An Andy Rooney Rap Session

Do you know who Andy Rooney is? The wry, witty, fuss-budget octogenarian who's been appearing on CBS's 60 Minutes forever? Andy always has a gripe about something and vents his spleen without shame, all the while posing pointed questions about things that probably aggravate many of us. Could it be that this is the reason that Andy's lived to be an octogenarian and is still so with it? I've always identified with Andy. He tends to complain about many of the things that drive me nuts; and I suspect that I'm not the only one. However there's one issue I've never heard him mention.

Everybody's probably seen those Turning Numbers, Security Codes that many web sites for programs have. We all understand that they are a necessary aggravation these days because so many bad guys out there could automatically sign us up for programs that we have absolutely no interest or need for. But why the heck do the majority of them have to be illegible? Yes, many of them have a sound option, but we fuss-budgets prefer to go about our Web business with the speakers off, without unexpected messages blared out at us. From my experience, these turning numbers are graphic files, as opposed to text. One would assume that robots are scanning for text, and can't read any graphic file. So why the *#@ do the security codes have to look like something that a two year old wrote, then put out on the barn yard for the chickens to scratch Anybody know? One final gripe. While writing this post, I typed in andyrooney.com in the browser window only to be diverted to an apparently hard core porn site. On principle, as a strong feminist, I refuse to open such sites. And to add insult to injury, after a little web research, discovered that the owner of the domain name, "andyrooney.com" has rights until November 2010. Really burns me up and I'm sure that if Andy's aware of it, he's none to happy either!

Onward Through the Fog,
Paula