Category Archives: Amazon

I Like FREE Movies and I Cannot Lie!

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I love FREE. FREE is my favorite price point (at least until I figure out a way for them to pay me). Here are a few freebies that I picked up recently.

Act of Valor (2012) – Rated R

“The mission of rescuing a kidnapped CIA agent from a lethal terrorist cell falls to an elite squad of Navy SEALs in this covert-action thriller. Active duty SEALs play the lead fighting roles in a saga based on actual events from their service.”

I got a FREE ticket to Act of Valor from buying the Master and Commander Blu-Ray at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart received a shipper containing the following $10 Blu-Rays: Master and Commander, Live Free or Die Hard, Independence Day, Man on Fire, Platoon, X-Men Wolverine, Navy Seals, Windtalkers, Behind Enemy Lines, Flyboys, The Marine, Men of Honor, Courage Under Fire, Valkyrie, Tigerland, X-Men, Commando, Rescue Dawn, Lions for Lambs and Hart’s War.

Each one comes with a coupon/sticker on the package for a FREE ticket to Act of Valor (up to $7.50). Make sure yours has a sticker on the front before purchasing. The backside of that sticker has the redemption code – it is not inside the Blu-Ray case.

John Carter (2012) – Rated PG-13

“One minute, dozing Civil War veteran John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is evading Apaches in a deserted cave. The next, he’s waking up on Mars, a once-Earthlike planet that’s devolved into chaos — and civil war of a different sort. Based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’s classic “Barsoom Series,” this sci-fi adventure finds Carter coming to the aid of Martian princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) and pitching in to help protect the planet.”

There are actually two different ways to get a FREE ticket to see John Carter. The first is by purchasing one of a select set of films and then going through Disney Movie Rewards (either by signing up and navigating their site or going here). The movies can be purchased wherever you like – the Disney code you use will be located inside the case (so get a factory sealed copy).

The following movies and formats qualify for Disney’s promotion: Tron Classic (DVD/Blu), Tron New (DVD/Blu), National Treasure (DVD/Blu), National Treasure 2 (DVD/Blu), Remember the Titans (DVD/Blu), Sorcerer’s Apprentice (DVD/Blu), Prince Caspian (DVD/Blu), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (DVD), Alice in Wonderland Depp version (DVD), Secretariat (DVD), Race to Witch Mountain (DVD), Roving Mars (DVD), The Rocketeer (DVD), and Prince of Persia (DVD).

The second John Carter promotion is through Amazon. I’ve left the referral code for Blu-Ray.com in the URL as that is where I found this deal. Their list of titles is much the same but only DVDs (no Blu-Rays). If you use this, make sure you buy one of the movies sold by Amazon and not a third-party seller. Amazon will then email you the reward code to enter at the John Carter redemption site.

While the qualifying movies overlap, I’m not sure if you can double-dip. Personally I picked up a DVD copy of Sorcerer’s Apprentice at Best Buy for $9.99.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011) – Rated PG-13

“When the devil resurfaces with aims to take over the world in human form, Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) reluctantly comes out of hiding to transform into the flame-spewing supernatural hero Ghost Rider — and rescue a 10-year-old boy from an unsavory end.”

I saw a FREE Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance ticket on a Priest DVD at Target. I passed as my limit is $10 and Target wanted $13. I later went to see Ghost Rider so I highly advise against this deal. Wow – jaw-droppingly bad movie.

FREE DISNEY MOVIE

Disney Movie Rewards also has a promo running this month for a FREE Blu-Ray. Enter two of their magic codes (found inside almost all Disney DVDs and Blu-Rays) and you can choose from A Bug’s Life, Bridge to Terabithia, or Tinkerbell. They will charge you $3.95 for shipping and handling and allow a whopping six to eight weeks for delivery.

UPCOMING PROMOS

American Reunion and Wrath of the Titans supposedly have upcoming FREE tickets as well but I haven’t seen the promotion.

Lying with Numbers – Kindle Fire part 2

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The other day I posted about the nifty Kindle Fire my wife bought me.

The Fire comes with a free month of Amazon Prime. If you order from Amazon regularly then Prime is fantastic. You get free streaming videos (more on that in a moment), a lending library for Kindle owners (one book a month), free two-day shipping on all orders, and one day shipping for $3.99 an item – all for $79 a year ($6.58 a month).

Here is my favorite nitpick. I cannot stand when people use numbers to effectively lie to people. It’s not that the numbers are wrong, it’s that they carefully phrase things so that the numbers are meaningless. Amazon Prime offers free streaming of over 10,000 movies and TV shows. This makes it sound like a competitor for Netflix.

Let’s start with a favorite of mine – the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Now you might think this is one of the over 10,000 or you might think that it was seven if you were inclined to split up the individual seasons. In actuality this counts as 144 of the over 10,000 as Amazon counts each episode of a TV show. With many of the TV series carried by Amazon counting as over a 100 choices each, that 10,000 number is far less impressive. Lumping movies (which count as 1 each) with the TV shows makes the numbers meaningless. To add insult to injury, where they have an HD and a normal version both are counted.

If you want a better breakdown, a simple search reveals that they have 2,323 results under Prime eligible movies. Mind you this is an absolute maximum number as many TV episodes are listed singly under movies for some reason. Their TV section lists 903 titles and is mostly broken down by season.

