Looks like this Family Circus book is waiting for a "trufan"

BLOT: (13 Jul 2012 - 04:46:34 PM)

Looks like this Family Circus book is waiting for a "trufan"

I assume you know what Family Circus is, the comic that is mostly made up of the kind of things that grandmothers think are cute. You might not know what a trufan is, but I bet you can figure it out if you think about it (if not: here). Now that you have those two pieces of data, would it take a Family Cirus trufan to buy this book?

Ha! Trick question. Now, the real question is...is it a trick question because there are no trufans for Family Circus? Or is it a trick question because FC trufans already have eight copies of that book, four of which are signed and two of which are sealed in careful packaging designed to outlast cockroaches at the end of time?

Oh, while you are answering that, here are two follow-ups. (1) Wouldn't you expect free shipping? I sure would. (2) Why break off at the .98 cent mark? Why not go ahead and notch that up one more penny? Who are we fooling, here?

For those curious, the seller's other books all look reasonably priced. This might be either a gimmick or a typo. OR, they are doing that game where they raise the price slightly over someone else who has the book because their stats are better (or just because a couple extra pennies won't necessarily prevent the sale). If the other user designs their prices around some similar scheme, or if their "our.price = lowest.price+0.01" algorithm fails to note they have the lowest price, it can cause rapid increases of prices. A better explanation of this sort of misadventures in pricing can be found on TechDirt. At any rate, the other seller in the equation may have gone, "Oh, that should be more like $25 (etc)," and then put the price back and sold while this artifact is still hanging about.

Still, bet you wish you picked that book up back in the day, now, don't you? Even if you sold it for $30, it would look like a steal in comparison.

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: July 2012