Oh lord, the marketing gimmicks have fooled me again.

In which: I get suckered into ordering DVDs of ill-repute; I violate Yahoo’s terms of service; I try to convince you to do the same.

Rumors circulate on the Internet like pieces of excrement in a toilet: they are kept afloat only because stupid people keep picking them up.

I am one of those stupid people. A few weeks ago a friend of mine passed along an e-mail that mentioned an Internet Web site claiming it was giving away mp3 players. Maybe a scam, my friend said, but maybe not. It was tempting.

After all, these weren’t any mp3 players. These were iPods.

Ahhhhhhh.

Yes, those magical white boxes, like little bars of free-hotel soap, were something I’d never wanted until one was offered to me free of cost. Then I wanted twenty. Never mind that I have very few mp3s. My iTunes play-list consists mainly of Italian language-instruction programs. Most of the other songs I refuse to listen to, because they get stuck in my head and keep me from sleeping.

And yet, free things are free things. Ipods are cool and gadgety. Hotel-sized bars of soap are convenient and it’s not a big deal if you lose one under the radiator.

Twenty bars of soap, I can say from experience, are easy to get for free. Just bring a paper bag to your hotel room. The rest will take care of itself.

Twenty iPods have been more difficult.

After doing a bit of research it appeared the offer was valid. The goal could be realized with little more than some e-mail trickery. All you had to do was sign up for a free e-mail account. Then, you signed up at www.freeipods.com using that new account, because it would soon be bombarded with Spam. Of both the real and the electronic variety.

I created chichomydog@yahoo.com. Chicho was the name of a dog we got from the humane society when I was a kid. It barked tremendously. All the time. Tore through its leash. Then its muzzle. After a week we sent him back.

Don’t even start. I still feel horrible about it. So horrible that when I signed up for my Yahoo! mail account I couldn’t give my real name.

To Yahoo! I am not “Bruno Bornsztein” but “Bobana Bobana”. This is because “Bob Bob” was taken. Apparently Yahoo! is not familiar with the American custom of not giving people the same first and last name and using a common first name for both.

In any case, they didn’t say anything.

So, now sufficiently pseudonymized, I returned to the free iPods site, ready to collect my bounty. Would they send it today? Tomorrow? By e-mail?

OF COURSE! Right after I completed a simple promotional offer, requiring the use of both my real name and my credit card. I’d come this far; I couldn’t turn back. So I caved and signed up for the first one that looked reputable: Columbia House DVD. The deal: you get five DVDs for 50 cents apiece, and by doing so you agree to buy 12 more at full price.

I didn’t bother much with the details. I was going to cancel it anyway. “The DVDs will come,” I said to myself, “You will not open the box. You will send them back. End of the affair.”

But I opened the box, and the affair continues. And since I was planning on sending them back, I didn’t choose DVDs I actually wanted to own, I just took the pre-selected ones.

So this Saturday I watched “You Got Served,” one of the worst movies about urban hip-hop dancing I have ever seen (and I’ve seen many). The whole time I was thinking “You’ve Been Served. You’ve Been Served.”

All this and still no iPod in sight. Because completing the DVD offer wasn’t the only requirement. I also have to get five friends to do it.

It has quickly become clear that getting five friends to be as stupid as I was isn’t as easy as it sounds. Most people have more sense.

And that’s where you come in. You could really help me out here. Would you like to be a part of a borderline legitimate pyramid scheme? No really, it works, you just need to do something you don’t want to do, and then trick five friends into doing the same. Heck, they don’t even have to be friends. Trick anybody, I don’t care.

Here, use this link.

Tell ‘em Bobana sent you.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 11th, 2004 at 10:37 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.