Hopefully Amazon Prime’s instant video section will expand rapidly. I don’t understand why they don’t have a full catalog of public domain titles. I am concerned that because Amazon likes to rent and sell movies a la carte that there is less incentive to improve the free section. On the other hand Amazon embodies both the Netflix buffet approach and Blockbuster’s gouge them for every penny and we all know who won Netflix vs. Blockbuster.

How to Kindle a Fire

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“There’s a nice deal on a Kindle Fire. That’ll make a great coaster for my iPad” – Stephen Colbert

I’ve always been a little jealous of my wife’s iPad. She uses it every night while we sit in front of the TV and surfs the web with big bold print, uses her blog reader, or just plays Bejeweled. A new iPad was definitely not in the budget this year but my wife saved her scheckels and kindly bought me a shiny new Kindle Fire from Amazon.

Kindle Fire: Everything I think about the Kindle Fire seems to have a but attached.

The Kindle Fire is a great price ($200 for a tablet versus a minimum of $500 for an iPad) but it does come up short against the iPad. The 7″ inch screen is a wonderful upgrade from a smartphone but print is still ridiculously small on most websites I tried. Yes you can enlarge the print and scroll around with your fingers but this is imprecise and a little cumbersome (but far superior to a smartphone).

The “revolutionary” Silk browser is not ultra-fast as Amazon claims. Firefox on my computer loads much faster. Silk is supposed to learn from your browsing history and speed up – I have only tested it a little bit so maybe my speed increase will kick in later. I certainly like the idea of a browser accelerated by Amazon’s servers. Silk does support Flash so that is certainly a point against Apple.

If you are used to Apple’s App store then Amazon’s App choices will seem a joke. Yes they do have the ubiquitous Angry Birds and Plants vs. Zombies. Still one of the things I most  liked about the iPad was the ability to play board games. I looked up Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, Carcassonne, and Ticket to Ride. All of them are available in nice editions on the iPad but none are available on the Fire. You can get Monopoly and Scrabble but I don’t care for Monotony and I don’t play Scrabble because of the rampant availability of cheat programs.

Fine – I went to my back up options. I looked up Puzzle Quest, Galactrix, and Puzzle Quest 2. Still a no-go on the Fire in spite of them being available on numerous other platforms. I went back to my trusty Plants vs. Zombies. It looks and plays great but it only has Adventure mode – no Zen garden and no mini-games which, as you might guess, are my favorite parts. Hopefully Popcap will update this like they did the iPod/iPhone version.

Amazon does feature a FREE app every day which is very nice. I always use my Fire daily if only to snag the freebie. I even got Bejeweled 2 for FREE and it is much better on the Fire than on a smartphone. I look forward to Amazon’s app store filling up at some point.

Netflix and Hulu Plus work great and are easy-to-use. The 7″ Fire screen is absolutely gorgeous. I was surprised to find how enjoyable the screen-size was. Sound is only okay as half volume is inaudible and full volume is just a normal level (mind you the family does accuse me of being deaf – personally I can’t hear them).

If you own movies and/or music from Amazon then it is very easy to transfer them wirelessly to the Fire. 8 gigabyte is not a lot but it fits all 13 episodes of The Walking Dead from Amazon plus two movies. Transferring movies from your computer requires a micro USB cable. I have one but have yet to try this feature as I suspect that I will have to play with video formats, sizes and resolutions.

Verdict: The Kindle Fire is no iPad killer and doesn’t even really play in the same ballpark. It is however an incredible value if you use it as a traveling movie machine with games. Also buying a Kindle Fire leaves you $300 to do something silly like feed your family.

Note: While I am critical here of the Fire, I am enjoying it quite a bit and am bound to enjoy it more as the Amazon market matures.

Amazon & The Prime Directive & A Little Hulu Too

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I often mention that we have cut the cable here thanks to the cornucopia available on Netflix and Hulu. The biggest exception to that is that I’m addicted to The Walking Dead. I buy each episode from Amazon the day after it airs. Each episode is only $1.99 ($2.99 in HD) and there are only 13 episodes this season so basically you can get the whole season for $26 ($39 for HD) at least six months before the DVD will be released. You do have to have an Amazon-compatible device (like the Roku) to play them on the TV.

Amazon Prime is looking to be a major player in the video world. So far their offerings are nice but they run a very distant third to Netflix and Hulu and most of their movies and shows are duplicated by one or both services. On the other hand if you are an Amazon addict then the Free 2-day shipping may make the choice for you.

Amazon Prime just added a lending library for the Kindle so my wonderful wife may be signing us up shortly. With Amazon releasing a $200 tablet shortly to compete with Apple, I would expect them to sign a bunch more content partners for video over the next few months.

Amazon currently has a FREE trial month of Prime if you haven’t used it yet. It costs $79 a year which breaks down to $6.58 a month so it is fairly inexpensive for the number of benefits you receive.

Hulu just added a bunch of CW shows so I can watch Supernatural on my Roku! Woohoo! For the rest of you, there is Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle, 90210, Ringer, Nikita, Hart of Dixie, Gossip Girl and America’s Next Top Model.