just now on tv, i heard an ad which promoted "streaming video". Only what I HEARD was "screaming video". Do we think this is inaccurate? I don't watch videos on this computer as they hiccup, no matter what i do but i do have a fast trigger finger and every time that SCREAMING IDIOT salesperson advertises anything on television, i could win gold in "mute button" singles. When did it become good sales technique to SCREAM at people. (For those without tvs or not in the US, there's a pitchman who is apparently beloved of a bunch of cheesy-ass product manufacturers who YELLS every damn time he is selling us some cleaning product. His name apparently is "Billy Mays" and it's hard to avoid him. He is offensive, loud, and apparently very successful. Whatever he's selling, we ain't buying.

Screaming video indeed.

Stu and i recently got the Ikea catalogue, prompting us to amuse ourselves with fake Ikea names. Every product that Ikea sells has a name, so you get the "Sloob" dinette set, or the "Flar" bed. I made those up, but it's gotten to be a regular shtick Chez roscoe. Lately, we've been thinking of getting a couple of flarns for the living room and maybe we could pick up a blorg or two, the little ones. Stu's hoping we could get a snarf, but i just don't know since we'd really have to get a snird to go with it. in white, or black or birch. They all come in white, or black or birch.

In the past week, i've gotten a bill for a magazine i never subscribed to. With my name misspelled. Then i got information from a website that I never requested. With both names misspelled, the last so far off that there is no way it can be seen as a typo. I'm wondering if someone is targeting me. I do't get it. I guess it's no big thing but when I didn't ask for shit to be sent to me, i don't WANT shit to be sent to me. In one case it was medical information. About something I DON'T HAVE. i've spent 15-plus years explaining to people, no i don't want to hear about the latest on osteoporosis. i don't HAVE THAT. Or this, or that, or the next thing. It is NOT helpful. And since i have a web browser that saves EVERY place I've been, and I can see i've NEVER been to that site, someone decided to send me crap i don't want or need. Why is that?

A few years back there was a guy convicted of harassment who found it amusing to do this when he disagreed with people's politics (he did worse.) I never knew if it was his action that brought to useless magazines in phony names to my house but i had to go to the effort of calling them and saying "this is a fake name and not something we want." I sort of assumed i was on his list for a letter to the editor or two. The magazines were nice about it but still, it wasted my time and made me uneasy.

Then there's the music download site that "can't" give me my money back because they deceived me into signing up for "free" when it wasn't. I'm filing a complaint with their states Attorney General on that one. When companies tell me "we can't refund your money" I get furious. Of COURSE THEY CAN, they just choose NOT TO. It's not an impossibility, and when they cite some line from their small print I'm not impressed. Yeah, you CAN return my measly $6.99, you jerks. Try it, it's easy.