Nothing About The Bakken -- Urban Living And The ABC's Of Love -- September 27, 2017

I'm in my ramen noodle phase.

My wife and I enjoyed Tampopo. She generally does not watch a movie more than one time. Me? I can watch a movie I like over and over and over. I think I've watched Tampopo half a dozen times since I ordered it from Amazon about six months ago.

Surprisingly, there's another "ramen movie": The Ramen Girl. I want to watch it with my wife, but our schedules never seem to work out that we can watch it together. I've watched the first 15 minutes twice and I don't want to watch the rest of it without watching it with someone else. The movie looks incredible.

So, I'm watching it again tonight -- but just the first 15 minutes. I will save the movie until I can watch it with Mayumi (my wife, half Japanese, half Hispanic). Her Hispanic half is sweet; her Japanese half is ... well, let's just say it's not sweet. LOL.

So, I will watch the first fifteen minutes of this movie and then hope we can finish it together some evening. Right now, she's out in California with her Japanese and her Chinese friends.

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Amazon Fresh

This is really crazy. I like to have extra ink cartridges for my printer in the house in case my printer says I'm out of ink. The other night I replaced my last color and last black/white cartridge, so I went to Amazon.com to order new cartridges.

Wow, they are expensive. About the same price as one can find at Walmart. $35 for combination color and black/white cartridges (two cartridges). It's not worth ordering just one package so I order two: $70.

I place the order and go to "checkout." I'm unable to place the order: Amazon keeps directing me to something called "Amazon Fresh." I don't want "Amazon Fresh." I just want to order my ink cartridges and move on.

But I can't.

Finally, I click on the "Amazon Fresh" button. I'm now asked when I would like to have the cartridges delivered. They can be delivered in two hours. No kidding. All I have to do is click on the button and the cartridges will be here in two hours. Free shipping.

I don't want some guy trying to find my apartment in the middle of the night, so I click the button "8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. the next morning."

Free shipping.

Amazon shows me a map: my house and the fulfillment center, just a few miles down the road.

This morning, at 9:14 a.m. the cartridges showed up at my doorstep.

Now the weird part: Amazon.com took $5 off the order as a promotion. Wow. I had no choice and yet Amazon.com took $5 off my purchase. What a great company. No wonder the company isn't making a profit.

But then they added a $6-tip for the person delivering the ink cartridges. So, $5 off for the purchase as a promotion and a $6-tip (that I had no control over) -- an extra $1 for free shipping.

I was very, very impressed. I saw the charge for the tip before I clicked on the last button so I had the option of opting out, but for a buck, I wanted to see how this would all work out.

And lo and behold, as noted, the ink cartridges showed up at 9:14 a.m., right in the middle of the two-hour window -- and cash back on the credit card for the order.

The ABC's of Love, Doyle and Debbie