I think it's all luck of the click.

I use XP and Firefox. This is my second one.

But then again, It's not like this was a woot off with a bunch of warning. Sure the veterans may have surmised something was going to happen.

As it was, I just totall lucked out.

Merry Christmas woot!

My Confirmation of the Big ole Carp....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfK9NVTpMbQ

Notice, that the woot lights are running. I'm sure my success depended upon these little usb devices....

First post, registered today, Nice new B@g of Cr@p headed my way.

Although I have my husband to thank for that and he got his first bag too.

All I wanted for Xmas was a BagO Krap

ThatPoshGirl wrote:Vista running Opera (a couple programs were running in the background DeLorme Topo USA 7.0 and Outlook 2007).

win 2k running FF on a dell latitude D610 over wireless dsl

Mac running Safari. Scored one Baggy of Camomile. Most times I get "servers are busy" or just a hang.

My First Brick of Carbon!!!! Woo Hoo!!!

PuntaCana wrote:a note to all those who say woot needs to get better servers blah blah blah, you guys clearly don't understand computers or websites. sure, they could probably invest enough money to make it possible to handle the load when a Braille on Cookies shows up, but it wouldn't make any sense because a) they only have problems once every few months for about 10 minutes and b)it would take some ridiculously powerful stuff to handle tens of thousands of hits every second. i'd like all you people complaining about the woot servers to show me the website that can handle that kind of traffic.

gee, a note to you.

YOU RENT SERVERS.. thanks for your support.

I can't think of very many companies that want to run racks of servers and own them. Well maybe BIG companies. But a full array is an outlay of huge cash.

So most rent. Why can't they rent extra's for the Baggy of Camomile. They know when it is going to happen.

trekmiss wrote:I'm surprised at the childish reactions of those who missed out. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's the same reactions every time. Honestly, it doesn't matter how many woots you have bought, or how long you have been checking woot daily...if you get a Baggy of Camomile, you get a Banging old cans. If you don't, you don't. Does it really matter THAT much to you? What's with the entitlement attitudes? Woot doesn't owe you anything more than what you have successfully ordered and paid for.

Look at the bright side -- we didn't have to endure two or three days of purile "GIMMEE GIMMEE GIMMEE BOOOOOXXXX!!!!" posts (while trying to find out about the PRODUCTS being sold, argh!)

I swear, I see the idiocy that goes down on the forums during wootoffs, and all I can think is *how* can the people who *work* there NOT have utter contempt for these whiners?

For myself, I kept trying, never expected to win -- live in rural MI in modem-only region. This has been one of the worst years of my life. My health is shot, my finances ain't far behind -- got approved for full disability by SSA *without* hiring a lawyer (does that tell you how wonderful my health is? ugh) -- the weather has been utter pits, I am in constant pain, I have a very young son with serious health issues of his own, I turn 60 in less than a year, and a couple of days ago, arrived an item I got that I'd hoped would help get my mind off *some* of my woes -- the Pentax DSLR listed here a week or two ago.

Looks like I got the *only* DOA! (They're replacing it, but at first, someone screwed up and told us to return it -- on our dime -- with NO replacement!)

Then, tonight, against all the odds, I actually got "The Box"! Didn't *think* it worked -- did not get confirmation for a HALF HOUR! (My wife sends me a msg blurting out that I won, she received the email confirmation!)

Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug. I've had an awful lot of "bug days" of late, c'est la vie.

I digress. For all the venom here tonight (and it's at a shocking level), at least we have been spared the hours and days of endless whining. That alone is worth something! <g>

People had mantioned a Banging old cans on Christmas, so I went back through the past woots, and saw that they have done a wootoff every year in mid december (in time for christmas) and a Baggy of Camomile every christmas day. So it was pretty much a given that we would have one.

*I hope they don't cancel next years bag because I said that*

I also made it back as far as the community page goes, May of 2005 or something like that.

bugzappers2112 wrote:gee, a note to you.

YOU RENT SERVERS.. thanks for your support.

I can't think of very many companies that want to run racks of servers and own them. Well maybe BIG companies. But a full array is an outlay of huge cash.

So most rent. Why can't they rent extra's for the Baggy of Camomile. They know when it is going to happen.

Yeah, because it costs nothing to rent more servers. Nothing to set them up. Nothing to configure them. Nothing to cover the cost of the power and cooling.

Adding more servers would definitely solve the problem. After all, major retailers like Amazon never have any issues when they have huge sales going on. It would make so much sense for woot to purchase, rent, whatever, more servers JUST so people could get a Baggy of Camomile because when you have 2,000 for people to get and way more people than that trying, it's going to make a difference.

