I can't find my Shopping List anymore -- the link I had now gets redirected to my Wish List. What the hell is going on? Did Amazon just quietly blow the shopping lists away? (That'd be rather low... at least they should have warned us ahead of time so that we could have saved the contents for future use.)
Anyone sees what I see? Any way to recover our shopping lists?
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
What’s up with Harriet Klausner??
Our old friend Vic Mikunas revisits the topic, asking what's up with our Goddess.
OT: Dear Reader, you won't believe the requests we're getting at times! But for the love of Christ we won't ridicule such people by making their imbecilities public, but we will give this charitable piece of advice to them: please read the blog before forwarding your pleas to help you with a review from our Goddess. Please give us the courtesy of learning what we're about before telling us what you think we could help you with. (And then, of course, why would we presume to believe that the Queen of Fraud needs or will heed our inferior suggestions about what she should review? She takes no guidance from the lowly. Like Berthold said, "That's why he's a baron, and I'm a prole".)
On March, 29, 2007 I wrote a blog post here titled THE MYSTERIOUS HARRIET KLAUSNER. That was over 4 years ago. Over the past week there have been a couple of hundred page views of that particular post. Weird? I wonder what’s up with Harriet? ...C'mon, Vick! What could be up with Our Lady of Fauxreview? You know what's up — nothing's up! She's fat and happy and undaunted and churnin' out her perky burbling blurbs every bit as unstoppably as before, five stars guaranteed!
OT: Dear Reader, you won't believe the requests we're getting at times! But for the love of Christ we won't ridicule such people by making their imbecilities public, but we will give this charitable piece of advice to them: please read the blog before forwarding your pleas to help you with a review from our Goddess. Please give us the courtesy of learning what we're about before telling us what you think we could help you with. (And then, of course, why would we presume to believe that the Queen of Fraud needs or will heed our inferior suggestions about what she should review? She takes no guidance from the lowly. Like Berthold said, "That's why he's a baron, and I'm a prole".)
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Klausner posts same review twice, under different names
First time I see that. Here Harriet posted two absolutely identical reviews, first time as Harriet Klausner and then as "A Romance Reader". Both times five stars (no surprises here). It's a great way to increase a book's average rating, of course... How many more sock-puppet accounts does she have, I wonder?
Anyway, here's a shapshot (just in case the original page gets changed; click to see normal size; I did shrink it a bit to fit on screen, but it's readable though):
Anyway, here's a shapshot (just in case the original page gets changed; click to see normal size; I did shrink it a bit to fit on screen, but it's readable though):
Harriet busts through 300 reviews a month limit
Thanks to poster Guy the Gorilla we now have another update of Klausner stats for the last half a year.
Guy the Gorilla says:So, our dear Harriet would want us to believe that this April she was reading (AND reviewing) slighly over ten (10) books a day on average. That's double (nearly) her Amazon life-time average of about six (6) a day (under her current account, beginning in the late November 1999).
Congratulations Harriet - I never thought I'd live to see it, but you came through with a last day mini-surge and upped your already prolific tally for the month to an amazing 301 "reviews" of books you could not possibly have read for the month of April. It has been a banner month - you must have truly had a case of Spring Fever - I can think of no other explanation for this vintage performance - other than the kickback payola checks from the publishers of the mass market paperbacks you favor.
To put this month's efforts in perspective, let's review Harriet's more recent output:
228 "reviews" of books she could not possibly have read in September 2010
296 "reviews" of books she could not possibly have read in October 2010
187 "reviews" of books she could not possibly have read in November 2010
192 "reviews" of books she could not possibly have read in December 2010
185 "reviews" of books she could not possibly have read in January 2011
229 "reviews" of books she could not possibly have read in February 2011
204 "reviews" of books she could not possibly have read in March 2011
301 "reviews" of books she could not possibly have read in April 2011
I'm glad you finally broke through the 300 barrier at this time. Because Harriet, I must congratulate you for something else. I officially surrender. I cannot keep up with you. I cannot think of any new jokes or comments to amuse myself or my sister Gwynneth the Gorilla, who still lurks on these pages as well, that hasn't been repeated in one variation or another at least a hundred times by now. I am bored with you. You're just not funny to me anymore. I am tired of you and your garbled English and your sub-genres and your silly Defense Squad. Someone else will have to pick up the standard and carry on the good fight in the trenches for a while - I am spent. Perhaps I will check in from time to time - especially to monitor your progress towards the fabled 25,000 career "reviews" of books you have not read (you are up to 24, 420 and closing fast) - but for now, Harriet, I bid you a fond adieu...
Friday, April 8, 2011
Urbi et Orbi (of sorts: how to send us an email)
This message is for the readers of this blog who are not memebers who write to us (we welcome such correspondence, of course). We get a good amount of email, and finally I want to address some recurring issues: basically, a few suggestions for our potential correspondents. Sorry for the fake-friendly, corporate style, but: in order to make our interaction more rewarding, please:
1. State clearly what you want and, provided your note is more than a comment on some of our entries, introduce yourself.
