what happened to amazon?

i used to get mails from amazon that were filled with one thing after another that i couldn't resist - books, cameras, lenses. i couldn't click in and add them to my shopping cart fast enough. but the mails i get from them today are generic and lame, full of crappy stuff - tools, hip hop albums, non-apple electronics (gasp!) - that indicate that they no longer know me at all. even worse, today i got a mail from them that had no less than a dozen mega bloks halo sets. mega bloks for me? what? really? don't you know i'm a lego girl? amazon, are you trying to tell me you'd like to break up? or that we already broke up and i just didn't realize it?

i used to think amazon was as close as you could get to shopping in an actual shop in the virtual world. the suggestions below the items you're looking at are always related in a good way, but could easily lead you to other things, just like browsing in a bookstore. but it seems they've changed their algorithms and that's just not true anymore. i hate to sound like a crabby old woman who thinks everything was better in the old days, but really, amazon was better in the old days. luckily, i'm going to london next week and i can hang around in some real bookstores.

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i seriously need to visit chernobyl.

committed

i ran across this list of reasons people were committed to a west virginia insane asylum in the late 1800s. hmm, in light of recent events in the congress of the united states, perhaps we should bring back that "politics" one and frankly "religious enthusiasm" wouldn't hurt either while we're at it.

i'd be in trouble myself with "novel reading" and "dissolute habits" as well as "bad habits and political excitement" not to mention the occasional "feebleness of intellect" and "periodical fits" (is that fits over reading periodicals or are they just every once in awhile?), tho' my periodical fits are possibly related to "menstrual derangement."

i've always wondered what "dropsy" was. and apparently back then there was just a "time of life" when you entered an insane asylum. "egotism" was a reason to be committed in those days, whereas today we encourage it.

i suspect that we simply go for a spa weekend to get over many of these things in this day and age. and gunshot wounds are probably treated in regular hospitals. i hope that one goes to regular prison for shooting one's daughter these days, unless it was done from a "gathering in the head," in which case, perhaps an asylum is still appropriate. not so many people fall from their horse during war, so i imagine their business on that front has fallen off significantly.

well, i don't know about you, but i'm off to clear my "congestion of the brain" by reading a novel...

a stroll down memory lane: scenes from business class

the view from the business class bathrooms on SAS

i'm feeling nostalgic after having meetings with loads of vendors and old friends from my previous professional life. you know, back three years ago when my suitcase was never unpacked and i didn't know what time zone i was in or which continent i was on without checking my blackberry.  tho' it feels good to be back in the hugo boss suit these days, now i'm all iPhone and ecological and stuff. but those days of jetting around in business class were well, da bizness. i asked a friend yesterday if we properly enjoyed them and he said, "yes, we definitely did."

a few moments for your enjoyment:

~ my first time in business class was on a upgrade that a kind gate agent in atlanta bestowed upon me and a colleague after i got sent back to the check-in by security so i could check in the small kitchen blow torch i'd bought at williams sonoma. he got such a kick out of us, he upgraded us as a surprise and we didn't know it 'til we got to the gate. i still have the souvenir glass i took from that flight. and would you believe the airline was actually air france?

~ my first actual trip where i was booked in business class and there intentionally was together with a colleague who had spent most of his childhood in business class and related how world-shattering it was for him when he realized that all those people downstairs on the plane got to the destination at the same time. sigh.

~  the time we got upgraded from business to first class on thai, but only on the short flight from bangkok to phuket. first class on thai airways is so heavenly - with the softest, cushiest purple leather seats you've ever seen and room for dinner guests and their pony - we said we were staging an environmental protest when it was time to leave the plane. the protest was that we refused to leave that environment. when we encountered the customs officials, it turned out that we should definitely have stayed on the plane. corrupt bastards.

~ the time on south african airlines where i sat next to a hilarious guy from finland (seriously, finnish humor is totally underrated) who insisted we try ALL of the wines (south african, of course) and then do away with most of a bottle of amarula, all while regaling me with stories of his travels that kept me laughing the whole way and not even minding the lack of sleep. strangely, i don't even think i learned the guy's name.

~ one time in chennai when a lufthansa flight was delayed by several hours - really a drag because they tend to be scheduled for 1 a.m. anyway. we were finally let on the plane and seated and served our champagne, only to have the whole plane flash and go dark. a few worrying minutes later, the captain came on and said the plane had blown a fuse and they were looking for it. a little disconcerting in light of how old and un-modernized the biz class seats were on the 747. we said to the stewardesses flight attendants that we didn't really mind that much at that point, as long as they kept the G&Ts coming. it got even more interesting once we arrived in frankfurt, hours late, missing our gate and found that someone had forgotten to order stairs, so we waited on the tarmac another 45 minutes before some were brought out to us. so much for german efficiency. and in the end, we flew back to copenhagen on the same flight with skeptical environmentalist bjørn lomborg, who was wearing his signature tight black t-shirt and trying to act like he wasn't pleased to see the recognition in people's eyes. (i have actually written about this before, but it was a memorable flight.)

~ hurrying through the airport in tokyo to make our SAS flight and we overtake some really elderly SAS stewardesses flight attendants hobbling along making their way to the gate. my colleague says, "i'm sure those geriatric specimens will be the flight attendants on our flight and they'll ignore us the whole way." sure enough, they were, tho' they did keep the wine coming, which was all that really mattered. SAS stands for Sexy After Sixty, i tell you, so it's not too late yet for my dream of becoming a stewardess, unless, of course, they go bust, which just might happen.

~ with the same colleague, we used to choose the same movie our individual screens, then count down and start it simultaneously, since it would be annoying to watch the same movie but be at different points in the film.

ahh, those really were the days and sometimes i do miss them. i blame the hugo boss suit for bringing it all back and making me feel a bit nostalgic.