This morning's petty gripe is brought to you by the letter "I"

I love the Internet. I love being able to talk to people without having to go to the bother of dialing a telephone or worrying about getting stuck in some endless conversation about something that doesn't interest me. I love Googling myself, my friends, my exes and various celebrities. I being able to research urban legends and failed teenage pop stars from my youth. I love that there's a fan site for everything.



Here's what I don't love, though: I don't love that if you sign up for anything, or somehow get signed up for anything, you will never ever get off that list. Not if you send an e-mail, not if you hire a lawyer, not if you write a horrible malicious virus that eats their network and reduces their servers to jelly.



(I should probably be careful saying things like that now. Isn't that sort of thing officially a terrorist act nowadays? I'll be in Guantanamo before you know it. With no Internet access.)



Currently, I am signed up for: Free Movie Tickets!, Match.com, two astrology sites, and various tech newsletters for Web sites I worked for, oh, say, three years ago. I'm not even counting spam here. I could write you an excellent screed about the various Nigerian fugitives who need my bank account number, but really, it's been done. And you know all about that anyway.



The major thing that annoys me about the sites I've mentioned above is that I've tried, numerous times, to get them to leave me alone. They're like the ex-boyfriend who won't go away. "Listen, Match.com, it's not you, it's me. I think it's really excellent that you're okay with wearing Dockers and lying about your age, but I just, I don't know, need to be by myself right now."