Amazon.com is the new home of the weird, the creepy and the profane!

It’s like the Wild West out there. We independent book sellers moved in and did all the dirty work, setting up product pages, building links, enslaving the indigenous population—And soon giant agribusinesses, listing strip miners, and Big Lot department stores moved in, crowding the little guys out.

Lately, Amazon’s tried to reign in the small-time-sellers without infringing too much on the rights of their favored corporate sellers. That can only lead to one thing—Digital Anarchy!

Here are five intriguing examples of the ways Amazon sellers and buyers are dealing with encroaching marginalization.

1. A $38 dead skinned bunny rabbit? Anyone see Roman Polanski’s “Replusion“? Please, please, please—I beg you—scroll down and read the customer reviews. You will not be sorry. For example:

   These are NOT alive!, August 24, 2009
   By P. Breakfield IV “Tom”
   I’ll keep this short and sweet. We ordered one of these rabbits for our children this Easter and boy what a surprise. It is NOT a living rabbit. Someone has killed this rabbit and skinned it, I suppose for eating. Anyway, our children were traumatized and Easter is not the same holiday that it used to be for us. On the upside, we don’t have to fill their Easter baskets anymore as we told them the Easter bunny was killed by Amazon.

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Or I shall rise up from my bed of sorrows and smite you with a white-hot revenge, man.

1:19 am Monday night the phone rings.

Now, I live with my elderly parents who specifically DON’T have phones in their bedrooms. Why? Because someone with a lively personal life is apparently one digit away from their telephone number. Me, I’m still in the mindset of “Oh my Gosh. What if one of my kids got arrested and needs to get bailed out in the middle of the night?” or “What if my future-ex-husband was just nailed by a drunk driver and the hospital is calling to tell me I’m now a widow.” In other words, I ALWAYS answer the phone.

1:19 am I’m pulled from REM sleep by my phone. I bolt to answer, still remembering the downy kisses of–oh, never mind. “Hello?” “‘S Rog there?” “Huh? Who?” “Rog?” “Wrong number”, and I hang up.

But my mind does not hang up. I stare at the ceiling. I do Yoga. I eat crackers. I read my book. Two hours later, at 3:19 AM I’ve had enough. I pick up my phone and scroll down to my mystery caller’s ID, and hit dial.

When his cell phone prompts for a message (of course, and Rog’s friend is sleeping the good sleep of the non-introspective mind), I blurt, “How does it feel to get a call in the middle of the night because someone can’t dial the right number (beat) MORON!!” and I hang up.

If nothing else I got the last word. Ha. So there.

well, sort of . . .

Un Chien Bleu is number 17 on the NetworkedBlogsTop 31 Blogs in: Milwaukee list. (Whoo Hoo!)

Lets not talk about the number 31. It’s too weird to contemplate.

Moved to my new “Milwaukee Point 08″ blog. See it there.

Moved to our new “Milwaukee Point 08″ blog. See it there.