2. If you want to add a comment (which is entirely good and welcome), state what part of your email constitutes this comment, as well as whether you'd like your name to be mentioned. By default we will redact all personal specifics (for the sake of privacy). Of course, we may or may not post your comment (depending on how good it is), and we may edit any such correspondence before posting. In general such editing is for grammar/coherence (assuming it's worth bothering to begin with).
3. If you want to join, give at least a brief explanation as to the reasons you wish to do so.
But mostly, just write a clear and understandable note. A lot of people don't bother. Here's an example: "Hey your so right and Joe Blow does even worse I still want a reffund from them!!!!!". Well, great, except we've got no clue who Joe Blow is and what the thrilling story of your refund is. This sort of thing. Finally, if you sent us an email, give us a few days to get it. Sometimes we're busy with other things in our lives and it may take us a few days to get to your note. So don't send us a dozen "are you alive?" messages every day. Give it a few days or a week before following up. We are alive and we are quite likely to react to reasonable inquiries from reasonable people, be it a comment to add or a request to join.
1. State clearly what you want and, provided your note is more than a comment on some of our entries, introduce yourself.
2. If you want to add a comment (which is entirely good and welcome), state what part of your email constitutes this comment, as well as whether you'd like your name to be mentioned. By default we will redact all personal specifics (for the sake of privacy). Of course, we may or may not post your comment (depending on how good it is), and we may edit any such correspondence before posting. In general such editing is for grammar/coherence (assuming it's worth bothering to begin with).
3. If you want to join, give at least a brief explanation as to the reasons you wish to do so.
But mostly, just write a clear and understandable note. A lot of people don't bother. Here's an example: "Hey your so right and Joe Blow does even worse I still want a reffund from them!!!!!". Well, great, except we've got no clue who Joe Blow is and what the thrilling story of your refund is. This sort of thing. Finally, if you sent us an email, give us a few days to get it. Sometimes we're busy with other things in our lives and it may take us a few days to get to your note. So don't send us a dozen "are you alive?" messages every day. Give it a few days or a week before following up. We are alive and we are quite likely to react to reasonable inquiries from reasonable people, be it a comment to add or a request to join.
Friday, April 1, 2011
April Fool's Day: Harriet Klausner read sixty-eight (68) books today...
That is, she posted sixty-eight (68) "reviews" today, but surely Harriet wouldn't post a review of a book she didn't read, would she? As far as I could see, all of them five and four stars. When you work intensively like that, errors are inavoidable: Harriet confused a couple of books posting wrong blurbs under wrong books. And the funniest thing of all, someone found one such review "helpful"! "Team Harrier" clicks "yes" on Klausner reviews without reading them just like Harriet "reviews" books without reading. Here's her review of The Goodbye Quilt:
And here are a couple of puzzled commenters voicing their concerns:
Slow down, Harriet! After all, you read only two books a day, remember? Not sixty-eight.
And here are a couple of puzzled commenters voicing their concerns:
Slow down, Harriet! After all, you read only two books a day, remember? Not sixty-eight.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
This is what I'd like to see happen re: Amazon review system...
What would be nice is to see someone decide to file a lawsuit against Amazon with the FTC regarding their review system. If we as reviewers technically have to reveal any association with the product that might influence our review, then a case could be made that either 1) HK might be in violation of that rule, and/or 2) Amazon is fraudulently manipulating sales via their review system, referring back to the same FTC regulations.
In a perfect world, it would open up some of the inner workings of Amazon's system and why some reviewers are protected like HK, when her reviewing exploits are obviously on par with Santa Claus being able to visit every house in the world over a 24 hour period... :)
And for those of you reading... this is my first post to the board (thanks for the invite, Malleus). I don't know that I'll be all that active, as I tend to avoid "pissing matches" over how much someone can review. Yes, I'm an Amazon reviewer, and just recently dropped out of the top 100. And yes, I *do* read a lot and review all that I read, as I enjoy writing. But my numbers have dropped of late, as I finished writing a book last year with a co-author, and I'm working on another one right now...
In a perfect world, it would open up some of the inner workings of Amazon's system and why some reviewers are protected like HK, when her reviewing exploits are obviously on par with Santa Claus being able to visit every house in the world over a 24 hour period... :)
And for those of you reading... this is my first post to the board (thanks for the invite, Malleus). I don't know that I'll be all that active, as I tend to avoid "pissing matches" over how much someone can review. Yes, I'm an Amazon reviewer, and just recently dropped out of the top 100. And yes, I *do* read a lot and review all that I read, as I enjoy writing. But my numbers have dropped of late, as I finished writing a book last year with a co-author, and I'm working on another one right now...
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