Scary stuff

Maybe this site worries me because I suppose I am (for some stores) such a "demon customer". Certainly I spend a lot more time looking than buying, always go after the bargain and very rarely spend all that much. I have these visions of this principle combining with the eye-reading stuff from "Minority report", creating a dystopia where the large companies ignore the poorer/non-consumeristic part of society and if you want to engage in any of the things they control you have to be a consumer. An underclass forms with its own primitive cooperative economy...Hmm. Or not.

Looking back over my spending habits there are many shops I just browsed in for years, not having the money to buy anything, and now I have a bit more money I can go in and buy stuff there. If they'd been rude when I was a poor window-shopper I might not have come back. A similar principle applies to banks etc, where people only have a small account when they're young but develop loyalty which means they open a large account there when they're old and rich. I wonder if this has occured to these companies?

Also, finally got around to reading "Dinner at Deviants Palace". Quite good, though the Evil Megolomaniac whose Plan For World Domination involves a glossolalialing fundamentalist cult and mind-altering drugs remined me ever-so-slightly of Snow Crash. (*) That and I think Tim Powers and Lois McMaster Bujold (In "Shards of Honour") have both tapped into my previously unkown but apparently deepseated fear of implacable translucent floating bloodsucking..things. *shudders*

(*)It drives Cam crazy how I always go "Ah, I've already seen this plot in such-and-such", my brains pattern-matching is a bit overactive at times. It also drives him crazy how I ruin plots, but...eh. I haven't said what kind of Evil Plans they are.