The Wall Street Journal scoop after midday Monday revealed that Amazon.com Inc.’s AMZN, -4.12% 14-month-old quest to choose a North American city in which to place a second, and essentially coequal, headquarters might not quite yield that result. Amazon, according to the Journal, has decided — anticlimactically enough — to split its so-called HQ2 in two.

With strong indications that the reported late-stage negotiations with Crystal City, Va., meant that Washington, D.C., suburb would now become one of two municipalities selected, close observers were left wondering which of the other 19 shortlisted cities might attract the second half of HQ2, or, one might say, Amazon’s HQ1.5b. By late Monday the New York Times was saying all indications were that Long Island City, in Queens, would get the nod.

MarketWatch topics:Amazon’s HQ2 selection process

But more jaded observers jumped straight to criticizing the company for putting so many hundreds of localities through the search process in the first place when the reward, even for the top contenders, would be no great shakes:

Others saw the humor:

And then there was the year-old tweet that foretold the whole thing:

Read on: Amazon discussions fuel speculation that northern Virginia is ‘HQ2’ front runner

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