Technically Incorrect

Sometimes, readers write to me. Sometimes, a couple of their words begin with an "f" or a "b." However, on Friday it was just "b"s. "Best Buy," "Best Buy," they said, along with one or two other words beginning with "b."

The customers' simmering frustration seemed to be directed at a Black Friday offer of a spectacular deal on an HP Pavilion P6214y package. I am sure this was a very fine offer. Unfortunately, Best Buy kept taking orders for it after it didn't have any more of the product.

The Best Buy community forum was positively humming with anguish. A poster named Ibanezlord wrote: "I ordered the HP Pavillion P6214y bundle the minute it was available online which was on 11/26 around 11:36pm Pacific time. How long will it be untill (sic) I receive my entire order?"

This sounded reasonable. Measured, even.

Best Buy employs such warm, friendly people.

(Credit: CC Kyle Mac/Flickr)

Ibanezlord continued: "The printer is supposed to be here this Friday 12/4, but I am more concerned on how long it is going to take to get the whole package. I would hate for BB to send me a part of the package and then expect me to pay shipping to send it back if my computer never shows up. Why would BB sell me something they do not even have in stock? Also, there was no indication of the package being back ordered."

The more I read, the more concerned I became. I know people can get rather upset when they buy things, when they Best Buy things, and then don't get them. Posters to Best Buy's forums were concerned that they wouldn't even get their shipping fees back. And it's the little things that can really rile.

So I contacted Best Buy about the readers' complaints, and the official reply was this: "On Thanksgiving morning we noticed a system error that allowed a limited quantity of special offers to be processed after the product had sold out. This resulted in a limited number of orders involving those products to be canceled."

As all mathematicians know, many numbers have their limits, but this was an offer that enticed people to buy computers with very lovely numbers.

Best Buy continued: "While it is unusual for our system to experience errors like this, as soon as we became aware of the issue we fixed it and notified affected customers. We encourage those customers to contact us if they have any questions, and we'll continue to make the appropriate adjustments to ensure our customers receive the service they expect when shopping with Best Buy. We apologize for the uncommon error."

But will Best Buy do anything for these depressed, disconsolate, discombobulated customers?

I did ask. And here's the reply I got late Friday from Erin Gunderson at Best Buy: "At this time we are encouraging affected customers to contact our customer relations department. Once they get in touch with a representative, we will handle [the problem] on a case by case basis."

One can only hope it will all be handled with that most service-oriented "f" and "b"- fair and balanced.

I wouldn't for a moment think that anyone working late on something frightfully significant in Redmond would conceive of alcohol as a means to help them through their engineer's block.

But just in case there is one tortured soul who might be tempted to have a six-pack delivered to his cubicle, I have some difficult news.

i-Booze, the Seattle-based folks to whom you used to be able to turn online for a swift delivery of soothing liquids, seems to have fallen on difficult times.

For Techflash has delivered the information that not only has i-Booze failed to secure a license to sell liquor but that its enterprising founder, Karim Varela, uncorked a plea bargain on two misdemeanor charges of selling alcohol without a license and illegal possession of alcohol with intent to sell.

Isn't Epic a lovely name for a beer?

(Credit: CC Epic Beer/Flickr)

In truth, i-Booze isn't i-Booze any more. While the idea reportedly came to Varela when he was in jail for DUI, there were those who felt the name might be something of an incitement to excess. So the company recently changed its name to Dilky.com.

Which some might find a more neutral moniker, but I find my neural association membrane immediately goes to "alky."

In speaking to Techflash, Varela did not sound confident of Dilky's resurrection: "We are still working with the city and the liquor control board to regain a license, but it is a difficult battle."

Prohibition is not quite at hand, though. Anne Radford of the Washington State Liquor Control Board said the board will look into the matter over the next couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, Varela is hoping that former customers and those who would like to be current customers might lobby the board with a human rights appeal. Or perhaps offers of a free wine-tasting trip. (Some details exaggerated here.)

What hope he has, Varela is putting into the presence of a new Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, who replaced someone called Tom Carr.

"We feel our downfall was mostly due to ex City Attorney Tom Carr's battle against bars, clubs, and alcohol in Seattle and we just got caught up in the middle when really we're providing a beneficial service for the community," Varela told Techflash.

