streaming meanderings

Pop-up adds on the internet are the biggest pain in the ass. There you are, just trying to read or get something else accomplished, and then suddenly, POP! a little box jumps onto your computer screen and screams, LOOK AT ME, LOOKE AT ME, LOOK AT ME. Let me guess, I'm the 1,263,452,301 visitor to this sight and that means I win something? Great. Now all I have to do is click on this button and read this add, oh, and fill in this survey... What's that? There's another page of special offers I just have to see? Ok, well, I mean if I just have to look for a minute. A free I-Pod would be cool. Yeah, "free". And the boxes open one, after the other, until finally they ask for your credit card number. Hmmm, now why would they need a credit card number if it is free? Oh, and hopefully you didn't put your real email address in all those little forms and surveys you filled out... because the next time you check email, you will have 10 messages from god knows where with more "free" offers and "great deals".

So, now it's an hour later, and I can't remember what I was doing before all this started. In the last hour, I think I entered a poetry contest... I might be getting some coupons in the mail for chocolate chips... that vacation offer was kind of tempting... but I stopped myself before I slid all the way down the slippery slope of free offers. Man, they ask for my credit card number, and I have to draw the line. No free IPod today. Bummer.