True that I didn't link to the product page.

I missed the incentive-for-clicks thing, extra points. The converse, threats and feeble online retaliation for bad reviews, is apparently also commonplace.

"It's about trust, not information" seems like a useful perspective-- but if trust is a commodity, then convincing imitations of trust can be manufactured and sold electronically in tiny easily transmitted quantities.

I guess the funny contrast for me here is between the lack of imagination or initiative behind choosing this as a product to sell and the overbearing effort to make the marketing copy exciting. If you're going to bother with all of those exclamation points, couldn't you set yourself up as a local bitcoin exchange for the unlettered or engage to get a pyramid scheme/ MSM rolling. Maybe these very gold bags need in=person brand ambassadors who could realize high returns????

"chunky nugget gold"

Heh. Reminds me of the urban legend (which might have been true?) that "100% beef" was its own special non-beef product. Who's to say you didn't get "chunky nugget gold" in the bag?

1 IN 3 BAGS = Motherlode Bag!!

Sometimes people think they have big balls, but sometimes they have an untreated inguinal hernia.

Apparently, there really was a "Gold Belt of Virginia".

Per Wikipedia: A caron (/ˈkærən/), háček or haček (/ˈhɑːtʃɛk/ or /ˈheɪtʃɛk/; plural háčeks or háčky) also known as a hachek, wedge, check, kvačica, strešica, mäkčeň, paukščiukas, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, or flying bird, is a diacritic (ˇ) commonly placed over certain letters in the orthography of some Baltic, Slavic, Finnic, Samic, Berber, and other languages to indicate a change in the related letter's pronunciation.

But why is one used in the post title?

Prescriptivist.

As with any User Result Oriented treasure hunting item, no guarantee on specific amount of gold treasure or size of gold treasure can ever be promised.

This sounds like the opposite of being user result oriented...

You're thinking of user-result oriented.

Anyway, we ordered potting soil from Amazon, so are we really so different? I mean, except that we responded to the thought of being stuck in our house all winter by getting a tree for inside.

My meyer lemon tree was doing great until it moved inside and overdosed on south-facing window, then dropped off all its leaves and the lemons died. I've been slowly coaxing it back to grow. I keep hoping it will put out more new leaves but it seems intent in spending its growth energy on putting out flowers.

We haven't seen a lemon yet.

Mine lost a lot of its leaves once we moved it inside, but I don't think I've killed it yet.

Has it handed you lemons yet?

I had two lemons. I was greedy to let those lemons grow on that tree. I wanted lemons, but really the tree is so small that it needs to be putting that energy into root and trunk growth for a couple more years before it spends energy on lemons. But it desperately wants to make lemons.

We have a ficus tree, so I don't know if it can't or just doesn't want to grow lemons.

In 2000 years, I don't think anyone's really figured out what Mark was really going for in chapter 11 verse 13.

My ficus doesn't have figs either, so maybe it's related?

I like to have figs for Christmas, but those were all eaten weeks ago.

Fig trees are pretty sweet. I wouldn't want one in my house, but I might not object to having my house in a fig tree.

5: Honestly, I copied and pasted from LW's email, because I was in a bit of a hurry, and I thought it might have been a clever intentional bit that was over my head.

5. I composed the text on my phone, whose autocorrect I guess sticks with the language of my most recent communication, which wasn't in English. Sloppiness rather than a wry detail.

I am coming to admire sustained attention to detail as an intrinsic virtue, I can't manage it.

13: No, but I only got it this summer.

20, 21. Ah! I thought it might be intentional. It wasn't.

It's very Freudian.

I wonder if Betty White is using Legos more often because this is her last year of eligibility?

19. Fig trees seem to grow happily out of doors in Sheffield, which is ridiculously fax north for them. But I don't think they fruit here. I've never seen any sign of it. Some of the trees are enormous though; they wouldn't fit indoors.