Matt's Blog

Right now I'm getting 5, count 'em 5, free magazines delivered to my house. And I didn't even have to give my credit card number to anyone. They are, in no particular order:

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Cardplayer is, of course, a poker magazine. It's chocked full of great articles about players, strategy, news, and, well, I guess that's about it, players, strategy and news. Almost of all of Cardplayer's content is available free on the web. But there's just something about the feel of slick magazine paper, and it's nice to read in other places besides the computer. I got this one for depositing $10 into a poker site. I don't know how many I'll get. I'll be happy if it's more than 5. Heck I'm happy to have this one.

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Next comes Budget Living. I got this one for filling out an online survey. It's actually got some good ideas about living cool on the cheap. Consumerism on the sly. The first issue had an article about renting a private yachet in the Bahamas for a week for about a grand (air fare included). I'm of course ready to go now.

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Here's Christianity today. Also available online, but how can I read that in the bathroom. (Oops, now my sister-in-law won't want my hand-me-down copies.) Good stuff in this one too. I think I'm only getting 3 issues of this one. You know the drill. Write CANCEL across the invoice and then feel guilty for never intending to the buy the magazine in the first place, and worried that their credit people will come after you.

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The beer mag. This is a good one, but there's only a little in each issue that I would actually use. So I wouldn't pay for it. But I'm glad I have the issues I do as there are some recipes I want to try. I got this one for buying a half-dozen cans of extract.

The last one I can't seem to get an image of. It's just as well as it's kind of a trashy magazine. It's called Giant, and I'm not even going to link to it. It seems to want to be a Maxim meets Entertainment Weekly. It's all cleverly laid out, but it's really about nothing. One thing I do like about it is that you will turn the page and there's a full page dedicated to a photo of Lando Calrisian (not even going to look it up) with the caption "Just Because." This one came from filling out a survey too.