A big day for literary swag in the mail

I got home today to find a box from Poetry magazine and an envelope from Google in my mail. I pulled in a pretty nice haul of free stuff, if I do say so myself.

Poetry magazine sends out up to 10 free issues each April for National Poetry Month, so I signed up to get some to hand out to friends. I don't recognize any of the poets in this issue, but if someone gets to like poetry a little more, all the better.

The Google Ebooks bookmarks were a total surprise. I found a blog post complaining about the bookmarks. It didn't quite say, How dare Google send me free stuff!, but it cam close. You can read the post here, and read my comment either on the original post or below:

I got these in the mail today too, and I'm pretty excited. My only problem is I don't have a tablet or a smartphone. I have a Nook. Where's the bookmark that says, "My other book is an ereader."? I can give the smartphone one to my friend, but I don't know if I even know anyone with a tablet. I do use my laptop for reading ebooks because I'm a grad student & it makes typing in notes a lot easier when I don't have to look off of my Nook and click through the pages. Plus I like my laptop and use it all the time, more than my Nook. One nice thing about Google Ebooks is you can read in a web browser, so they should have a bookmark that says, "My other ebook is a web browser." Still, I don't use Google Ebooks all that much, since its not that convenient to convert Google Ebooks to Nook-compatible files with Adobe Digital Editions on Ubuntu like I have to. The cheapness of the bookmarks makes me more ambivalent about it. Had they been more expensive, I would have felt like Google wasted more. But as it stands, I'm psyched I got free stuff from Google! 

This Lent, no web surfing allowed

This year for Lent I'm giving up surfing the web. I'm not giving up the internet entirely. It's still useful for lots of things: email, networking, news, research. I'll still check my email but I'll use my time more efficiently, reading and responding to what needs attention. I'll still check Facebok, but I'll *check* it, maybe follow a few links, make a few comments, but then close it out as soon as I've skimmed content from my news feed. I'll still check news sites but only to stay up to date with important happenings. No more wasting time on Huffington Post. And of course I'll be searching for topics related to my coursework and thesis, but then I'll get out as soon as I get what I was looking for. This blog post is a legitimate use of the internet because it's not pointlessly going from website to website for no reason other than to ward off boredom. 

I might get bored; I'm sort of hoping I do. But more importantly, I'll read more books & magazines I never get read. I'll wash those dishes that won't wash themselves. I'll spend time with people who are important to me. I'll write in my journal, revise my thesis, get my term papers done on time, pet my cat, do all those things I wish I had time for, all those things I would have time for if I only took the time. Forty days feels like a long time, but maybe that's how long it'll take for it to sink in. Hopefully I'll end up more like this guy:

and less like these two: