БƗƗҚ.20 // The following are types of reviews
In recent news, I moved to Arizona and I'm banned from leaving Amazon reviews
Hi everyone,
It’s been a while since I wrote here, and I hope that the new year is at least marginally bearable for each of you. I remember sitting on my sofa in Cambridge last March happily plucking away at an edition of this newsletter about the Arctic when my partner was offered a job in the very un-Arctic Phoenix, Arizona. I’ve wanted to start writing again for some time, but have struggled to get anything started. But they say write what you know, and recently I’ve made a lot of online purchases as we’ve settled into our new house in Phoenix. I’ve never really been an online product reviewer, but as I thought more about it, I decided that leaving a review for every product that I purchased could be a nice little creative routine for me. So I set up an Amazon reviewer profile, decided on the name Alexi Scoville, and dutifully memorized the Customer Review guidelines:
Customer Reviews should give customers genuine product feedback from fellow shoppers. We have a zero tolerance policy for any review designed to mislead or manipulate customers.
We don't allow anyone to write reviews as a form of promotion.
The following are types of reviews that we don't allow and will remove:
A review by someone who has a direct or indirect financial interest in the product.
A review by someone perceived to have a close personal relationship with the product's owner, author, or artist.
A review by the product manufacturer, posing as an unbiased shopper.
Multiple negative reviews for the same product from one customer.
A review in exchange for monetary reward.
A review of a game in exchange for bonus in-game credits.
A negative review from a seller on a competitor's product.
A positive review from an artist on a peer's album in exchange for receiving a positive review from them.
I’m very sorry to say that I was banned from leaving reviews after my fifth post. To add insult to injury, Amazon’s community flagging database doesn’t seem to be connected to their spammy email database, so I keep getting emails asking me to review more products and all I can do is say aloud “YES I WANT TO BUT YOUR COLLEAGUES WON’T LET ME”.
I really can’t figure out why I was banned, aside from perhaps some very very loose interpretation of what it means to manipulate people, but I think that gives me more credit than I deserve. Without any immediate recourse, I decided to share my reviews with you here, in case anyone is considering an extension cord, step ladder, stain stick, adhesive opaque window treatment, or mason jars.
Thanks for reading,
— Grif / Alexi Scoville
This product extends power as advertised.
When 36,245 other people have reviewed a product it's easy to think that there is Nothing left to say; that there is no Fresh Perspective that remains to be added. But I for one am pushing through this hesitation and choosing to speak from my own experience. Because nobody knows how classy the braided extension cord feels in my particular hand, how gracefully the flat plug fits into my 15 amp outlet behind a mid-century bookcase that I sometimes think I spent too much money on, nor how 8 feet is truly the perfect length of extended power that my particular room requires.
And how can we build trust as a society if we are simply extending power to no particular end? I for one, am happy to share with others that I am extending power to a lamp that I don't particularly like, to a laptop that has a faulty "e" and "r" key, and that the third outlet remains empty, anticipating the arrival of a new electronic device (or perhaps merely maintaining the Possibility of a new device that will never actually come, which is perhaps the greatest service that an extension cord can provide). I am also not ashamed to say that I do not know, nor do I particularly care, what a Joule is. Words like "surge protection" "warranty" and "UL listed" evoke feelings such as "reliable" and "trustworthy" and downplay the mental presence of words like "conflagration" and "regret", but, again, I will likely never be in a position to either prove or disprove the veracity of such claims.
Hello world! My name is Alexi Scoville, and I am proud to be the 36,246th human being to speak up about the GE Pro 3-Outlet Power Strip with Surge Protection, 8 Ft Designer Braided Extension Cord, Grounded, Flat Plug, 250 Joules, Warranty, UL Listed, Gray/White, 38433. I wish you all a Happy New Year.
This product exceeds expectations in each and every possible way that I can think of at this time.
There are ladders and then there are Ladders. The Hasegawa Ladders Lucano Step Stool, Wide 2, Black is most certainly the latter (a Ladder). It's merits are seemingly endless: it is sturdy, it is sleek, it can be deployed and retracted with a single human hand/arm, the paint coat somehow transcends the matte/glossy binary...
If you're like me, this stool will not only satisfy your needs but you will begin to go out of your way to find opportunities to elevate yourself 9.5 or 19.7 inches. "Allow me to get that cobweb out of the upper northeast corner of this room" and "May I inspect the top of your head for the presence of moles?" are sentences you may find yourself saying. Lightbulbs will be changed faster. People will sit on it and consider it to be an excellent chair, which is a use that is not even advertised.
This product will not be for everybody, however. Namely for the vast majority of the world's population who would sit in stunned silence at the mere thought of a $172.22 step stool. But if you've crunched the numbers and found that this step stool fits within your budget, well first of all Congratulations and second of all I do not think for one second that you will be disappointed.
This product...I mean wow. Just wow. What a product.
Sometimes in life you have to live with your mistakes. If you're lucky, you'll learn from those mistakes and act differently in the future. But with OxiClean MaxForce Gel Stick, Pack of 1, 6.2 ounce you'll never have the opportunity to test your own mettle because you can simply keep making the same mistake over and over and over again and then watch it all come out in the wash. In case it is not clear, the mistake that I am referring to right now is spilling things on your clothing.
