So I get this letter in the mail that says:
Joe, the race is about to start
Get
to the race at www.takethecheckeredflag.com/JoeSmhoe
... and it's got two tickets that say:
The NG Speedway Challenge
SEAT 12 ROW C GATE 7 BLOCK 30.30 ROW C SEAT 12
That's it. So I have to go look at the website to know more. Obviously this is a marketing scheme, but by who and how do they know my work address. The manila envelope looks hand written with a return address of 350 East Plumeria Dr. SanJose, CA 95134 Yeah, I should have just googled the address and I see the who part but what fun would that be.
So I go to the root address www.takethecheckeredflag.com but that refreshes to some other site with a not found error with tips on how to enter the address correctly. Yeah, no chit Cherlock. Refeshed to:
http://campaign.vialunatechnology.com/fnf/default/file_not_found.aspx
So finally, curiosity got the better of me and I put my name in the URL. Lets see who this is and why they go to all this effort to get me to visit the site. This shit better not fuck up my computer though I'd be able to remove the most stubborn of hijacks in a few minutes like I do every day at work.
So I see this cheap looking flash animation of a racecar that I'm apparently building by choosing a few IT related options. Oh, ok, there it is. The name Netgear. It's Netgear going to all this trouble to ehem... "cleverly" disguise this ad or survey or whatever it is as some cheap flash racecar thing. Well, now I get to see what else Netgear sends me in the mail. Probably advertisements for all the "required" choices you have to make in their website to get to the end of this childish game. Well, that was a waste of 10 minutes. Might as well blog about it.
