Ads on Lindsey Vonn

Lindsey Vonn of Minneapolis, MN won a gold and a bronze at the recently concluded Winter Olympics. Capitalizing on this, Rolex issued a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal (see the Mar 4 edition - the ad is on the back page of the main section). Her uniform is covered with ads - Audi, Visa, Spyder Thinsulate, Nature Valley, Red Bull, Sprint, Alka Seltzer, Charles Schwab (Talk to Chuck), and others either hidden from view or hard to make out. All these companies get free advertisement thanks to Rolex. Or may be they are a co-op of advertisers. Soon to come - dynamic ads - that change with time. Same as online or on TV. Advertisers bid on ad space and time depending on the prospect of the athlete making it to the next event. Weren't the Olympics for amateurs? Wait, that was in the last century.

Amazon Toy - take two

The annoying "your approval required" emails have stopped. However, the toy has still not shipped. The current delivery estimate from Amazon is February 27, 2008 - March 12, 2008.

Amazon: Your approval is required

We ordered an out-of-stock toy for a friend's child. The order was to ship a month later - okay, whatever, that's fine. After about a month I get an email:

From: order-update@amazon.com Subject: Your Amazon.com order (#xxx-xxxxxxxxx-xxx): your approval required Hello from Amazon.com. We're writing about the order you placed on xxxx (Order# xxx-xxxxxxxxx-xxx). Unfortunately, we are unable to ship the item(s) as soon as we expected and need to provide you with a new estimate of when the item(s) may be delivered: "Really Neat Toy" [Toy] Estimated arrival date: xx/xx/xxxx If you still want us to ship the items when they do become available (though they may arrive later than expected) please visit this address to approve the delay: http://www.amazon.com/gp/css/summary/edit.html/?useCase=approve&orderID=xxx-xxxxxxxxxxx-xxx

Alright, not a problem. I click on the link and get this message:

Important Message We thought you should know that we're experiencing a delay with your order. We apologize for any inconvenience. Please take note of the revised shipping and delivery estimates marked in red below. This order cannot proceed without your approval or changes. Please go to the approval page to approve this change.

Okay, I go ahead and approve the delay.

The next day I get the same message asking me to approve another day's delay.

The day after that I get another message asking me to approve another day's delay.

And this has been going on for four or five days now. Let's see how this one ends.