Whaddya know

When I wrote about color work, I didn't expect to get all the helpful tips in the comments that I received. I'm not saying that I don't think you all are capable and knowledgeable. Au contraire. I've benefited from my readers' wisdom and assistance on many occasions. I guess what surprised me this time was the depth of it. Funny what happens when you go look at some knitting help videos in part because you had nothing else to write about that day.

Anyway, I really appreciate the advice. I don't know when I might be bold enough to give one of those techniques a try, but I will definitely be referring to those comments whenever that time comes.

Although I don't have a knitting tip to share, I have one that might be useful if you shop online. Every now and then I'd been checking on a Blu-ray player at Amazon.com to see if it was at a price at which I was interested in making the purchase. It's not an essential by any means, but I know that now is potentially when good deals are there to be had.

I noticed that as I checked it and similar machines, the price was coming down. Wednesday morning it reached the price where I was ready, but I wanted to take a look at the item in a store before buying.

A few hours later I refreshed the page, thinking that maybe I could get that price to decrease a little more. (I recalled reading that Amazon does dynamic pricing, something I'd also seen firsthand with this item.) Bzzt! The price had jumped about five dollars. Fine. I'll wait. I checked again later that night. It had gone up another five bucks. Before the night was through, it was twenty-seven dollars more than it had been twelve hours earlier.

Obviously I was going to have none of this. I waited about a half day before looking again. The price was up another seven dollars. Now I was getting angry. One of my brothers directed me to Price Protectr as a means of finding out about price drops without having to check the actual item page. It's apparent that my searches for and visits to the item page have caused the price to increase.

I'm still waiting to get my first e-mail notice from them because the price has continued to rise. Out of curiosity, I checked the Blu-ray player's price again. It went up a whopping $35! In two days the price has shot up $61 and practically no discount off the manufacturer's suggested retail price.

I've gone from ready to purchase to a disinterested buyer, or one who may not get it from them. (They still have a deal associated with the item, though, that makes them the most attractive seller if the price falls again.) I'll be interested to see if Price Protectr--yes, there is no second "o" in the name--will deliver news of a price drop. At the very least, it may stave off exponential price increases from overly curious searching and checking.