And I'm All Like, "Hey, Free Book!" (0 comments)
I love the internet.
In my previous entry, I mentioned sudoku. The next day, I got a curious email:
Hi Christopher,
St. Martin's Press has just published a Sudoku puzzle book and I'd like to send you a complimentary copy. If you are interested please let me know where to send it.
About the book:
From puzzlemaster and New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz comes sudoku, the new "wordless crossword" puzzle that's taking the world by storm! Once you start, you won't want to stop. These addictive puzzles are'easy to explain--just fill the grid with numbers according to the few simple rules--but incredibly fun and engaging to complete. You don't need any mathematics knowledge: Just supply a pencil and an inquisitive mind. This brand-new collection features original, easy-to-solve sudoku from Will Shortz, along with an introduction that explains these fascinating puzzles and how to solve them. Once you've mastered the easier sudoku, try the last ten puzzles designed to challenge those who want to give their brains more of a workout. If you're a crossword fan, a fan of logic puzzles, or just a puzzle lover in general, you will be engrossed and delighted with sudoku!
After a thorough investigation, I came to believe that the email had originated at the book's publisher and was actually offering me a free book. According to my sources, St. Martin's press started selling two books on sudoku by Will Shortz this month, and I find it plausible that they're interested in winning the favor of internet loudmouths who are already interested in sudoku. That's fine by me, so I sent back my address. It's already in whois, so I figure it's as good as public record on the internet.
Along with my address, I asked how I'd shown up on their radar, and it turns out that the representative who emailed me was just searching for bloggers interested in sudoku and I showed up. My database confirms it:
mysql> SELECT request_uri,http_referer FROM stalking WHERE http_referer LIKE '%sudoku%'; +---------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | request_uri | http_referer | +---------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | /archive/709/ | http://www.blogdigger.com/search.jsp?q=sudoku | +---------------+-----------------------------------------------------------+ 1 row in set (0.20 sec)
Yay for logging web traffic to a relational database!