Just discovered this weekend that Amazon has a complete history of everything you’ve ever purchased available for your perusal. Go to Your Account –> Your Orders and then choose the year from the dropdown box just above and to the left of your most recent orders.

Turns out my first Amazon purchase was September 7, 1998.  I bought two things:

• The Fifth Element on DVD

I had gotten my DVD player a couple months earlier, so this would have been one of my earliest movie purchases.  Back then, DVDs weren’t a dime a dozen.  This one cost $20.99. Today, it’s available for $12.49. For goodness sake, the Blu Ray for this movie is less than $15.

• DVD Demystified: The Guidebook for DVD-Video and DVD-ROM

What can I say, I’m part tech geek. This $42.95 book promised to discuss the format and the processing in detail. I was very curious about it at the time.  I remember carrying this book out of the office one day, when one of the Veeps at the company I worked for (he’s very smart) looked at the book and said, “I didn’t think they were all that mystifying.”

Total price: $68.84

That’s right: There was no free shipping on orders more than $25 back then, let alone Amazon Prime.

Need to get a few of these off my chest:

• Haven’t done a hybrid car story here in a long time, but surely a Porsche hybrid calls for attention!

• Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” movie to be a 3D motion capture CGI film? Sure, why not? Like the initial reports that Roland Emmerich was directing it didn’t lower our expectations far enough…

• As a college Ultimate player, it’s very sad to see the guy who created the frisbee passed away recently.

• The Worst Apple Products of All Time. Includes the phone, the gaming console, and the iPod Hi-Fi.

• The military has been monitoring various social media to get ideas for where to help in Haiti. Interesting.

• Headline writers get it wrong sometimes. John McIntyre has some hilarious recent examples. Love his copy-writing blog.

• The first cowboy to draw loses. Here’s why.

• What is TiVo planning to unveil in March?

• Dear Amazon — I’ll take a free Kindle, too. I’ll subscribe to Prime, I promise. Thanks!

• Hilarious bit of SEO: A story about Facebook logging-in techniques gets higher rankings on Google than your actual Facebook log-in page. Confusion ensues from the clueless who use Google to go everywhere. Seriously, there are still people who type Facebook into Google to go there, instead of just typing Facebook.com. Ugh

• Rumor: Hulu to move away from Flash for iPad? Oooh, Adobe would not like that.

• Shocking: Higher song prices lead to fewer downloads. Does the music industry have any feet left to shoot itself in?

• I think I might still be drooling over the Canon T2i. And it’s only the entry level camera. This is nuts.

So much stuff going on these days, no time to pull my thoughts together into a blog post. Seriously, follow me on Twitter to get the latest and greatest, but here’s a few thoughts off the top of my head:

* Oscars: Just finished watching “Up” the other night. Had to watch it in two parts, a week apart. That’s just how my life rolls. And you know what? It’s the only Oscar-nomination film from 2009 that I’ve seen. I used to be culturally hip, you know.

I’m torn on who will win. Not who I “want” to win, but who I “think” will win. There’s two schools of thoughts here: a war movie like “Hurt Locker” is bound to activate the Hollywood insurgents into voting. But “Avatar” is seen as the movie which can save movies. So there’s a solid business reason to give that movie, even with its trite premise and cliche-addled scripts (from what I’ve read about it), the award, anyway. Hollywood must keep pushing 3-D down our throats, so “Avatar” must win. It’s pocketbooks versus politics at the Oscars this year.

* I don’t buy that 3D is going to be the next big thing. I just don’t see it happening, even if it did take over CES this year.

* “Up” is a heart-breaking movie. It’ll break your heart three times before the twenty minute mark, and then twice more near the end. Yet, you’ll love it and root for all the right people. It’s the heaviest PIxar movie to date, though.

And it looks very very cool on Blu Ray.

* “American Idol” has been a lot of fun this year so far, and Hollywood Week is starting next week. The thing that continues to astound me about “Idol” each year is how many singing single mothers they can find to put on stage… It’s sad, but “Idol” is turning into the Olympics: 3 minutes of show biz surrounded by ten minutes of documentaries explaining how wretched this contestant’s life has been.

* The iPad looks cool. It’s not going to pass the Finance Committee’s desk without a veto, so I won’t likely be getting one. But I do think it’s the ultimate comic book reader. The exciting thing is how it’ll look in a year. When the second generation model comes out, perhaps even with a price drop, it’ll be interesting to see how many apps are out there, how much content you can put on it, etc. But I’m excited for it.

* Adobe Flash sucks. Period. It’s the Comic Sans of web technologies and it can’t go away fast enough.

* ALF is on Twitter. Must reading, daily.

* Grammys: I listened to even less music than I watched movies in the theater. On the other hand, I’ve been out of music touch for a while now, so there’s nothing new there. I enjoy podcasts too much to stop to listen to much music.

I guess Amazon really wants to up its margins in January. Here’s a definition of “little something” for you:

Don’t get me wrong: The Canon 7D is the sexiest piece of camera equipment ever known to man. I’d rather have it than a new car. But the $1700 price tag will likely forever keep me away from it. And $1700 is hardly “a little something.”

