Gold Box Update

News flash! Ben was offered a gold box item which does not (1) remove hair (2) belong in the kitchen. A honest to goodness DVD appeared in his box -- Ocean's Eleven to be exact. It was offered for $15.60 or something, about four dollars off of its regular Amazon price. There is a light at the end inside the Gold Box.

Completely unrelated:

Based on Merlin's recommendation, I'm now using SlashDock (for OS X) to keep track of the weblogs I read -- at least the ones that provide an RSS feed of their content. It's a pretty neat application.

If you're interested, the dollarshort.org rss file is here.

And also unrelated, Ben has written a tutorial on how to install SpamAssassin on OS X.

Comments

[heather]

the gold box appeared for me last weekend... i was might tempted by the george forman grill, but held off.

i was a little concerned that the gold box has insder information... first item was a vaccuum ("perhaps you should spend more time cleaning, heather"), the grill ("how about a little less take out, heather"), etc.

are they watching?

[Merlin]

I was directed to an electric razor and instructed to decide whether I wanted to buy it NOW or never see it again.

I just closed the page under the wilting pressure.

[Mena]

Mine is saying "Hey, Mena... I know you're a sucker for useless machines that just end up collecting dust in your kitchen cabinets." Yesterday I almost bought a popcorn air-poper. Today I wanted a bread machine.

[Anil]

My Gold Box taunts me. They showed 5 items, the first four of which were all unavailable, which they informed me with a cheeky message about how they "go so fast, even we can't keep up!".

Then they showed the fifth item. Electric razor.

[ste]

It doesn't even seem to be a random possibility anymore - I can access my gold box once daily. And the choices definitely don't reflect anything I've bought there - I was offered two different coffeemakers, an electric hair remover, a tea kettle, and a knife set. Only *slightly* tempted by the tea kettle - were I a lesser man, I might have folded. Fortunately, that one was "sold out."

[merlin]

Um. Is there any chance that the minds behind this feature have some kind of fetish for hair removal and snacking? Mmm...sounds like quite an evening.

[Jaimek]

not to burst your bubble or anything, but my boyfriend brought home Black Hawk Down DVD from Best Buy for the same price.

[Michael]

Other recommendation:
Pineapple - Pineapple is a website news aggregator for Mac OS X.
http://www.postal-code.com/phpnuke/html/sections.php?op=listarticles&secid=9

[Dan S.]

I was offered the DVD of Vanilla Sky yesterday for $5.

I've never seen the movie, and reviews were mixed, but **$5**. Of course I bought it.

[Daniel Talsky]

ice cream scooper, clear 12 cup coffee maker, 53 piece stainless steel flatware set, automatic electric kettle, and 6-Piece Steak Knife Set in Wood Storage Tray. This is definately a new level of wierdness for amazon.

[Paul]

Mena, I would have been all over that bread machine. And maybe the popcorn maker too. ("But, but, it uses air to pop!")

[judith]

my gold box thinks i live on a vast country estate, and offers me only items i might need for the maintenance of that estate - grass clippers, large saws, obscure wrenches. today it offered me "professional" swivel knee pads. when they offer me something that might fit in my tiny city apartment, i might consider it.

[Josette]

i saw the gold box a few days ago, but i blew it off, thinking it would reappear later. it hasn't, and now i'm skulking around amazon's site like a jilted lover. boo hoo.

[Jeff]

A little bit of net community magic is in order here.

Mena and Ben, I think you should set up a message board so that everyone can post their Gold Box goodies online, as it's happening. Or maybe an instant messager GB network needs to be established.

If someone else in the GB Community wants that item, then it's bought and the money is exchanged between the parties. Sort of like an eBay of the Gold Box variety.

What do you think?! ;-0

[linda]

hi mena,
i got offered the gold box two days in a row:

day one (yesterday):
1. a birdhouse
2. a garden tools set
3. a pair of gardening gloves
4. a hammock
5. a sun hat

day two (today):
1. a windchime
2. a hammock
3. another hammock(!)
4. a kite
5. an american flag

the GB would be so much better if it offered things from my wishlist or things like books, cds and dvds...

[Jamison]

My Gold Box offered me five different digital cameras (I've really been wanting one), but none of them had the right mix of features, or a good enough discount to make me jump at it.

The next day I started recieving spam from Amazon.com. I've been getting really pissed about spam lately (my ISP doesn't filter spam on domain accounts, they're working on it. Soon, they promise) So when I started getting junk mail from a "reputable" company like Amzon.conm, I let them know I was pissed and after a couple exchanges with customer service by e-mail about opting out of their "marketing communictions", I had them just shut down my account and remove my e-mail from their database.

Urgh, how could Amazon.com stoop so low as to start spamming me?

So I guess I'll never know what else I could have gotten in the Gold Box.

[Gerette]

You don't know me and yet I'm dreaming about you. Or rather, I'm dreaming about your posts. In my dream I was on Amazon and my husband asked me what this gold chest was on the screen. I told him that it was a special offer and that I had learned about it on a day late. Weird.

[kiddo]

I'm a 22-year old female who's never bought anything from Amazon other than DVDs (mostly Sci-Fi) and books (mostly Stephen King and Fantasy). So why is my gold box full of baby toys?