I spill all sorts of things on my clothing and have yet to find a scenario where I've had to live with a mistake. Bolognese, mole negro, mapo tofu, shakshuka...an international food courts worth of saucy bounty has ended up on my sweaters, tops, jackets, pants, and even socks and yet were you to come to my house and inspect my clothing (which you are most certainly not invited to do) you would have never suspected it. And this is to say nothing of red wine - many wonderful varietals have leapt from the glass onto poor little me and yet these sweet sweet molecules of tannic ripeness have been no match for OxiClean MaxForce Gel Stick, Pack of 1, 6.2 ounce. I suspect that even the water that Jesus himself turned to wine would come out of my clothing when treated with this product, if Jesus were not capable of removing the stain on his own. But that's the thing about faith, right? We'll never know.
In conclusion, you will do well to keep a bottle of this stuff at the ready. Follow the instructions, and relax into a life of not needing to learn from your mistakes. Good day to you!
This product is going about its business as we speak.
Whereas I recently moved to a citrus-producing state and have on my lot one Sour Orange Tree (citrus aurantium), I recently decided to try my hand at marmalades. After years of putting mason jars to use in a variety of spectacular and misguided ways I was excited to have the opportunity to use them as intended, that is to Jar Jelly in the Jelly Jars. I went for the quilted glass, as it’s both what my grandmother used and what better aligns with the aesthetic that I am attempting to perform/craft as an at-home-in-the-desert-jelly-guy.
Given that a) it was my first time making jelly and b) I had pulled nearly 4 pounds of my limited orange stock for this project, I was a little nervous, but my mind was kept mostly at ease in the reassured knowledge that my concoction would be laid to rest in Ball Regular Mouth Mason Jars 8 oz [12Pack] Ball Jelly Jars with Lids 8 oz. For Canning, Fermenting, Conserving Syrups, Sauces, Jams, Baby Foods - Microwave/Freeze/Dishwasher Safe + SEWANTA Jar Opener.
I am a sucker for name brands I’m not afraid to admit it, and I was comforted by the now 168-year legacy left by John Mason, the smattering of patents that built up his glassware empire (US 22129A, 22186A, 115754A, 137461A, 137462A), and the subsequent work of the Ball Brothers, Jarden Home Brands, and home cooks around the world who have shaped the product that lay before me. The free jar opener was also a nice touch.
For sterilization, I ran the glass through a dishwasher cycle and popped it into a 200F oven for 10 minutes, and washed the lids by hand (my hand) followed by a boiling water bath. For preservation, I spooned the marmalade directly into the jars, wiping rims with a clean, wet paper towel as I went and sealing each jar tightly. Each lid popped down within the hour, which felt like a real victory in a world in which anticipation and suspense have been largely wrested from our collective grip by digitally-mediated pap.
While the jars seem to adequately preserve citrus aurantium, there are many things that likely cannot be preserved within this product, e.g. a more perfect union, the idealized vision of your father, Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp, (1632, oil on canvas, 169.5 x 216.5 cm Mauritshuis, The Hague), civil liberties, dinosaur bones, The Tenement Museum in New York City.
For now, the jars sit quietly on my shelf preserving my work. I will of course return to this review and make any necessary updates should time prove to alter my perception of this product significantly from what I have laid out before you here.
This product has increased the overall opacity of my home as desired.
What price would you pay for your own privacy? Personally, I would pay $14.74, and so this $11.99 product fit comfortably within my budget.
You see, my front door has these narrow windows running alongside either side of it (sidelites, I've learned they are called), and while they amplify daylight on the inside and exude charm on the outside the fact remains that at any time of day or night a pedestrian, cyclist, or passenger in a slowly-moving motor vehicle can see straight through into my home. This is not a desirable scenario for me, as I feel like as a Society we are constantly under the unsolicited gaze of strangers, and if my home does one thing for me it would be to...well, if it does one thing it's to provide a roof over my head, but if it can do a second thing it would be to shield me from the unsolicited gaze of strangers.
I looked far and wide for solutions. Some, in retrospect, were overly-dramatic (e.g. move, become a voyeur) and others required too much investment of sweat and/or purse (e.g. replace the door, install glazed glass, drill holes into the molding to hang curtains). In the end, Coavas Window Privacy Film Frosted Glass Static Clings Non Adhesive Opaque Vinyl Bathroom Door Decorative Stickers UV Blocking Heat Control Christmas Coverings for Home Office(17.5 x 78.7 Inch, Pure) seemed like a classy and thorough yet ultimately low-stakes solution.
What is the catch? Well sports fans, the catch is only that you must be patient and diligent with your installation. It is not particularly difficult, but it will take some time, particularly if you are working with 20 panes of glass each measuring approximately 4"x20" as I was. It feels premature to comment on the long-term adhesion, though what I can say I will say and what that is is that four weeks post-installation there is not a single indication that the adhesion is anything short of Exceeds Expectations.
There is one additional point to note, and this is less about the product itself and more about the potential implications of product on the human psyche. Post-installation, I do now find myself sometimes sitting in my home, gazing into the windows that have been treated with this product and wondering what is happening on the other side. Perhaps there is a sound or a shadow from the outside, or perhaps I'm just longing to know with some greater specificity what my Purpose is and lazily concluding that the answer to that question is beyond the front door rather than within me. Since living in this house I had never thought of myself as a submarine captain but I admit that I do now think this from time to time, and I feel comfortable mentioning this in this review because it's not like I recently watched a submarine classic such as Das Boot or The Hunt For Red October, in other words I can't think of a confounding variable that would lead me to misstate the relationship between applying this product and feeling sometimes like a submarine captain in my own home. This is not a deal breaker because firstly I have other means of engaging with the world outside my home (such as a front door and the internet) and secondly because for the time being I do not mind the occasional sensation that my home is a vessel floating through an abstract space towards ports unknown.