A beneficial service, indeed. I would happily use it were it to descend to the Bay Area. However, it might also have helped if the service had benefited from a name such as i-Pinot or i-(De)liver rather than the somewhat provocative i-Booze.

I have avoided Black Friday every year. Somehow, the idea of baying, greedy crowds fighting for $100 off some piece of electronica seems like the equivalent of searching for stray wax in a stranger's ears.

But there's a Best Buy opposite the greatest Starbucks in the world--at Marin City, Calif. (one-time home of Tupac Shakur). And, struggling after an interesting Thanksgiving meal of, well, too much good food, wine, and secrets told after the good food and wine, I parked outside my Starbucks and was drawn by the fascination of the blue and yellow.

A large sign outside Best Buy read: "Line starts here," but there was no one standing there. Had people simply ignored the sign, smashed down the doors, and stormed the building, in search of the weekend's dream of a larger, flatter screen?

I walked gingerly toward the front door, fearing I would immediately see tense bodies and twisted faces fighting over the last box with Samsung written on it. Instead, a chap in the blue polo shirt bid me good morning. Inside, it seemed like any other day at Best Buy.

My receipt, complete with markings from the Best Buy magic marker.

(Credit: Chris Matyszczyk)

People milled around with seemingly little purpose. Best Buy employees stood around, one or two stifling a little yawn, a couple of others not bothering with the stifling.

A few people hovered over the MacBook display. Should they buy the MacBook Pro, or the little white MacBook, on offer for less than $1,000?

Most of the aisles had no more than one person in them. Wandering around was as simple and comfortable as a Wednesday stroll on the beach. But finally I saw a line. What was it that was drawing so many people (at least 15) to one place?

Ah, yes, these were the excited folks trying to line up an appointment with the Geek Squad. Names were being called out. Satisfaction was being doled out.

Then I remembered I needed some ink for my printer. I wafted over to the aisle and noticed that the price of an Hewlett-Packard double pack of black ink and color had actually gone up since I'd last bought some. There didn't seem to be any special offer on this one.

Should I buy it anyway? Wouldn't it be a pain to stand in line?

Then I looked up and saw that the line at the cash registers consisted of precisely three people. Two of them were together. As I paid my $34.87, the clerk had particularly bleary eyes.

"Crazy day, huh?" I said to him.

"No," he said, in an entirely friendly way.

"Is this usual?" I asked, somewhat confused.

"Oh, yeah. I'm happy," he replied.

After he'd taken the time to tell me that the man in front of me in line had enjoyed precisely the same security code on his Amex card as mine, and after another Best Buy employee had marked my receipt with a special marker, I disappeared to Starbucks.

One of the great baristas of our time, Kershina, told me that she'd opened the store at 5 a.m. and there had been around 200 people outside Best Buy at that time.

Now, just after 9, there was no one. It was just another day in the Marin City firmament. How typical this was of the rest of America, I have no idea. However, as I took my lattes back to my car, a couple were piling their own two-pack of boxes, both with an LG logo, into theirs. They seemed strangely relaxed.

In the place where they struck oil, they might, on hearing this news, be struck dumb.

You see, as I wandered through the pages of eBay in search of some fine and modern cooking utensils, I came across something that forced my digestive system to ask questions of my cerebellum.

(Credit: eBay)

For there (here, indeed) was what seemed to be a brand new Xbox 360 for sale at the most reasonable sum of $1.1 million.

This, as your own cerebellum might be whispering to you, is no ordinary Xbox. For this pristine machine was signed by former governor of Alaska and current literary figure Sarah Palin.

The enervatingly enterprising vendor of this quite frankly priceless technological specimen is David Morrill (that's Morrill, not Imorrill) who claims he resides in Alberta, Canada.

He says he took a trip to Alaska and made sure it coincided with the then-governor's picnic on July 24.

He claims he pushed his way through the crowd to get within sniffing distance of the great Alaskan's hem, told her he had traveled three days just to see her, and asked her to sign his Xbox.

