The ideal solution

When The Satanic Verses was published in Norway, a rabid Islamist shot the publisher, William Nygaard. Fortunately, Nygaard (who is Good People in so many ways) survived.

I suggest that this time around, a rabid Islamist with far better shooting skills can have a go at Vebjørn Selbekk, the editor of the fanatical Christian paper Magazinet, thereby a) getting revenge for the offended Muslims and b) ridding Norway of a horrible idiot, kplzthx.

Book shopping

Wee rant coming up.

So this truly terrific book-recommender tells me about Chancery Stone's novel Danny: v. 1, I toddle off to Amazon and order it, as it happens I order a brilliant copy from a private seller which comes signed and with a bookmark and a signed poster(!), and all is well in the realm of Ina.

Or not.

A little later, I get a notification from Amazon about them not being able to withdraw the money from my credit card account. Nothing new about that, I've just gotten it renewed and I keep forgetting to update my credit card info wherever I shop. So I enter the new info, delete the old card, successfully change the credit card on a couple of Katharine Kerr preorders (the last two Deverry books will be released this summer, fucking finally) and try to change the card on my Stone order.

Error message.

I try again. Error message. And again. Error message. I e-mail Amazon. They send me a help mail. Error message, a-fucking-gain. More e-mail to Amazon, more unhelpful help reply. More error messages.

Finally, both Amazon and I despair. I e-mail the seller, explaining why the order won't go through and practically begging him to put the book up for sale again asap, as I really want that particular copy (poster! Signed!). He replies and is very nice to me, telling me that he certainly will put it up again, and if there are any problems with re-ordering I can contact him and we'll sort it out outside Amazon. Now the original order has been automatically cancelled.

So I'm twiddling my thumbs and waiting anxiously for that copy to reappear, whilst watching a bloke on Big Brother giving spectacular head to a banana, proving that he has no gag reflex whatsoever. Please shoot me.


In other news, there seems to be trouble with LJ comment notifications again.