Australian Kindle owners

Amazon is trying to get Australians to switch to amazon.com.au but apparently if you do this you lose access to the ebooks you purchased from amazon.com. Here's log of (part of) the conversation I had with one of their support people:

Me: Lately amazon.com keeps telling me I can switch to amazon.com.au for ebook purchases. Is there any benefit to doing that other than seeing prices in AUD? It seems like a hassle to be using the .com.au site for some things and the .com site for others, especially when AUD and USD are so close in value anyway.

Regie(CSA): The reason why the system keeps telling you to transfer your account to Amazon.au it is because you're country settings is from Australia, correct?

Me: I am in Australia, that is correct.

Regie(CSA): That's is the reason, Mathew.

However, you can ignore the email about the migrating, Mathew.

Me: It's not an email, it;s a message that keeps appearing at the top of the page when I view items at amazon.com

And my question is, is there any benefit to switching, other than seeing prices in AUD, or is that the only thing that would change?

Regie(CSA): No, Mathew.

Regie(CSA): If you switch to Amazon.au, all your books that was purchased from Amazon.com will not be available to view or read unless you switch back to Amazon.com.

...

Me: Why would anyone want to switch their account if it will remove access to the books they already purchased? This is insane.

Regie(CSA): I do apologize, Mathew.

We don't have the information/

...

Me: OK, so is there some way I can make sure my account doesn't ever get switched to the au site? Because I don't want to lose access to my books.

Regie(CSA): No need to worry, as long as you will not accept the migration.

Me: So there is no way for me to just say "no, I don't want to switch" and have that be the end of it? It's just going to keep asking me forever?

Regie(CSA): Yes, Mathew.

I can't imagine what the hell they're thinking with this decision.

Logan Farm vegetables are shit

I bought this pack of frozen vegetables from the IGA near my house. Sorry, "Premium Vegetable Mix".

It looks pretty nice. Obviously I don't expect it to look exactly like the picture on the pack. For one thing, the actual product will be frozen. But you'd think that the picture would give a pretty good idea of the contents of the pack - that's kind of the point.

Here's what's actually in the pack.

It's not quite the same. There's just something about that distribution that seems off. Maybe it's the fact that there are about three beans in the entire pack. I was also expecting more carrot in comparison to the amount of peas and corn.

Don't buy Logan Farm vegetables.

French toasted cheese sandwich

Take two eggs. Break them into a bowl. Use a fork or something to whisk them up a bit so the yolk is mixed with the albumen.

Take two slices of bread and dunk them in the egg. Make sure to get both sides of both slices completely covered and do your best to soak up all the egg. Depending on the size of the eggs and slices of bread there may be a little bit left over.

Melt some butter in a frying pan. Put the slices of bread in the frying pan and tip the remaining egg on top of them.

While the bread is frying, slice some cheese and salami.

Once the bread is cooked to your satisfaction on one side, turn it over and put the sliced cheese and salami on top of one slice.

Once the other side of the bread is done, flip the second slice onto the first. The cheese should now be nicely melted. If not, leave it a little longer.

Once the eggy-bread is cooked and the cheese is melted, eat the sandwich.

I Am Mine

Have you heard the song I Am Mine? If not, don't worry, you're not missing much and it's just this one line I'd like to draw your attention to.

North is to South what the clock is to time

What? No it isn't. North is the opposite to south. A clock is an instrument for measuring time. Those are not equivalent relationships at all. North is to a compass as time is to a clock, maybe. North is to south as the future is to the past.

This line stands out to me every time I hear this song and it's the only line I actually know, because it's a pretty forgettable song, but that line is so dumb that you can't help but notice it. Maybe that's the idea. That line is deliberately wrong just so you'll notice the song exists. If so, well played Pearl Jam.

But actually I think Pearl Jam are just idiots.

Windows 8

Since my main operating system is Linux Mint and I only use Windows to play games, I hadn't actually bothered upgrading from Windows XP until now. But Saints Row IV is going to require DirectX 10 and so I needed a new operating system. And you know what? It's OK.

I just noticed something about Joss Whedon

You know Joss Whedon, right? The guy responsible for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, etc. You've probably seen TV shows or movies he's worked on or created. But have you actually seen the guy himself?

Yahoo! Cares

I got an email recently telling me that Flickr has new features or something. As far as I was aware I had never used Flickr and didn't give two shits about its new features, so I went to the site to try to delete my account and unsubscribe. This proved more trouble than expected.

Facebook's new Scrabble

Recently, the Scrabble game available on the Facebook changed to a new version. I'm not sure why but I assume they think this one will be more profitable somehow. That doesn't bother me, I have no problem with them making money when they're providing me with a free game. What does bother me though is that the new Scrabble is shit.

"Indie" games suck

There, I said it. We've all been thinking it, but people just keep telling us that these games like Braid or Dear Esther are these wonderful stories told through a unique medium or whatever the fuck they go on about, but it's a load of shit.

Buried Hope

My first thought on finishing this book was "Where's the rest?" It doesn't really seem to actually finish, it's more like the author just stopped writing at that point and gave up.

What is there is pretty good, but I can't really say much about it, because basically all you're left with at the end is questions. Maybe it's supposed to be part one of a serialised story, but the Amazon page says nothing about that, so I'm judging it as a stand-alone story.

If a part two appears I'll almost certainly read that, but until it does I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. Read Wool Omnibus instead.