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I accuse Josh of being the addict but want this so bad. Tell me it's okay. Please?

Yay, we leave for Maine on Saturday. Initially, I was worried that Emerson was going to hate traveling but now that he'll be with Michelle for part of the way I know he'll be a happy puppy. How is it my dog loves everyone else more than his owners? We take pretty good care of him. We love him. But somehow his heart belongs to our friends.

I promise pictures when we get back. Wheee!

My grandfather passed away a few months back, and unfortunetly I haven't been able to get to Miami to see my grandmother since then. But this poem reminds me so much of her. Before I went veggie, I shared this habit of eating bones with my grandmother. My dad does it too. It totally grosses my mom out. You can read the poem Eating the Bones by Ellen Bass here.

The Benjamin Franklin Award Finalists 2007; Wands and Worlds has the children's lit finalists, complete with handy Amazon links to find out more info about the book.

And now once again I'm using my own post to veer off on a tangent; the Amazon links issue. As anyone reading the blog knows, I link to Amazon both within reviews and on the sidebar and am an Amazon Affiliate. Why?

In no particular order:

-- cool techie stuff! You may hate it, but I really like the bit that zooms up and contains all the information on the book.

-- using the cover image. There is no definite law on whether or not use of a book or DVD cover is allowable under copyright; seriously, whatever page you link to in my comments saying it is OK is an interpretation of current copyright law. So, for my own peace of mind in not having to worry about it publisher by publisher, book by book, artist by artist, I figure if I'm an Amazon Associate I have the right to use the cover art on my site. This is the solution that works for me; you do the one that works for you. Apples, oranges, six of one, half a dozen of the other. Long time readers may remember how for a while I solved this dilemma by not using cover images at all.

-- my readers are grown-ups. No, seriously. I respect you all as intelligent people; you'll buy or borrow the book from wherever you want to.

-- Amazon does contain additional information about the book that I'm either unable or unwilling to include. Yep, so do other book sellers, to a point. What I couldn't include if I wanted to : the text of published reviews. In looking for published reviews, I like to check out multiple bookseller sites because no one site contains all the published reviews. And, of course, the original review source, if it's available online and is free. I also like that booksellers contain all the info like ISBNs that right now I don't want to include.

-- Why not make a few bucks? Basically, if someone clicks on one of those links and buys something, I make a few pennies. To date, having done this program for over a year, I have made less than fifty dollars. The money is not the reason I'm using the program; it's more for the reasons above. But is it nice when I do find out I've made a few dollars? Yes; it gives me an excuse to buy DVDs.

-- Well, you may ask, why not link to the library and promote that? Truthfully, I haven't looked into it at all. If you prefer to get your books from libraries, I suggest using this Library LookUp Bookmarklet. Basically, if you're in Amazon (or any entity that includes the item ISBN in its URL), you click the bookmarklet and it brings you into your local library catalog to see whether or not your library has the item.

Different people use Amazon Affiliates for different reasons. And guess what? It's all cool; because, as I said, we are all intelligent people who are well aware of the issues about booksellers, mega sellers, independents and big business; marketing, advertising, and promoting; as well as looking at our time, how it is spent, and what we want out of it. I believe that of bloggers; and I believe that of blog readers.