It's ugly. It's not proactive. It turns a deaf ear, a blind eye, and a snubby nose to investors. And it looks upon advertising as if it were as appropriate as an anchor tattoo on the Pope's forehead.

In sum, suggests Gary Wolf in the latest issue of Wired, Craigslist is a mess. A horrible mess. An embarrassing mess. A willful mess in which its principals rake in money while its principles seem to revolve around some weirdly benign view of human goodness.

Of course, you can see what he means.

We live in the forging, gorging West. We need things to be large and shiny. We need the surface of everything to be attractive, clean and bright, so that the mirage can somehow compensate for a reality that might not be quite so perfect.

At least, that's what so many of those who manage brands seem to believe.

And yet there's Google, whose sense of design might most politely be described as workmanlike. Although I have heard phrases such as "naive" or even "dull."

Messy? Moi?

(Credit: CC Psd/Flickr)

Somehow, Google has never really made too much of an effort to sex up the look of its search and it has done really quite well. Microsoft's Bing sees this as one of Google's potential weaknesses and has made at least some attempts to look just a little cooler than its monolithic competitor.

So Craigslist is surely not alone in cradling its utilitarianism, while steering clear of glamour. Wolf makes much of Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster being slightly odd types who fancy themselves as libertarian, but rather wealthy, Robin Hoods.

However, shouldn't we really be thinking about ourselves as the odd types?

The fact that Craigslist gets more traffic than either eBay or Amazon suggests that the site's mess is one we humans not only recognize, but even appreciate.

Its utter lack of pretension, its acknowledgment of life as difficult, wayward, and, yes, messy, somehow serves to help people accept it as the place to go for real, everyday, sometimes very cumbersome needs.

Stripped of the glitter associated with conventional advertising and conventional business, Craigslist looks at you openly and benignly and says: "What annoying little burden can we take away for you, today?"

It's commercial psychotherapy of a very different sort than, say, Gucci.com.

The fact that the site and its way of doing business also happen to rhyme rather well with Newmark's and Buckmaster's view of the world might not be cause for criticism, but rather envy.

How many people are fortunate to live and work without having to compromise their principles, even their very personalities?

If Craigslist is such an embarrassing mess, why has no handsome eligible competitor come along and swiped it from the Web, like a nerdy, pimpled boy being removed from the pretty people's party?

Could it be that for all the ugliness, for all the bizarre bazaar-like quality of the site, people feel a certain recognition within its pages? Even a certain trust?

Yes, Craigslist is messy, annoying, contrarian, contradictory, arbitrary and just occasionally totally maddening. Somehow, people like that. Could it be because Craigslist is a little like us?

In this tough economy, forearmed is better than forewarned.

At least that seems to be the view of Mark Muller, owner of Max Motors in Clay County, Mo. Because, in August, he is offering a free AK-47 with every vehicle sold.

You might think this promotion a little on the eccentric side. However, Muller is no lily-livered Collapsenikov.

He believes in standing up for one's right to defend oneself. Indeed, he has a motto for his dealership that expresses his feelings very clearly: "God, Guns, Guts and American Pick-up Trucks."

You might wonder how on earth he came to devise such an outlandish, and perhaps slightly unnerving, promotion.

Well, last year he offered a free handgun. And, in an interview with CNN (embedded here), he said: "It spiked our Web traffic and we sold, we estimate, 35 more cars during the promotion than we normally would have."

So the seductive power of the gun seems to work on those who choose the Web to find the best deals.

This year, Muller said, he is looking to sell 100 extra vehicles, hence the attempt to locate your inner Rambo.

Muller explained to CNN: "Look, there's a bunch of evil in the world and we need to protect ourselves."

He added: "There's a tremendous crime problem around here with people doing meth. These people have lost their souls. They don't care about you. They don't care about me. They care about getting more dope."

Hence the need, according to Muller, for something stronger than a little handgun.

In case you were wondering whether he will have a pile of AKs in his showroom, from the top of which he'll take one and present it to every purchaser, well, it's not quite so glamorous.

He will offer a voucher that the lucky truck-owner can take down to a gun store and go through the proper vetting procedure before he gets his precious free gift. Which, should you suddenly feel the urge to pack extra protection, will set you back a mere $450.