Oh. Wait. NOT.

pacofoo wrote:give up my method that just scored me two for yours that got you none? i think not.

you hit f5 on 2 browsers. that = BS

Nooooo I missed out!!

bmwaldron wrote:i got one and used my mac (leopard) with firefox. i'm curious to all who got one what browser and os you used, i don't even know if that matters though?

I was running one window of Safari and another of IE. The Safari browser got me through and got the koi (after a few minutes of hanging.) The IE window never got past the "I want one" screen.

Roy33sakic wrote:Quantity goes down because of declined cards and such.

BoCs really aren't that great to be honest.

Last year's contents:

-pens
-Toy monkey
-Toy telephone
-Insulated beer mug
-A large bag for a video camera
-Whatever the hell an "Animation Station" is
-Infrared thermometer
-CueCat

What the hell? They include CueCats with those? In addition to no longer being functional, they gave the CueCat away for free when it WAS functional.

By cutting one trace on the circuit board (At least on the USB ones), Cuecats are very nice barcode readers that will just send the barcode in plain text like a keyboard.

I don't have the link handy but I love my Cuecat. It's especially great for things like UPS/Fedex shipping labels (if you get a label printed when you send something), no need to type, just scan it.

I think what people forget is that getting a Random Barge of Carp is, uh, whats the word I'm looking for, RANDOM!!!!!!!!

They don't need the server capacity except for say, maybe 10 minutes a month. Add to that the fact that they don't really care if YOU get the Baggy of Camomile, so get over it.

An analogy would be that for a black friday sale WalMart should sock MILLIONS of whatever it is YOU want and off it ALL Day Just so YOU can Get it.

I think WOOT does it just to mess with us because they know we like being messed with....

alien88 wrote:Yeah, because it costs nothing to rent more servers. Nothing to set them up. Nothing to configure them. Nothing to cover the cost of the power and cooling.

Adding more servers would definitely solve the problem. After all, major retailers like Amazon never have any issues when they have huge sales going on. It would make so much sense for woot to purchase, rent, whatever, more servers JUST so people could get a Baggy of Camomile because when you have 2,000 for people to get and way more people than that trying, it's going to make a difference.

Oh. Wait. NOT.

Well then explain how come I used to get them all the time, and since the april fools woot off, I have scored NONE. Same pc, same ultra fast connection, clock set to woot server time. I NEVER had any problems scoring a Baggy of Camomile. I used to get the page and could fart around on the site after scoring the Baggy of Camomile. Hell, I used to be the FIRST WOOTER to WOOT on Baggy of Camomile. Now I get LAG. then sold out.

Kaerras wrote:Erm.. somewhat new wooter here, though I rarely read comments. I just have a question..

What is the deal with the commentary? It seems almost as random as the sale item today. Bag of Camomile? Koi? Banging old cans? Inside jokes, or filterpwn?

As the fireman once said, "the ladder."

Old Baggy of Camomile Openings... (yes... the quality is crappy... much like the item. Go cry about it to your x-mas gifts.)

Click

Also Dell Vostro 1500 running XP on a wireless connection at 54 Mbps and a winner tonight... what? what!

justin42 wrote:By cutting one trace on the circuit board (At least on the USB ones), Cuecats are very nice barcode readers that will just send the barcode in plain text like a keyboard.

I don't have the link handy but I love my Cuecat. It's especially great for things like UPS/Fedex shipping labels (if you get a label printed when you send something), no need to type, just scan it.

JUSTIN. really, just break a connection. COOL, thanks for the info.

ah, koi, i missed it. that's what i get for being in linux with no tracker on. ;) oh well, i got one last time.

W-T-F!

Just wondering, Am I the only one who likes the Woot Off Theme?

It Rocks!

wow... this is not my 1st b a g o f c r a p... and i hope to gawd that it won't be my last.... but i didn't think i was gonna get one.. why? try being on the other side of the world... in Kuwait... with a half of our internet restricted by the Kuwait Ministry of Communication.. and utilizing lousy wireless Q-Net connectiosn that they charge us 35$ a month... but hey it could be worse.... so i'm just freakin' ecstatic thta i was able to snag one up this season!!! thanks woot.. you've made my xmas.. believe me.. way better than what i saw some individuals get at my unit's xmas party... which was mandatory fun.. and suprisingly fun as well!!! i know!!! who would've thunk it!!! imagine this.. an office party.. and not a drop of booze is involved... but individuals are still having fun..wEiRd huh?! well tah tah for now!!! i'll keep you all posted as to what i receive!!! yay!!!

deadslug wrote:ah, koi, i missed it. that's what i get for being in linux with no tracker on. ;) oh well, i got one last time.

Really, i was using project gengler in puppy and sea monkey. ULTRA FAST.

I can't beleive I waited until 2:30 to check the woot. I lose.

KingBubbaTruck wrote:Just wondering, Am I the only one who likes the Woot Off Theme?

