devi: (Default)
devi ([personal profile] devi) wrote2004-07-22 01:11 pm

Modern manners

Is there an acceptable way to tell people you have started an, erm, an... amazon wishlist?

(Edit take 2: does the link work now? Thanks, [livejournal.com profile] mooism :) )

[identity profile] fluffymormegil.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:11 am (UTC)(link)
I'd say that works.

[identity profile] kauket.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:16 am (UTC)(link)
Is there any post today........

[identity profile] bluedevi.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:23 am (UTC)(link)
I haven't been down yet, but I'll check now.

[identity profile] kauket.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:24 am (UTC)(link)
...
i need to go home before gym tonight anyway, so i can always find out when get home.

[identity profile] huskyteer.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:25 am (UTC)(link)
Um, the link takes me to my wishlist.

[identity profile] atommickbrane.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:26 am (UTC)(link)
Erhem, that link appears just to take me to my own wish list (unless you also want Quatermass, dictionary books et al)?!

[identity profile] mooism.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:27 am (UTC)(link)
I’m perplexed: Why did you link to my wishlist?

(“Gosh,” I thought, “those books look familiar. So does the name. And the description. Ah.”)

[identity profile] huskyteer.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:28 am (UTC)(link)
And there was me thinking I'd found someone else desperate for The Big Sleep on DVD, the collected short stories of J. G. Ballard and The Red Baron's Last Flight: A Mystery Investigated.

[identity profile] femme-letale.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:28 am (UTC)(link)
I have put a link to my wishlist in my journal. You never know when people's generous spirit might kick in!

[identity profile] mooism.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:30 am (UTC)(link)
Try linking here (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/registry/2ISIK86K6URAS/ref%3Dwl%5Fs%5F3/026-6537239-8097205) :-)

[identity profile] bluedevi.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:36 am (UTC)(link)
Hey, that reminds me! I need a dictionary! :)

[identity profile] ghoti.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:52 am (UTC)(link)
I've never managed to work that out. So I have a whish list (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~kprocter/Kwish.html), which I point people at when they ask, but which, hitherto, had not been linked to.

[identity profile] ghoti.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:53 am (UTC)(link)
and I can spell 'wish', but I think prefer my new spelling. Also, it mostly contains too expensive things, like electric cauldrons, because I know noone will actually buy me one.

[identity profile] bluedevi.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:55 am (UTC)(link)
Electric cauldrons? How technopagan :)

[identity profile] ghoti.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 05:59 am (UTC)(link)
They're very shiny and entirely portable, so long as the place you want to port them to has mains electricitiy.

[identity profile] kasku.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 06:23 am (UTC)(link)
If you buy something from it, does it automatically get removed from your wishlist so that two people don't buy the same thing by accident?

xx

[identity profile] bluedevi.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 06:33 am (UTC)(link)
I think so. But I'm not sure. Any more experienced wish-listers care to enlighten us?

[identity profile] ravenblack.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 08:43 am (UTC)(link)
I think the usual way of announcing it is more like "it's my <link>birthday</link>."

[identity profile] mzdt.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 08:46 am (UTC)(link)
I suspect so...

what happens if I happen to have things you want s/h already, and passed them on to you? just as good? (OK, one was a present (alebit s/h at that point), but I'm never going to read it. You can try to guess what...

[identity profile] bateleur.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 09:30 am (UTC)(link)
[livejournal.com profile] kasku> Yes, kinda. The really sucky thing about wishlists, though, is that 3rd parties can't mark that they've bought you something from it other than by buying via the wishlist.

You might think this is a smart move on Amazon's part, because it encourages you to buy the thing from them. The catch is that normally if I'm buying something for someone I want to send it to myself and wrap it up. Consequently, wishlists are worse than useless because not only don't they support this but anything on them is liable to be bought by someone else.

Most ironic of all, anything not on the wishlist risks being something the person doesn't want. As a result, I'm most likely to get them something not from Amazon, just to be on the safe side !

(This being why I don't have a wishlist myself)

[identity profile] kasku.livejournal.com 2004-07-22 10:58 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, clever buggers. I guess they assume that you must be odd if you want to wrap and send it yourself. Whyever would you want to do that when they can do a delightfully personal and hand-written computer print-out of your birthday message?

I guess I'll just have to take a chance and buy something from it anyway, and hope no one else has bought the same gift in Real Life and wrapped it up better than Amazon. :-)

(I don't have a Wlist either, as it happens!)

[identity profile] bluedevi.livejournal.com 2004-07-23 03:53 am (UTC)(link)
I'd be very happy to give any of them a new home, if you're getting rid of them!

So it's a book, and it's about something you might seem to be interested in but actually aren't. Hmm...


[identity profile] bluedevi.livejournal.com 2004-07-23 04:03 am (UTC)(link)
My gosh. I didn't expect there to be so much traffic on it that several people trying to buy the same thing would be an issue!

I suppose if you wanted to 'mark' something as having been bought elsewhere, the only way would be to get in touch with the recipient as soon as you'd bought it, so they could take it off the list. (Though that does mean no mysterious surprise parcels in the post...)

bateleur: Things not on the wishlist aren't necessarily things I don't want, they might be things I would want if I knew about them. :)

kasku: Ooh. Thank you!

[identity profile] kasku.livejournal.com 2004-07-23 08:36 am (UTC)(link)
You're very welcome! I'm going to hold off on doing an order for a couple more days though so that if anyone's ordering at the same time as me we don't get our wires crossed! :-)