I've mentioned this before but it was really more in passing, I've become addicted to online trading sites. If you love to read wether novels or manga or you like to watch a ton of dvds or listen to CDs or even play video games this is a great way to get some 'new to you' and sometimes brand new material really cheap! Since I know most of you are manga fans, think about how hard it was, how long it took, to build up your collection. Now think about how great it would be to get new-used manga for $2.50-$3.00! Plus you'd be able to get rid of unwanted stuff cluttering up your room to someone who actually wants it! I've found it to be a pretty win-win experiance. I'm part of around 5 sites devoted to trading, some better than others.

My top favorite has to be paperbackswap.com
How this particular site and it's 2 sister-sites (swapadvd.com & swapacd.com)work is that you post books you want to get rid of and other members can order them from you using points they have gained by sending books to other members. After you send the ordered book and it reaches it's new owner you get a point you can use to get any book posted on the site. Each book costs one point wether paperback or hardback. The only exception are audio books which cost 2. The book you want isn't posted? Well there are two lists: if you put a book on your Wish list you will be notified when you can get the book. The second list is the Reminder list which won't tell you when a book is avilable but will keep track of books you want but not as much as the books on your Wish list. For popular or rarely posted books you may be put on a waiting list. Don't let that get ya down though because after you post your first 10 books you're willing to send out you get 2 free credits! Before anyone even orders any!

My second favorite site is mangatude.com
Mangatude is an anime/manga based trading site were you just strait up trade your merchandice for someone elses if you both agree to trade. It shows a small profile for you, feedback for all your trades on the site, what you have to trade, and what you want for what you have as well as a friends list & a little place for wall chat(like crunchyroll).

Number 3 is the last of the good trading sites I've found swaptree.com
Swaptree is more like mangatude as it's pretty much a trade with one person site except it will find trades for you and do 3-way trades. This site allows you to trade CDs, DVDs, Games, and Books interchangably. ex: Game for DVD ect. Some of the things that suck about this one though is that since all tradable things (mostly) are seen by the comp as equal in value you may get a match where you're loosing some value. ex: PS3 game for one manga. It also gets mad at you when you refuse a trade, which is very annoying. Another fault is that it puts all books into the same trade wether they are hardback or paperback. If you want hardback Twilight books, don't bother on this site.

Now to sucky trading sites to watch out for
bookmooch.com SUX! It is an international book trading site, which would be great if it didn't take 2 points instead of 1 if you order a book from sombody in a different country. So it costs more to ship internationaly, you get a choice when you join the site wether you will or not. If the person says they will that's their choice, the person who wants the book shouldn't have to use extra credits when the other person has agreed to send it. It also doesn't have a good condition rule for it's books so you could be getting a book that has rips, waterdamage, missing pages, or other problems. I've gotten one with a really beat up cover and one that looks like it's a hundred years old, it's got such bad shelf-wear.
Not to mention that most, if not all, of the manga posted are IN OTHER COUNTRIES! or belong to someone who has their acount on hold! GRRRRRRR!
Another site to watch out for is barterquest.com. It's a trading site to trade anything on. Yeah, it sounds good but there aren't very many members, there's nothing good that's atainable unless you want to trade away something expensive, and the people that post 'Lots of Books' are too stupid to list what freekin' books they actually have! @.@

A few more little tips for would be new traders:
You should probably expect 1-2 thirds of your books to be ordered right after you post them. Don't worry too much about it though, I've never spent more than $20 in one trip to send them out.
I also suggest you post small, paperback books as they cost less to send because they are lighter in weight.

IF YOU WANT TO JOIN PAPERBACKSWAP PLEASE LET ME KNOW SO I CAN SEND YOU AN INVITE.
By doing that I will be able to get a free credit. You can do the same with your friends & family.

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Ok, now to explain the second part of my journal title. ^.^

My 'grandma' showed up today (we are living in one of her rental properties so this is pretty normal) and sent my sister to the door to get me. I went out and she warned me not to open the door to her truck. As it turns out one of her previous renters (who recently died) had a cat that he was feeding and the poor kitty had been wandering around the trailor where his owner used to live but of course, nobody has been there to feed him. So 'grandma' took pity on him and brought him to me and asked if I wanted to keep him. I certanly wasn't about to let her take him to the pound or anything so I said yes. After that she took him over to the place we're moving into but not before she told me we had to be out of this house by tomorrow. >.>' Anyways, back to Mr.Kitty. We have no idea what his name was so when Jon<3 gets up we'll have to come up with something for him. He's dark, dark brown with black stripes but he doesn't have that tigery look going on. My sister said his stripes were called 'melon'. I was told he had a very sweet disopsition and I got to pet him for a minute. He's one of those cats that actually looks male in the face too. He's thin but not sickly so or anything. No idea if he's fixed or not but I'll kill him if he sprays anything. >:C Can't wait to go see him later though and get to know him.

Opening up another can of worms here, what's wrong with adopting full-grown animals?! I've run into so many freekin' people who say they want a pet but it 'has to be a baby.' WTF?! What's wrong with a grown animal?! I've asked a few of these people before and the answer I got was "I want to train them the way I want them" & you know what happened in one particular case? I trained the animal!!!!!!! And it wasn't even mine!