That other bookseller...to the North.
It's never good form to praise your biggest competitor, but a few things at Amazon are worth reprinting here. The first two were linked to by Seth Godin, the last by Andrew Sullivan.
Here is a sarcastic complaint to Amazon about a laptop the customer didn't "win" and a brilliant, perfect response from Amazon's customer service.
The next two are customer reviews of banal objects like a Bic pen and milk. Yes, milk. Some of the more amusing reviews are below the fold.
Bic Pens:
Perfect for spooling leftover linguini
I am clearly someone who takes order seriously, and I do not skimp when it comes to the tools that stave off the ever-encroaching entropy of the universe. And I can conclusively declare that these pens are the PERFECT (the ***PERFECT***) thing to use for spooling cooked linguini for storage purposes. You'll find that one tightly rolled piece will fit precisely between top and cap. It's as if they made these things for that precise purpose! And for those who double spool, the plastic "grips" the first strand beautifully, so you can get a nice, even second outside spool.
One thing I'd definitely caution about: never spool just-cooked pasta on plastic. Melting is, of course, unlikely, but you'll find that a definite plastic taste will permeate your noodles if they're too hot. I find that cooling the pasta to somewhere between 85 and 90 degrees (I have a battery-powered handheld fan for this purpose) will result in a nice tight spool with no plasticky-aftertaste in the reheating.
Tuscan Milk:
Combine with other foods!, August 6, 2006
Has anyone else tried pouring this stuff over dry cereal? A-W-E-S-O-M-E!
Tuscan Whole Milk Haiku, October 13, 2006
By Fat Goth Chick "nobody"
cold, delicious, white
Tuscan Whole Milk satisfies
does a body good
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plastic gallon jug
oh why must you mock me so
keeping me from milk
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udder of the cow
squirt forth delicious beverage
thousands of pus cells
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Tuscan Whole Milk, 1
Gallon, One Hundred Twenty
Eight Fluid Ounces
I'm sorry if this makes me a geek, but this is good stuff.