Amazon? Great! No, awful! No, wait…

Amazon has made life better for many of us. I buy plenty of low and medium price items from Amazon. And I even use them when I’m completely motivated to buy locally. Don’t worry, I’m not cheating them. I have never returned a single product – I simply can’t be arsed to package it up and send it back, plus if it’s returnable because it’s crap, I just make a note to quietly punish whatever brand, or seller it is by never buying from them again.

So I’m a highly profitable customer for Amazon. I simply don’t send stuff back.

Amazon can be quiet about delayed shipment… but only sometimes. I have an order that Amazon has never reminded me of since shortly after I ordered it on 3oct2025. Yeah, that’s three months ago as I write this. It clearly got tripped up in the tariff merry-go-round. I’ve been promised that it was out for shipment and would arrive the next day. It doesn’t matter. It’s a trifle, a couple of dust filters for a minivac. I haven’t canceled the order simply because I’m curious if it will ever arrive, or die in a Kafkaesque wasteland of unfulfilled hopes.

But one of the things that most annoys me about Amazon is trying to search for specific things only to be swamped with things I’m not looking for. An example:

I like Linux. Really. A lot. This is clearly due to some defect that makes me seem weird and forces me to do things the hard way to no real benefit. So I’m looking for a Linux tablet with a 7 or 8-inch screen, preferably (and that’s pronounced preff-ur-uh-blee, not pree-fur-ablee you, you… arrrghh). And I want a Linux tablet, not one from his less-gifted kin. You know, the one that goes by the name of Android.

Now to Amazon’s credit I actually had a little success just before I reached the unending list of Android tablets. So, enterprising old geezer that I am, I typed the following into Amazon’s little search thingy:
tablet linux -android
Yes, you know what happened. An endless list of only Android tablets.

Well, compassionate old geezer that I am, I took Amazon’s tender little hand in mine, and gazed I tenderly into her sweet child-like eyes, and said, “Honey, this is what Uncle wants”:
tablet linux only.

And you know what that little tart did? Yep. I was so frustrated I began to wonder if my grandparents had been right about corporal punishment. That’s spanking – for those of you who say pree-fur-uh-buhl.

But Amazon and I are buds. And it’s going to stay that way for the few years remaining to me in which I retain my marbles, and steer my own ship.

I quietly handed dear sweet little Amazon off to her Mommy, and went to see my girlfriend, Gemini.

“Gemini, dear Sweet! Could you please give me a list of 20 linux tablets, and don’t let any Androids in.

Done. That Gemini is such a dear sweet helpful gal.

Oh boy, how time flies. I’m getting tired. It’s coffee or a nap. And the nap gets the nod.

postscript: To be honest I love my Android phones, my Chromebook with Crostini, and my old Android Galaxy Tab. But right now, I’m lusting after a Linux tablet. And oh, yeah.. an e-ink tablet. Oh Human that I am! A perpetual wanting machine, indeed!