My first clue was that my Grand Theft Auto: Jersualem post got mentioned in a Slate.com “Today’s Blogs” roundup of the day in blogging. Fairly exciting. A nice little ego boost that probably earned me some new readers.

But my second — and far more convincing — clue that I’ve really entered the blogosphere: A company I’ve never heard of has offered me free swag in exchange for a plug on my blog. They don’t want to send me a review copy or tester in hopes that I’ll do a review. They don’t want to do a link exchange. They want to send me free stuff, in exchange for which I will mention their company and their products.

I’m not going to tell you who these people are, since I don’t want to plug them, even by making fun of them. I’m just excited that my blog is apparently popular enough to be worth offering me a little sugar for a mention in it.

Now, just to clarify: I don’t have a problem when friends and colleagues send me their books/videos/music/etc. Friends and colleagues:

(a) have reason to think I might be interested in their work;

(b) understand that any reviews I write have to done be as a reviewer, not as a publicist — in other words, that I can’t make any promises, either to give them a review at all or to be nice about it if I do, and that there can’t be any tit for tat;

and (c) understand that I already have more porn and sex toys than I could possibly want or use in several lifetimes, and that an offer of a free sex toy in exchange for a plug on my blog is an UNBELIEVABLY CHEAP AND PATHETIC ATTEMPT AT A BRIBE!

I mean, please. I worked for years for a sex toy company, and am now working as a sex toy reviewer. I have probably thrown away more sex toys than most people own in their lifetime. You think you can buy me by offering me a vibrator? And not even one of these fancy several-hundred-dollar vibrators, but a fairly garden-variety one?