"Amazon" by Seattlest Flickr contributor, Aaron Morris If you wanted to buy a few books, a used movie, a car, and a new outfit all in one place—right this very moment—well, you're out of luck. Amazon.com, the internet's purveyor of everything, seems to have crashed. The New York Times is reporting the site failure is an "unplanned event" that had already been happening for an hour when they posted at 10:37 PST. A check-in on......

New York recently passed a state budget that requires Amazon.com (and other online retailers) to start collecting NY state sales tax. Amazon doesn't have any brick-and-mortar presence there, but NY argues that because Amazon has affiliates in the state, the company is obligated to start collecting the sales tax on purchases made there. In theory, New Yorkers already owe the tax. Amazon's just never had to collect it. Of course, neither Amazon nor New Yorkers......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Seattlest. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Busted Tees, which introduces three new designs a week. If you're interested in advertising on Seattlest or any other site in our network, check out our online mediakit.......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Seattlest. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Busted Tees, which introduces three new designs a week. If you're interested in advertising on Seattlest or any other site in our network, check out our online mediakit.......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on Seattlest. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Busted Tees, selling a special shirt to honor the New England Patriots. If you're interested in advertising on Seattlest or any other site in our network, check out our online mediakit.......

John Markoff of the NY Times talked gadgets with Steve Jobs. Today he had a wide range of observations on the industry, including the Amazon Kindle book reader, which he said would go nowhere largely because Americans have stopped reading. “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.......

Motley Fool's unwrapped their crystal balls -- and they don't see good things for some of Seattle's biggest companies. They're "unleashing our venom on some of the stocks that your fellow Fools think will tank in 2008." Three of their worst stocks for 2008: Washington Mutual, Amazon.com, and Starbucks. Jim Mueller's evisceration makes WaMu look like the worst of the trio: There are a lot of questions without any answers, let alone reasonable estimates. *......

Generally after the warm, fuzzy glow of our New Year's hangover wears off, Seattlest is left staring into the abyss of January without much to cling to, except our quickly fading memories of the resolutions we made and the knowledge that tax season is fast approaching. This year we're filing as a newly married, first-time independent contractor who bought a home last year and we're mighty worried. We liked the 1040-EZ we'd grab while dropping......

Turns out Amazon.com's customer service department isn't staffed by computers -- just sarcasm-savvy people who use computers. Consumerist broke the story: Amazon Sends "Best Customer Service E-mail I've Ever Received". We'll summarize: One of Amazon.com's Black Friday deals was the chance to win a $1000 laptop for $299. Many people entered; most of them were unsuccessful. Some theorized that Amazon employees had snatched up all the good deals, since no one they knew had won......

We love lists. Which is why we're a little sad that we didn't know about Amazon.com's UnSpun until we read The Paper Noose's post on Georgetown's place in the Top "Hip" Neighborhoods to Live in Seattle, WA. There's nothing we love better than completely arbitrary lists with no discernible criteria beyond kneejerk personal opinion -- except maybe passing them along. According to UnSpun users, the top 10 "hip" neighborhoods are: 1. Capitol Hill (surprise,......

Click-YAY! Click-YAY! Click-YAY! That's the Call of the Amazonian today. Amazon.com stock closed up 10%, at 100.96, after the company announced profits have quadrupled. It's not just well-wishers that are buying in on the stock, it's also panicked short-sellers. There's a 36.8 million share short interest that comes due at the end of September, and those who own a big or even small part of it are buying now so they don't lose their shirts.......

When Amazon.com announced Amazon Fresh last week, it piqued some bloggers' curiosity, but we didn't spend much time thinking about it. Grocery delivery? Interesting, but we weren't going to dive in. Then this weekend we read about the "thug"-infested Safeway -- in Rainier Beach! Crap, we thought to ourselves. That's our Safeway, literally just a few blocks from our house. Apparently we're risking random parking lot beatdowns every time we visit. (It's not the closest......

Once upon a time you could write a book on the typewriter in your attic, bundle the pages together with some butcher paper and twine and schlep it to New York to give to your publisher and then forget about the whole thing until it was time to blow the dust off the keys for the next go round. Or so we imagine it. Then came the critics. And then the book tours. Then Amazon.com......

News from a day where we spent hours looking for a two-cent stamp. --Lily Allen was in town, having a self-image crisis. --Will Ken Griffey Jr. hand out jock straps to Mariner fans when he returns in June? --60 Minutes does Redfin. Redfin is thrilled. --Amazon.com snaps up Dpreview.com. --Are there bad neighborhoods where the doggy taxi won't go? Like the Magnuson dog park maybe? --Courtesy of the increasingly kick-ass West Seattle Blog, we present:......

Washington's own Gig Harbor. How do we know? Amazon.com's running a contest. If your town pre-orders more copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows per capita than any other, Amazon will donate $5000 (via Amazon gift certificate) to a local charitable organization. Four Washington towns are in the top 10: Gig Harbor, Issaquah, Snohomish, and Woodinville. Also in the top 100: Port Orchard, Poulsbo, Lake Stevens, Bothell, Redmond, and Sammamish. And yes, we......

Well, we're finished with World War Z, which means we'll finally have time to pick up Jonathan Raban's Surveillance and that some lucky souls at the library will move up a notch on the hold list. Surveillance, of course, is the first book in Seattlest's Book Club. If you haven't picked up your copy yet, don't forget to ask for the Seattlest Book Club discount at Santoro's Books in Greenwood and Bailey-Coy Books on......

