Reviews: An experiment and ground rules

Over the years I’ve started to get more and more press releases that include an offer to review INSERT YOUR STUPID PRODUCT HERE. Most of these get tossed in my trash bin. Sometimes I giggle or roll my eyes before I delete them, like I did all three (yes three!) times they sent me the press release for the arm flab girdle. At first it was fun to get these emails because if I was getting PR spam it meant someone was reading my blog, even if it was only a computer program harvesting email addresses on web pages that use the word “lard.” But I got over that thrill really quickly and now they’re mostly annoying. (Yeah, I know, poor, poor, me.)

Sometimes though, I get sent an offer to review a product that genuinely intrigues me. It could be for a product I’ve heard about or something I think my readers might enjoy. This has always caused an ethical pickle for me because I don’t want my blog to become one long infomercial, but [...]

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