Let’s see if I can sum this up quickly:

Net income increased 68% to $199 million in the third quarter, or $0.45 per diluted share, compared with net income of $118 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, in third quarter 2008.

That’s good.  There’s some adjustments made due to weaknesses of currency conversion, but the whole press release is good news for AMZ, my retailer of choice for as many things in my life as possible.  The Kindle must be doing very well for them.

Here’s what was buzzing on Twitter at 11:30 last night:

I’m guessing the Lakers won, then?

Every Apple keynote brings out the most insane overreactions and comments from the Apple Faithful.  Don’t get me wrong — I’m a drooling Apple fanboy.  I pre-ordered my first iPhone Monday night (I think).  I’m thrilled to be picking it up next week (hopefully).However, there’s an internet mindset amplified by the echo chamber of “popular opinion” and “conventional wisdom” that drives me nuts.  And then there’s the rush of coverage that falls over itself to get things out first.

Three cases of this have popped up this week, so far:

* People are complaining that they can’t upgrade from the 3G to the 3GS without paying extra.  I guess lots of people don’t understand the concept of a “subsidized” price and that they’re really spreading out the cost of the phone over the course of two years.  They’re not buying the phone any more cheaply than they did when it cost $599 on Day One.  Yes, AT&T may very well be evil, but this isn’t proof of it.  You’re just dumb if you don’t understand what a “subsidized price” is.  It’s a loan, basically, that AT&T gives you and you pay back every month for two years.  AT&T offers you the option of buying out your contract if you want to leave it early.

Here’s the best and biggest whiner of the bunch.  Thankfully, the commenters call him on it.  In his defense, he does have a legitimate complaint about confusion and AT&T not being able to communicate clearly.  Everything else?  Indefensible.

*Or, why not drop AT&T and spend $60 a month on a MiFi that you have to carry around everywhere with you to create a WiFi hot spot to use your iPhone in.  It only gets 4 hours of battery life, but it’s better than finishing up a contract with AT&T, right?

* People were disappointed that there was no “surprise Steve Jobs appearance” at the keynote today.  How in the wide wide world of sports would it have been a surprise, with so many people assuming/guessing it was going to happen?

Heck, given the way Apple Rumors go, it’s almost a bigger “surprise” that he DIDN’T show.

Words have lost their meaning, I fear.

* Even better, check out this link to a Gizmodo article titled “Everything You Need to Know About Snow Leopard.”

I laughed out loud when I saw it had to be UPDATED.  Guess it started off as “most everything you need to know,” eh?

From AugieShoots.com, this is a sample of what the people are looking for in their photography today:

I love Amazon.  Honestly, I do.  But at some point in the past week, they turned on One Click shopping for my account.  I don’t have Amazon Prime, so I don’t want to use it.

But here’s where they really get you.

First step:

Second step:

Two big orange-ish buttons.  If you just want to SEE THE PRICE of an item, you have to add it to the shopping cart.  That’s bad enough.  But then trying to confuse a customer into accidentally purchase it?  That’s reprehensible.

What if you successfully added it to your shopping cart, you’ve seen the price, and now you’re ready to take it back out? There is no One Click Don’t Buy It option:

Edit Shopping Cart and Proceed to Checkout do roughly the same thing, but they put the big yellow-orange button next to the same shaped orange button that does something different again.
Seriously, I don’t think Amazon is trying to trick people.  I think their UI people need a firm slap on the wrist for putting two very similar buttons with wildly different outcomes next to each other, particularly on a page where you need to add the item to a shopping cart just to see its price.

Yes, I made this mistake the other night.  Dang near cost me $369.  I was able to cancel the order right away and no damage done.

Be warned: Read those buttons carefully on Amazon.

One of the amazing things about having a child is how well it focuses you.  I have less time to “do stuff” now, yet I’m still getting a lot of stuff done. I chalk that up to using my time more wisely, goofing off less, and focusing on productivity.

That all said, here’s my rundown of web-based projects these days:

Various and Sundry: This blog carries on, five days a week.  Some weeks are writing bonanzas, others are a bit more sparse.  It varies from week to week, but that’s the nature of the beast.  I wish I could write an original 500 word essay on a daily basis, but I’m not sure I could, even if this was a full time job.

Pipeline Commentary and Review: Recently celebrated its 600th weekly column.  I got ahead on the column in preparation for the baby’s birth, and while I’ve pretty much caught up on that lead by now, there’s still a backlog of stuff I want to write about.  This week’s column is a 4000 word monster, as I type this, though I might have to hack and slash at it a bit.

Pipeline Podcast: Coming up on its fourth anniversary at the top of 2009.  Can you believe podcasting is that old now?  The schedule has suffered due to back-end technical issues I continue to fight with, and time constraints at home.  Sadly, the computer with the good mic set up is in a room that shares a wall with the baby’s room.  So while I only get to record the podcast after she goes to sleep, I can’t use that mic because my booming voice would wake her up through that thin wall.  I’m looking at buying a Snowball USB mic for the laptop to bring up production quality.  For now, I record with a blanket over my head and the laptop to cut down on the echoes.  Ah, the glories of podcasting. . .