We hate this loathsome holiday. And no, not for the reasons most people think. Right up there with Mother's Day, we're sick of the commercialization of relationships, of marketers trying to tug at people's unwitting ability to decide for themselves when and how to tell the people around them that they love them. Last Friday, on the way to the Twilight Exit, we passed by the Safeway at 23rd and Madison, and it looked like......

She wants to know what you think. Apparently, she has some "serious, unanswered questions" she wants to pose to the people of Seattle. Her scope is wide:I will never, ever say that a vote of the people is a waste. That's just fundamentally wrong. I, as an elected official, do not believe that.This morning at Seattlest HQ, we received an anonymous email containing an internal memo from the Gov's office, revealing what some of those......

On the heels of the old news about Amazon and dynamic pricing comes some old news about Amazon's 30-day price guarantee. That's right. Amazon will refund your money if their price on something you buy drops within 30 days of your purchase. We hadn't heard that, either. There's some new news to go with the old news, though. Using Your Accounts, you could manually check on everything you ordered in the last month. Or, this......

--2006 : Getting fired because of something you said on your blog. 2007 : Finding out you're getting fired on your boss's blog. --Another local food blogger goes legit. Congrats, Molly! --Just when you were pretty sure something was about to happen on the Viaduct front....WHAM! Nothing happens! --At the end of this story about the Dawgs' turnover woes, news that guard Joel Smith could be back this month. --Some people were really happy......

David Streitfield in the LA Times (registration required, regrettably) notes a new experience for him at Amazon.com: books he adds to his shopping cart get more expensive if he doesn't buy them right away. On Nov. 6, seeking to boost my dubious culinary skills, I decided to buy "The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook." I went to Amazon and placed the book in my electronic shopping cart but got distracted and never finished the transaction. The......

--A Comcast truck got stolen while its crew was working on Capitol Hill today. Man, that's low. It's not as low as the classic theft of the band's van full of gear, but still low. --PoP collects all the headline love Gregoire's gotten for her budget this week. --Dear Boeing, Shape the fuck up and please secure my data. --Blatherwatch scans the dial for remnants of WindStorm '06 coverage. --While this guy holds it......

Speak now before McCain's new bill makes us turn comments off forever. – Commercial websites and personal blogs “would be required to report illegal images or videos posted by their users or pay fines of up to $300,000.” – Internet service providers (ISPs) are already required to issue such reports, but under McCain’s legislation, bloggers with comment sections may face “even stiffer penalties” than ISPs. — Social networking sites will be forced to take......

Fueling speculation that the 2007 Mariners ad slogan may be "Mariner Baseball: Wanna Pitch?", the M's signed the author of the 465,629th best-selling book on Amazon.com to a three-year, $24 million contract tonight. Author, searching-eyes-possessor, and 36-year-old right-handed starter Miguel Batista, best known for his work with the Arizona Diamondbacks Writers' Workshop, is the newest Mariner. He won 11 games last year as a starter with the D-backs, after a one-year stint as the Blue......

This item on Amazon.com: Courtesy of Maggie over at Mighty Girl. Here's the real product listing. If we could pick one, the most surreal detail of this comes from the tags people gave this item: Update: Yes, it appears that this item got squelched rather quickly, but if you were the person assigned to remove that thing (and by this we are reminded of Mike Daisey's stint as an Amazon.com porn sniffer), dontcha think you......

Sometimes we feel that we are taking our home town for granted. We probably focus on the lousy weather, the passive aggressive nature of the people, the ineffective local government, and the selfish NIMBYs who ruin everything. However, on Sunday as we were driving north on the viaduct we glanced over to see the Olympic Mountains in all of their snow covered glory, and we were reminded that there are few places we would rather......

Can't get enough voting? Ready to combine the excitement of electoral politics with the thrill of holiday shopping and add a soupcon of cool hunting? Head on over to Amazon Customers Vote and vote! vote! vote! (once per week) for one of four deals. Your candidates? 1) An Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for $39.99, down from $49.99 2) A Bell Metropolis Bike Helmet for $74.99 (down -- or up, we guess -- from $73.99) 3)......

Who delivers the best customer service in the country? Amazon.com: According to the National Retail Federation/American Express survey gauging consumer attitudes toward retailers' customer service, which was released Thursday, Amazon topped a number of venerable retailers for best meeting consumer needs. Who came in second? Nordstrom. Seventh? REI. That's right: local companies took 3 of the top 10 spots on the survey. A nationwide survey. "Online consumers are completely changing the definition of service," said......

There's a great opportunity to participate in a hack of Amazon.com today that won't net you a big list of credit card numbers or any free books or anything, but it will let you feel like you put one over on a local giant while at the same time helped a local website save the planet. And who would pass that up? The WorldChanging book which we've been mentioning lately (here and here) is for......

-Microsoft was denied by Pitchfork when the company tried to buy their way into some cool for the Zune. -Did Blatherwatch really want to kick something off with Stefan Sharkansky's significant other? -Seattle's daily papers might seem a bit slow to us, but there's always someone out there to criticize you for being too liberal. -Suspicions are being raised that the City of Seattle is trying to build a light rail network on the......