Opt-what now?

I just signed up for Consumer Reports. Spending $26 so I can save money. That's why I spent 5 years in college.

But as I'm signing up, they have this form item:

We occasionally send e-mail notification of special ConsumerReports.org events and updates or news about other Consumer Reports activities or products. If you do not want to receive such notices let us know by checking "Opt out."

Opt In
Opt Out

Now, I appreciate the ability to marginally reduce my spam load by telling them "I'd rather not, really." But they are using standard terms of nerdery and cred and nerd cred to make it appear that they get it.

When they don't.

And what's worse, the UI is unclear. Presumably, if you don't want to be bugged, you'd prefer an opt-in system, in which case, then you want to opt-out--

Look Consumer Reports. Let's get past the pleasantries. I'm giving you 26 dollars and a spam email address. You're going to give me some information on camcorders I want to buy, you're going to sell said email address to anyone who will pay for it, then you're going to give it away to anyone who can't. This isn't an affair of the heart; it's a shoddy electronic information passing encounter of prostitution.

Foster in Stereo (R)

Since so pitifully little of my work at The Onion - A.V. Club has made it into the web edition, I took the liberty of constructing a rudimentary page to host my articles to date. (I read and write HTML at a third-grade level). See it here:

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze2788s/

At least it's not a members-dot-aol-dot-com page (quasi-sequitur: Stephen Glass used an AOL domain when constructing a bogus page for Jukt Micronics as part of the tapestry of fabulism he called a journalistic career.)

Hopefully, you'll read some of the stuff there and think: "Ah, of course he hasn't had time to post at The Enfranchised lately. The man is working toward a Pulitzer."