Indie Author SOS ~ Weirdness!

So I was checking out the listing for my book, That Fatal Kiss, on Amazon.com (yeah, I was eyeballing the Amazon Best Sellers Rank, which I've been doing daily since I released it in September) (OK, I look at TFK's ABSR several times a day; gimme a break, this is all new to me and I've got compulsive tendencies) when I noticed something weird. It struck me as so utterly bizarre that I squinted, really hard, at my laptop screen (and I do my damnedest not to squint, 'cause I can't afford the wrinkles). I even asked someone at my day job to take a look at it, as I just really couldn't believe what I was seeing. Here's a piccie of The Weirdness (hint: look closely at the pricing in the rectangular box):

Do you see that Used Paperback price, through Amazon.com Marketplace? Someone's listed for sale a used paperback copy of TFK for almost a thousand dollars.

Someone has listed for sale a used paperback copy of TFK for almost a thousand dollars.

Uh...what?

Say what???

Seriously, what the actual fuck? For realz? C'mon, that's gotta be a typo, right? The seller meant, like, 99 cents, probably, right? Right?!

So I e-mailed the good people over at Amazon.com, just asking if that was a legit listing, and was given some canned response about sellers being able to ask any price they want for the items they put up for sale.

Yeah, that's fine, but what the hell did the seller do to that copy to warrant a ticket price of $999.11? Gild the page edges with actual gold, melted down in a vat in his basement? Embed in it some new stripe of artificial intelligence, so that it can do your homework (and/or taxes) for you, on demand? 
Imbue it with such mighty mystical powers that, if carried around as a charm, it'd keep mosquitoes and zits at bay for, like, forever? ('Cause that would be rather impressive, wouldn't it?)

I'm tempted to write the seller and ask her/him to let me know if it sells at that price, just to see if s/he discovers (and owns up to) an error in pricing. 'Cause that's totally a mistake. It's just gotta be. Or a cruel, cruel joke.

Indie (and/or traditionally published) authors of teh Blogosphere: any o' y'all seen some shit like that? If so, did it weird you out? If so, did you do anything about it? Should I be doing something about it??? (Probably not, but this thing's just do weirdly weird that I had to toss in a few more question marks somewhere...)

Licorice ~ Aphrodisiacs from A to Z

By Alcibiades (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Licorice, as far as I know, does not enjoy the wide appeal of its brasher cousin, ginger. (I dunno if they're in anyway related; I'm just callin' 'em cousins 'cause they both grow underground. Artistic license, OK?) (Gosh!)

Anyway, I find it a bit bizarre that, when I posted about anise, the similarity between its taste and that of licorice was almost universally disparaged by the chicks who commented. (I, myself, am not a fan.) AND YET, here 'tis, turning up as one of nature's aphrodisiacs.

"WTF?" you may ask.

Here's the thing: it's not the taste but the scent of licorice that turns us on.

No, really.

Y U SO SEX-AY?
Some guy did a study and learned that the scent of licorice, in combination with other specific scents, increased the flow of blood to the genitals of both male and female subjects by, like, a lot. (For dudes, it was a licorice/doughnut combo that got them frisky, and for the babes it was licorice/cucumber.)

Surreal.

Note that there were other scents that turned people on, the most effective among them being cinnamon buns. (Lawdhammercy, I knew there was a reason why I get all flushed whenever I near a Cinnabon. You know, apart from the obvious. Cinnabon, MMMMM!)

RECIPES

• Healing Licorice Root Tea
• Homemade Root Beer
• Licorice and Lime Parfait

Click here to learn more about licorice.

Sources

Where the heck...

...did those two rectangular shapes on the upper right-hand corner of this page come from? In Firefox I just see their outlines, but in Internet Explorer they're two white rectangles that completely cover my A to Z Challenge badge. Y'all see 'em? What the Cornelius Fudge? HOW DO I GET RID OF THEM????? (Seriously, I've no idea how they got there, I can't "see" them in the layout or design, I've no idea how to be rid of them, and it's making me a little bit crazier than usual.)

Edit: So I've added a pic to push up the A to Z badge and make it somewhat more visible (I think). If anyone can help me lose the rectangles, I'd really appreciate your help. (Plus, once those are gone, you'll be able to see the nifty pic I added!)

Further edited to note: OK, the phantom rectangles are gone. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Edited yet a third time to bitch about their return. Gah! What the frig? Is Mercury retrograde or summat?????

Everybody Wants You - Billy Squier