This just sucks

Now, all of a sudden, the Merc has decided that you have to register to read their stories. Since I tend to check them out on a near-daily basis, it has been a good resource for registration-free articles...until now. I read their FAQ and it says they won't sell your address and won't spam you. As my e-mail address is pretty much out there for the world to spam me already (and, say what you will about AOL, but their spam filter has been very effective for me, so I don't get much junk mail) that frankly doesn't concern me all that much, but I know other people worry about that.

So, I will be registering -- okay, the allure of winning stuff is part of it, but only a small part, honest! -- and I encourage those of you who are either local and/or who actually click on my links with some regularity to do the same. I will continue to use their articles for posts, and I'll try to remember to point out that registration is required. According to the "How it Works" info at the first link, you can read all of the headlines and information on a main page, and can read one article as usual, with no interruption (i.e., without registering). But a second story will require signing in. So if you clear out your cache with regularity, I imagine you could click my links there from time to time without a problem, but if you don't clear that out and usually go on to read other stuff then you'd need to register.

Got it? Good. Now get out there and have a great weekend!