a website. Sometimes it's charming, but it's overdone, it can get to be annoying, even a little creepy. I do like the TV spots with the infectious "can you feel it?" hook. There were rumors that one of my nieces/goddaughters might end up working at Amazon.
As a professional Oracle DBA, I wasn't really thrilled with how Amazon was boasting about how it has weaned itself off Oracle database technology. (Familiar readers know I first encountered Oracle as a grad student at UH, when documentation came in 3-ring binders and SQL*PLUS was called UFI, for user-friendly interface. When I was forced out of academia in a recession, I reinvented myself as an Oracle DBA, but it took a while to get my foot in the door. Oracle has its own issues (I once worked for them as a senior principal consultant). But what many people don't know is that Amazon is a huge presence in cloud computing, and unsurprising, as the database business is maturing, Oracle wants a piece of the cloud computing market, and my guess is that Amazon isn't crazy about funding its competition. )
Now one point I made recently was you needed to know your prices, and the example I gave was that Amazon was charging something like $24 for 48 Lipton gallon iced tea bags, while Sam's Club was charging $10.52. I noted I meant to restock on my last trip to Sam's Club; either they were out of stock or I must have overlooked them. I could have bought them via Internet, but Sam's Club wants you to double your membership cost for free delivery, and it would cost $5 to ship two boxes. I noted that still, I could get 2 boxes of product for just over the same price for one box, even with free Prime delivery.
So soon after my post (and the timing might be purely coincidental), but the next time I was on the site, there was some sort of a flash ad that had me looking for Lipton tea again, and their price exactly matched Sam's Club, and I qualified for free shipping with a minimum purchase of 2. So my shipment of 3 boxes arrived today.
I've never got an incentive in my blig history for promoting a product, but given all the publicity I've been giving to Lipton iced tea bags, I wouldn't mind getting some free product. Just kidding. It was initially an impulse purchase earlier this year, and now it's my go-to beverage at home.
Oh, and for anyone who was wondering, the missing Amazon purchase was delivered to the apartment office. Only I had to wait until Tuesday for pickup because the office wasn't open Monday. And Amazon seemed to go out of the way to let me know there were 70 Amazon lockers in the area I could use to pick up my delivered product. Very good to know.
Latest WWE Storytelling
I haven't done one of these in a while. The WWE ran some interesting storylines before or during Survivor Series. One was to run a predictable one-way invasion angle where Smackdown athletes dominated Raw's/, only to see (surprise, surprise) the Raw wrestlers sweep their inter-promotional rivals.But ironically Smackdown Champ Becky (The Man!? Say what?) Lynch, originally to meet Raw Champ Ronda Rousey, got accidentally injured by a punch in the face by Nia Jax, which forced WWE to book an alternate opponent, Charlotte Flair. Now how do you book two of their best female athletes, both babyfaces (good guys) without weakening them? WWE Creative turned Flair heel, getting disqualified with use of an illegal weapon (a stick).
The accidental injury caused by Jax is worked into the storyline, bur the natural feuds of Jax/Lynch and Rousey/Flair are abruptly dropped to focus on the heels' challenges for brand championships. It really doesn't make sense given (1) there are no longer brand-specific PPV's and (2) the Lynch/Flair feud is now a heel/heel pairing. (Of course, Jax/Lynch would be heel/heel, but within the context of a cross-promotion rivalry. Of course, they have now thrown Asuka into the mix with Flair and Lynch, which reminds me of the feud of Hogan and Andre the Giant making the way for Macho Man to win the championship. I didn't, however, like the way they recently had Asuka going after the heels with a stick. I would rather see Asuka being paired against Rousey or Banks. I'm also still waiting for WWE to unveil a ladies' tag team title. They've teased that with the Bailey-Banks' pairing.
It was an interesting idea to turn Daniel Bryan heel in putting the WWE belt on him. I don't like the way they have resorted to having Bryan and Nakamura win with crotch attacks. It would make more sense to have them rely on unnecessary dirty tricks, like brass knuckles, green mist, etc. I think a Bryan-Nakamura feud would be brilliant, but with both of them playing heels, it's hard to see it. And Bryan's promo skills as a heel suck--he seems to be running as a judgmental environmentalist presumptuously attacking crowds as anti-environmental. It comes across as more annoying than hostile. I mean, what's next--he starts a feud with a wrestler who he catches drinking with a plastic straw?
One of my favorites, Kevin Owens, disappeared from TV weeks back. They really haven't done much with Nakamura since putting the US title on me. They keep flirting putting the title on Strowman, but it's difficult to see how you take the belt off an unbeatable monster
