There are sometimes perks to having a blog; interesting stuff can happen from time to time. Just a few days ago, a rather well-known site featured a blog post of mine on their front page. Some time ago, one of my posts was mentioned on CNN and linked to (though they chose to link to the cross-post on the now-defunct xpat.org). My post on Arguing on the Internet was selected for a college reader (they still haven’t sent me the copy they promised, though). And unless someone was yanking my chain, author John Varley found a review I wrote on one of his books and left a nice comment.

Nothing ground-shaking or anything, but small and enjoyable brushes with third-class fame. And probably a lot less of this would happen if I weren’t posting like a madman , filling my site with huge gobs of writing on a regular basis (1,383 days of non-stop posting, and counting). That certainly helps with The Google, which is what tends to get you noticed. (It also helps to have the word “blog” in the name of your blog, as it is a common search term, and so gets you ranked higher sometimes.)

Recently, a new perk popped up: a freebie DVD. A marketing firm found a post I made recently on WKRP in Cincinnati coming out on DVD. They contacted me and asked if I’d like to review the set on the blog, and if so, they’d send me a copy. A good deal for both of us, to be sure–it’s something I would have eventually bought, and since I spoke favorably of the show before, they know my review will probably be a positive one. Can’t promise anything–the way the music is presented (due to the music labels’ greedy demands for huge payments on the song snippets used in the show) could be fine or it could take away from the quality; the special features, like commentary, could be great, or they could suck big-time like the directors’ commentaries on the DVDs for Airplane! and Young Frankenstein. So we’ll see. Trust me when I say that while I like the idea of freebie DVDs of media that I like, I don’t like it so much that I’d stoop to sucking up for it. But given that I’ve seen all the episodes in question already and really liked them, there’s not really much suspense in that aspect of the review. Look for the post on it sometime soon.