It Rocks!

nope, I think it is quite addicting to listen to.

I am sure it is subliminal twords buying woots.

LovelyVely wrote:wow... this is not my 1st b a g o f c r a p... and i hope to gawd that it won't be my last.... but i didn't think i was gonna get one.. why? try being on the other side of the world... in Kuwait... with a half of our internet restricted by the Kuwait Ministry of Communication.. and utilizing lousy wireless Q-Net connectiosn that they charge us 35$ a month... but hey it could be worse.... so i'm just freakin' ecstatic thta i was able to snag one up this season!!! thanks woot.. you've made my xmas.. believe me.. way better than what i saw some individuals get at my unit's xmas party... which was mandatory fun.. and suprisingly fun as well!!! i know!!! who would've thunk it!!! imagine this.. an office party.. and not a drop of booze is involved... but individuals are still having fun..wEiRd huh?! well tah tah for now!!! i'll keep you all posted as to what i receive!!! yay!!!

Party on, I'm having a Nog for you!

So that, and the guy who said they got one on dial up, just goes to prove it has little to do with connection speed and more with luck, and, well, LUCK!!!!!!

I'm beginning to think I'll never get a Baggy of Camomile.

At least now I know they usually do one on Christmas day. Maybe next year... I'll be ready!

bugzappers2112 wrote:nope, I think it is quite addicting to listen to.

I am sure it is subliminal twords buying woots.

I find myself every now and then just humming parts of it during the day. Probably a sickness of some sort.....

Doopity Doop we gots a Woot off.... Doopity Doop Doop Doop Doop Doop Doop.

wootAndTheWay wrote:Oh man, sorry about the camera -- hope Woot made good on it. Congrats on the Baggy of Camomile.. can't wait to see what we get. I wonder if it's usually better quality koi because it's xmas?

It was ulcer-city for a while -- all we got was a bot-mail telling us to ship it back -- on our dime -- for a refund (we'd already ordered a lens for it, which had been shipped) -- then, they said someone screwed up, they did have more on hand after all, and will Fedex a replacement with a call tag for the DOA one.

Whew! (I *really* wanted that camera!)

Do some math, people. If Woot servers were ten times faster, all that would mean is that they would sell out ten times faster. It won't increase your specific chances of getting one. Because there were only 2000.

There is enough distribution in geography, hardware, and software that tweaking none of those will give you an advantage. The only way to increase your chances of a dɐɹɔ ɟo ƃɐq is to get as many other Wooters as possible to stop chasing it, and don't tell your friends to either. (I've still never gotten one myself)

SandSpiderII wrote:I can't beleive I waited until 2:30 to check the woot. I lose.

if it makes you feel any better, I was here 10 minutes early, and refreshing like mad so I saw it within a second of it coming up, and I still didn't get one.

genmom wrote: Is that it until tomorrow night do you think?

One item per day til it is sold out. period. end of sentence.

in other words, yes, that is it until tomorrow

ecakiryan wrote:First sucker: Jfreak623
Speed to first woot: 0m 0.860s

less than a second????? how's that even possible??

A fast computer, on a fast connection, already logged in, the PIN loaded into the paste buffer... I can see it happening. But, I've seen some timestamps that are MUCH shorter than that, which I do NOT believe could *possibly* have been delivered by human hands no matter *how* caffeinated the driver might be.

I am wondering though, if they've introduced a bit of a random element into the "random" bag purchases -- seems like some people who did get in earlier did NOT score, while some who didn't get in until later on DID manage to win.

Personally I wouldn't object at all -- it would help level the playing field for us folks who are stuck out here in modemland (there really are wide swaths of Rural America where it's either a modem... or nothing).

I've never gotten past the main order page before, and what few times I *did* get even *that* far, I'd get kicked right back to it with a sorry, sold out message on top of the page. Tonight, I got to the confirmation page (the "big stupid button"), which I clicked -- but then, instead of being taken to the transaction completed page, I got kicked back to the main page (which by then had the sold-out message), so, I figured I once again lost. I did check my account page every so often for about 20 minutes, but gave up. About ten minutes later, my wife sent me a msg -- she got the confirmation email! It took a half hour to process. FWIW I am on a *very* boggy modem connection, doing all my own typing.

cool....the one night when I'm guaranteed to be no where near the computer :.(

bardic wrote:

Also remember, you can type in you cc code and hit enter rather than spending the time to scroll down and click the button. Lastly, it will probably take a while, don't give up. Through server busy messages and long waits for the server to respond. Everyone else is having the same issues.

I use paypal. I type in my password & copy it so all I have to do is hit paste & click.

not a chance tonight

Ahh, my 4th Christmas koi. Christmas is the only time I've actually been able to get them. In 3+ years I've only gotten one during a Woot Off. The other 4 have all been on 12/25.