However, Muller is keen to point out that just because he lives in a more rural area, this promotion is not indicative of some sort of uncultured nature on his part.

He was quoted in the Telegraph as explaining: "They think we are all cross-eyed rednecks down here. We are not. Tonight I am going to the theater with my wife to see Anything Goes and we will eat sushi on the way."

I am sure there will be at the very least a handgun tickling his hip as he nibbles on his rainbow roll.

However, I feel confident that Muller's strategy will prove to be a good one.

Next year, when he looks to send his Web traffic soaring in an attempt to sell 200 more vehicles, I feel sure he will offer bazookas, a mortar or two, perhaps even a rocket launcher.

If anyone were to give you a horse, would you peer all the way past its teeth to check for, I don't know, human heads?

I only ask because a site called ItemNotAsDescribed.com (tagline: Free is a Four-Letter Word) has dedicated itself to examining some of the free offers on Craigslist. Specifically, the site exists to expose the worst of the free in the Land of the Free.

For example, from Tucson's Craigslist come some book shelves, which have seen better days but clearly can't remember them. The ad for the shelves declares: "in the alley by the dumpster is a utility shelf made of wood for free. Someone left it there - please dont inquire - just come and get it."

The ItemNotAsDescribed poster adds: "For storing your least valuable possessions - the ones you're openly hostile towards. 'Here you go, fourth-place trophy, 2008 Fourth of July Chili Cook-Off. Enjoy your new home [mumbles obscenities]'."

Perhaps, though, you'd prefer these smashed-up ceramic tiles from the Humboldt Craigslist? Advertised as: "About 150 broken tan colored ceramic tiles that would be great for art projects," they look a little, well, utterly useless.

Er, no. I didn't find this on Craigslist.

(Credit: CC Fengergold/Flickr)

The ItemNotAsDescribed contributor puts it far more elegantly: "Strangely, the artworld has not yet recognized your genius. Keep trying. Place these tiles in a heavy plastic bag and throw them away. Made the cover of ArtForum, yet?"

The contributor, as so many on this delightful site, continues in eloquence: "At the very least, you will be helping this poster with her performance art project. She tries to get people to come over and take out her trash, to demonstrate human gullibility. You are her first victim. Sorry, I mean, collaborator."

The site even has categories that might help you sift through these worst of the free offers according to your predilections: "Classy", "Delicious" and "Spooky" are just three of the subsections.

Perhaps my favorite is this most delicious offer from the Bay Area's Craigslist: Gerber Cereal for Infants.

You might wonder why someone might give away baby food for free on Craigslist. Well, the advertiser is very open about the flaws in these wares: "One expired on Sept 08 the other Nov 08. But they still have the cellophane on them."

The ItemNotAsDescribed poster is effusive in his good fortune at discovering such a multi-layered bargain: "Sweet, they still have the cellophane on them. Something for the baby to play with after we've fed him long-expired food."

It almost makes those most generous posters who, earlier this week, used Craigslist to try to sell their free tickets to the Michael Jackson memorial seem like altruists. Almost.

In death, there is retail life.

Michael Jackson was an icon, so, somewhere along the way, there will be those who will want to capitalize on his passing.

Drifting through eBay's pages, one sees that many who seem to be bowing their heads in respect may actually be stooping to fairly venal lows.

Take the staggering swiftness of enterprising seller JanisK56, who put a lovely item of memorabilia up for sale Thursday, just before it was confirmed by TMZ that Jackson was no more.

This seller offered, as a one-day special, a 2003 People magazine cover featuring the singer.

(Credit: CC Asim Bijarani)

Did the cover feature a triumphant world tour? Or perhaps a family reunion? Not quite. The headline is "Did he do it?" and it features an eight-page analysis of child molestation allegations.

"Will Others Come Forward?" asks the cover. Which is what I was wondering when considering who else would want to sell such mindlessly inappropriate memorabilia to people who might be fans. At the time of writing, the leading bid for this cover is $11.50. Which might strike some as $12 too much.

If that doesn't make you feel a touch queasy, several sellers are attempting to capitalize on pristine editions of yesterday's New York Times. Some, like AFlowerandagun, even add lines to remind you why you should spend cash to buy this paper.