CBR Reviews: This is the biggest time sink, but also one of the most productive.  I am the editor of the CBR Reviews team, six guys writing reviews daily of the week’s books.  We published 80 reviews in November, and are getting better about publishing them closer to publication dates, and even in advance.

Secret Project 1: I think this one is stalled out.  It’s something I started thinking about before the baby was born, but I’m not sure how do-able it really is, given time and scheduling restraints.  But I’m keeping it in my back pocket.  It’s comics-related and nobody else is doing anything like it right now.  I want to be the first, but c’est la vie.

Secret Project 2: Vaguely and tangentially related to SP1, but there’s real movement on it. It’s something that would only take a couple of hours a week of my time and could be very successful.  Look for it in the first quarter of 2009, if it does happen.

Twitter: It’s like having another email account. It’s the first thing I check at night, clicking on the “Responses” tab to see who’s talking to me and who I need to write back to.  Lots of interesting people, lots of continuously-updating content, and designed to eliminate spam on its own.

Flickr: One thing that the baby has changed completely is my photography.  I’m doing less nature photography and more people photography, mostly the baby.  I invested in some lighting equipment and am experimenting with that now. Am thinking of selling a lens to afford a different one that’s more amenable to my current shooting style. Need to update Flickr more often, though for baby privacy reasons, it’s not likely.

Google Reader: I do 90% of my web browsing through RSS feeds via Google Reader now and share out the best links and stories I find there. I’ve started sharing them with notes now, to add some additional information to the feed.  If you’re a Google Reader, I invite you to friend me or click on that link to subscribe to my feed.  It covers more of the kinds of things I’m interested in, above and beyond what you see on this blog.

eBay Traffic Plummeting (EBAY)

eBay’s (EBAY) core business continues to fall apart. Some of the decline is likely the result of the declining economy. The rest of it is likely the result of the trends that have been clobbering eBay for the past two years: competition, overpricing, and the deterioration of eBay’s value proposition. eBay’s efforts to turn around this business do not appear to be working.

Also, TechCrunch has a chart showing how Amazon is gaining on eBay.

• Yesterday was the Nintendo Wii’s second birthday in North America.  My, how time flies.  It seems that it’s a little easier to find a Wii today, but that won’t last once the Christmas season starts next week.  If you’re still on the fence, this might be your last best chance to find one on shelves in 2008.

• Related: It took me a minute to remember how everyone referred to the Wii before it was “The Wii.”  Remember the outcry when Nintendo said it wouldn’t be called “Revolution?”

• Allow me to be the one millionth website this week to point out that Google now hosts LIFE’s picture archive.  You can, indeed, get lost for hours upon hours in there. Other blogs are only just starting to mine the archives for interesting material.  I think I just lost a half hour staring at World War II pics. . .

• Does it annoy you, too, when people ask you a question that they could have just Googled for first and saved us both some time? Here’s the new proper response: LetMeGoogleThatForYou.com

• What’s the dumbest idea you could think of for the web?  What’s the least useful thing ever?  How about HugeURL?

• MTVMusic is an on-line repository for thousands (?) of music videos.  This is all the proof you need that all forgotten art forms will eventually find new life on the web. I’m thoroughly hooked on reliving the 80s right now.

• Whoa: The Christian Science Monitor is dropping its print edition. Ironically, this story is brought to you by “The New York Times,” a dead tree newspaper in deep financial trouble.

• Video from London. Turn of the century London. Most impressive.

• How about a Mac utility to play FLAC files in iTunes?  I like that idea.

• Wii Fit has outsold Grand Theft Auto IV!

• Now it can be told: How a Jeopardy! game board is written. (Current up to about a decade ago. ;-)

When Jason Calacanis said to Sarah Lane on TWiT this week that Revision3 has a few too many people for a company of its size, it seemed like an honest enough business assessment.  After she got laid off from Rev3 yesterday, it’s a little chilling.

Eep.  Bad timing.

But the thing that cracks me up the most about the relatively minor layoffs at Rev3 this week is the internet outrage and outcry against the company.  It’s a repeat of every stupid thing every dumb comic book fanboy ever says about Marvel or DC when a book they like gets cancelled.

And I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised that a company that relies on Diggnation for its top viewership would have fans who would say Rev3 did everything wrong this week, and that Rev3 should have democratized who got laid off and which shows got canned.

There comes a time, I suppose, where you reap what you sow.  Rely on social media, and have that society think that everything mirrors them.

Tech Crunch wasn’t as thrilled with eBay’s recent earnings statement.  In fact, they found really only one point of hope for the company:
As eBay’s Core Business Hits Hard Times, Skype Begins To Shine

Another eBay business that is holding its own, surprisingly, is Skype. Revenues for the third quarter were $143 million. Although its growth rate is slowing, at least it is still growing, both on an annual (46 percent) and sequential quarterly (5 percent) basis. Its total registered users grew 51 percent to 370 million, and those people used up 16 billion minutes of talk time.

Ah, good ol’ Skype! Love it.