The Wonders of the Internet

Facebook: Yes, I was trepidacious at first about joining. Since posting my reluctance, I have befriended roughly 100 people, many of whom are fellow bloggers!! And at least four high school classmates. The initial messages weren't as bad as I thought they would be, and I've been able to reconnect with the girl who lived across the street from me during elementary and high school. (She swears that I used to make her bed for every morning after I showed up at her house. Me?! I think not; I never even made my own bed!!)

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Goldstar: Monday evening when I logged on at home to check messages, I found a strange message about one of my favorite discount ticket sites. (Okay, the only discount ticket site I've used.) It appeared that their media department had found my blog, liked that I wrote about shows and things going on in the area, and wanted to reward me with a badge and a few other goodies. I've been an active user on the Goldstar site since 2005, but, sceptic that I am, I double and triple checked to make sure this was a legitimate email. Which it was so I now have a nice little badge in the new "Badges and Buttons" section in my links area, and I'm getting some free stuff.

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LibraryThing: One of the nifty little benefits of joining LibraryThing is their "Early Reviewers Club". Each month, publishers give a certain number of Advanced Readers' Copies of books to dole out to members of the Reviewers Club. The catches are that you must add your name to the pool for each book (sometimes in upwards of 300 people requesting a particular title), and you must have written a few reviews on the LibraryThing site. Two such books found their way into my hot little hands, the most recent of which I reviewed in my previous post. And being the nice guy that I am, I wrote an e-mail to the Marketing Manager at St. Martin's Press thanking him for the opportunity to read the book and providing a link to my post. He wrote back, stating that he enjoyed my review and wanted to know if I would like to check out a few more soon-to-be- released books.

Did he need to ask twice?? I didn't immediately send a response, not wanting to sound too eager and wondering if drool spots would transmit over the internet. He did write back to say that he forwarded my information to the correct people. I'm still a bit hesitant, but if the books start coming....