and now another rant

I'm sure when the snow melts, I'll be writing about the beauty of nature and the wonderful ways flowers bloom in the garden.  And puppies.  And kittens.  Right now I'm snowed in and cranky.  So a rant it is.

Stop trying to sell me stuff.  You're annoying me.  I have two separate but related trains of thought here.  Both relate to crass commercialism.

Suddenly, I'm closed out of a forum where I used to lurk.  Why?  Because I have to register to be able to view the forum.  After several years of viewing without registering, I'm taken aback.  What has my lurking done to offend anyone?  I sometimes don't really have anything to add.  I'm not someone who has to restate another' s point or lol at what has been said.  But I usually enjoy the advice and nuggets of faux info one can glean.

But I digress.  The reason I must now register is that this forum is owned corporately, and the corporation wants email addresses to add to its (note correct usage) database.  I'm supposed to willingly submit to corporate spam.  Knowingly.  Now the ads I must navigate around are not enough to feed the corporate beast.  It must target my mailbox.

I can tell you my reaction.  I don't go there anymore.  Now the ads on the page are not being seen by me because I came for the forum.  And I'm locked out.  I have no reason to try to navigate the page.  You no longer offer anything I want.  Shoot yourself in the foot why don't you?

The related rant has to do with those people who already have my email address.  No not my friends--I quite enjoy all the forwarded nonsense I receive.  No all the businesses who have my address because I buy things from them.  They send me ads nearly every day.  Now I'm an avid consumer and shopper, but they can't truly believe I'll buy something every day.  So they have made themselves pests as far as I am concerned.  It makes me not want to buy things from them anymore.   And I always uncheck boxes about receiving updates.  This is blatant.  One outfitter from Maine calls this a newletter.  What a unique definition.

I do tolerate an occasional ad.  It's kinda like they're checking to see if I'm still ok.  But this every single day thing has to stop.  And by the way, marketing mavens, my email program consistently puts this in junk, so I don't see it anyway.  If the program is smart enough to know when enough is enough, you should too.

And, my final word hoping for positive thoughts--ENOUGH WITH THE SNOWING ALREADY.