Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Pop-Up Quiz

(Originally posted on 1/23/2009)

Recently, I was at a Joseph Heller web site, deeply immersed in a discussion of Milo Minderbinder's place in literary history, when I suddenly noticed something in the lower right hand corner of the screen. It wasn't part of the site since it had nothing to do with Catch 22. Here's what it said:

TEST YOUR IQ

CLICK HERE

I thought to myself, hey, it'd be kinda cool to know my IQ, so I clicked .

Ever since I clicked, a box has popped up on the screen every ten seconds asking me to, variously, try a new anti-wrinkle cream, take advice on how to pass a civil service exam, give a gold-plated pendent to that very special person, join a health club, try liposuction, dine at a new Chinese restaurant in a city I never heard of, take pills that will cleanse my body of impurities, buy a Humvee, rent a condo on the shores of Lake Huron, and buy a mousetrap that glows in the dark.

I think I flunked the test.

14 comments:

  1. Be wary of those seductions, Kirk. Test your IQ all right. I've done the same. Curiosity got the better of me and now I've learned never to click on those boxes that offer something for nothing. Invariably there're designed to get something from you, whether by fair means or foul. And you never grow any wiser from it or improve your IQ.

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  2. ha ha.. weren't tempted by the liposuction?

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  3. @Elisabeth--Seduction now comes in gigabytes.

    @Jane Lancaster--Only for my head.

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  4. This reminds me of the Tubes' song, What Do You Want From Life. Don't click me there!

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  5. naw, i'd say you passed. you did something very few can do. you learned from your mistake!

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  6. @Jim--Oh, yeah, that reminds me, I was also asked to purchase a personally autographed photograph of Randy Mantooth....by the way, ever hear White Punks On Line?

    @rraine--That's where I seem to get most of my education.

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  7. Oh the scoundrelly scoundrels. My email account just got hacked into and everyone on my contact list can now experience the joys of ever-lasting firmness if they so choose.

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  8. @Kass--Don't blame yourself. The everlasting firmness folks have been bugging everybody. What dicks they are.

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  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  10. Just read Duo Over. Loved, loved, loved it. Can I borrow some of those words?

    How can anyone so expressive be an introvert?

    Can you believe I deleted and retyped this comment because I made a typo and spelled 'an' 'and.' Oh, the trials of an O.C.D. blogger....

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  11. Thanks lot for this useful article, nice post

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  12. @Kass--I don't know. I think maybe I'm something of an introvert because of the trouble being too expressive can get one into.

    Go ahead and borrow. I'm flattered.

    Don't think you have OCD just because you feel the need to correct yourself. I corect myself all the time.

    I correct mself all the time.

    I correct myself all thetime.

    I CORRECT MYSELF ALL THE TIME!

    (Whew!)

    @busama muslim, aka spam robot--Glad you enjoyed the article.

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  13. What I would have said first was ... "what IQ ?"
    I love the liposuction and Chinese restaurant in a city you don't even know... remember the computer was going to make our life easier.. hahahahahahahahahaha
    I never click on anything. I am so wary of virus or being hacked.
    Living in Tucson, we all know about identity thieves. The drug cartels have taken over this operation and moved their base to Arizona from Texas.
    Beware...
    If you want a better explanation of my January 25 post where you ask about English words being used in Japan... my son who teaches English in Japan, has a interesting answer. Will see if I can forward that you without blowing up my computer.

    cheers, parsnip

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  14. @parsnip--Read your son's comment. Thanks for the info.

    Speaking of hackers, a couple of years back, I used to get comments written in Chinese all the time. Now I don't. Did the drug cartels take over their territory?

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In order to keep the hucksters, humbugs, scoundrels, psychos, morons, and last but not least, artificial intelligentsia at bay, I have decided to turn on comment moderation. On the plus side, I've gotten rid of the word verification.