"This is a historic day," declares AFlowerandagun's subhead. But is it really so historic and moving a day that you can't help but try to make $15.50 (the leading bid as I write) on a copy of a newspaper?

Then there's Erickdigger, a seller who is offering a "Michael Jackson life mask." Yes, not a death mask, a life mask.

The seller explains: "This started with an actual life cast mask of Michael Jackson. Then it has been sculpturaly (sic) enhanced by me Erick Erickson.The Hair, ears and eyebrows have been added to create a very lifelike display." And he concludes: "It's like having Jacko right there with you."

The price for Jacko's life mask is $44.99.

I fully understand that many people around the world are moved by Jackson's death. But to write a line like "It's like having Jacko there with you" seems tantalizingly insensitive.

Then again, how might fans feel about the "Michael Jackson Poseable Doll"? This seller, Deathcall47 (really) is offering a Jackson doll from the 1980s still in its box. Deathcall47 leaves a note, so that you can be clear what he is feeling.

"1984 MICHAEL JACKSON POSEABLE DOLL A MUST HAVE FOR ANY JACKSON FAN. SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT HIS DEATH. THIS IS A VERY HOT ITEM FOR ANY FAN," he begins. And he concludes with: "YOU WONT BE SORRY WHO KNOW'S (sic) WHAT THIS IS GOING TO BE WORTH."

The leading bid at the time of writing is $250. I wonder if it's a fan or a mere capitalist.

Jackson's death is extremely sad. But isn't there also something a little sad about people who hear about his death and think they can make a few random bucks from it, regardless of what it is they have to sell? All the sellers I have mentioned put the items up for sale either Thursday or Friday.

Of course, one shouldn't be surprised. But one can only hope that fans, in their grief, will distinguish between the valuable, the sincere, the opportunistic and the utterly callous.

It would be interesting to hear what fans might think of the eBay seller named cadzdaman.

He is offering the domain name MJ-IS-DEAD.com.

At least his message is very straightforward: "Domain name to inform those of Michael's tragic death, or can be resold for a profit."

Indeed. The leading bid as of Friday 12:52 p.m. PDT was $0.99.

Alina Percea, 18, needed to pay for a computing degree.

So, perhaps in an attempt to prove how significant computing is in modern life, she auctioned her virginity on a German Web site.

However, unlike Natalie Dylan, the American who claims to have secured bids of $3.7 million for the privilege of deflowering her (although no deeds seem either to have been signed or done), Alina did not attract offers in quite the same region.

The best bid she managed to secure came in at 8,800 pounds, or just over $13,000. The bidder, a 45-year-old Italian man, came through at the last minute by doubling the leading price.

Which was charming of him, so much so that Alina has now chosen to reveal details of how the deal enjoyed closure.

You will be moved to hear that she did, indeed, enjoy it. She was flown to Venice to meet her fairly decent proposal.

The Daily Mail quoted her as describing her first impressions: "At the arrivals lounge, a man came over, smiled, handed me a box of chocolates and said: 'Welcome to Venice.' He looked much younger than 45, short, but nicely dressed, with dark hair, green eyes and a kind smile."

(Credit: CC Zoonabar/Flickr)

So it all started, as memorable days should, with a pleasant surprise. Alina admitted she was hoping for something of a "Pretty Woman" scenario.

The man took her site-seeing in Venice and didn't happen to mention whether he was single, married or just a little odd. He had booked them into a five-star hotel for the consummation of the transaction.

As for the act itself, well, Alina says they had sex just the once (after all, he was 45) and apparently had breakfast the next morning "just like any other couple."

Oh, and for breakfast, Alina had a morning-after pill.

Forgive me if I didn't mention it, unprotected sex was part of the deal. Of course, the gentleman had a certificate to prove that he was STD-free.

May I leave you with one final twist to a story that neither Danielle Steel nor Mills and Boon nor Stephen King would have dared even to outline?

Alina would like to see her benefactor again. And she promises that if he agrees to see her, she won't make him pay. I think she means "not for the sex, anyway".

Isn't it lovely how the Web can sometimes create the perfect conditions for romance to have a chance?