Amazon, gambling, and my quirks.

I decided to pop on to Amazon and see what was new and funky, or at least what was old and cheap. I added some bits and bobs to the shopping basket, pruned out some items with a long delivery time, and chose the el-cheapo postage option. It really must have been a while because my credit card had expired, a simple fix and I checked out.

Now I know with the free postage it takes a little longer to delivery so I wasn't expecting it for a while, anyway I logged on to check the estimate - 28/02 - 03/03 Wha? Who? Wha? Obviously something was holding it up, but what? Now Amazon have altered their site slightly and I have a list of about eight items, but now none of them are showing me an individual delivery estimate - I've got to click on each one to find out. Thank you Opera and your easy "Open in new tab" option. Turned out to be the first two items were 3-4 and 4-5 weeks (I swear they were in stock when I put them in the basket). I'm glad I had so few items to check, could have been really annoying, of course I could have chosen the more expensive delivery option and sent them out as and when they became available, but I've made some mistakes in ordering in the past and return of non-faulty items doesn't get you your postage back. Cheapness on my part and I can't blame Amazon for this, it shows up on my email confirmation with this date; I just think it wold be nice to see what items are slowing things down.

An addressed letter came through this morning giving me an exclusive invitation to 100 free spins for an on-line gambling site. No pass-codes to identify me just a link to a section of their website (that admittedly doesn't appear to be linked from their main site), a CD with software, and a UK toll-free number. So far so good, where are they - Belize. To quote the CIA World book

Current concerns include high unemployment, growing involvement in the South American drug trade, and increasing urban crime.

Sounds nice. Their location is quite easy to find on the letter and it's printed on the CD, oddly it doesn't seem to be listed on their website. Now I know we're all in a big global market here, but I also have to wonder why a company whose headquarters is in the Caribbean is registered with a Canadian gambling commission and accredited by a company based in London. Now it looks to be a big company and with the USA's recent cull on overseas gambling I can understand why they're touting for business, but ye Gods you've got to wonder whose jurisdiction it falls under if something goes wrong.

I have a problem with names. Unless it's through prolonged exposure, or just beaten into me I can't remember names -that's for both people and places (such as pubs etc.) Now those who've read more than just this article will know about the Stourport by-pass, or as I should perhaps call it the Stourport Relief Road (all capitalised). One of the roads that is on the planned development I pass at least four times a day and every time I note its name, "Discovery Road", and yet for some obscure reason I think of it as Discovery Way. I think I've found out why; and as it seems for most things the answer came from Google. On Google maps it's listed as "Resolution Way" and yet on Google Earth it's listed as "Discovery Way" so hurrah it's not all down to my dodgy memory for names.