Gioia came to my subway station and was like REALLY happy anytime someone stopped to shake his hand in an almost gosh golly gee, really sort of way. I may vote for him.

Here's the Gotham Gazette about the race: [link] I think the upshot is, they don't disagree on much, and the office is useless anyway.

I think Patrick McEnroe was a complete heel for trying to press Serena for an apology during their doubles championship acceptance speech, and the crowd was right to boo him, and Venus was right to move him on. Time and place, man, time and place.

Eric Gioia is my Council Member, and his wife just had a baby this morning, so I'm voting for him. Otherwise, is it wrong that I'm voting for women where possible?

My practice on ballots where I know nothing about any of the candidates is to vote for women over men, on the principle that it helps correct gender inequity in public office and I'm less likely to help put an entitled former frat boy into power that way.

U.S. Open:

Federer, SHUT UP with your bad self. It's like watching Jesus play tennis or something. I expect him to walk on water next.

Man, I like when places that claim 100% customer service actually deliver on that promise.

I ordered a Daredevil trade from Amazon Marketplace. It was a volume 1 of 2; I ordered volume 2 from Amazon directly.

My package came today, with volume 2 and...Civil War: The Road to Civil War. Which has nothing to do with Daredevil, even though it was labeled as volume 1 of the trade I ordered.

I called the seller, and the guy was really nice, and he A) told me to just keep the wrong book and B) is sending me a bundle with volumes 1 and 2 since that's what they have on hand. So I can just return the volume 2 I got from Amazon, and I have come out way ahead on this deal.

(But this sort of goes back to what Hec was saying earlier about places that make all their money on the shipping. It's clearly less cost-effective for them to pay to have the wrong book shipped back and sell it again, somehow.)

Timelies all!

Why am I waking up at random times during the night? It's not even Nova's fault...(this time)

The seller's losing some money, but he's getting customer satisfaction and a good customer review, and on Amazon your sales live and die by your reviews.

It depends on the book, for me. Once I swapped two of my expensive engineering books, sent them to the wrong people. I paid the shipping to have them sent back to me, and paid shipping again to send them to the right people. I still made a decent profit on the books. (I only had the one copy of both, so I would have had to do that anyway, of course.) But once when I shipped out the wrong paperback, it would have cost me more to pay to have it shipped back to me than I would have made selling it, so I did better to take the loss and pay shipping only once - to send the right book.

I don't even bother to sell paperbacks anymore, unless it's a hard-to-find one. The fee Amazon charges the buyer for shipping is generous and usually more than enough to cover the cost, especially when you use recycled shipping materials as I do, but Amazon has their own fee, and frankly it isn't worth the hassle to make just a buck or two. If it were my living, it would be, but as a side thing to make "spending money", it's not.

ION, I am sick. I rarely get sick, and I'm not dealing with it well. whine

I want someone to come take care of me. What can I eat if even crackers make me want to barf?