I can't have a real conversation at any restaurant that shows sports or the like. I find my eyes wander to the bright and active pictures too often. I usually try to position myself facing away, but it doesn't always work. I blame a huge part of it on not having a TV, so I'm not used to tuning it out.

The same thing occurs on the web. I find it very hard to read text if there is something flashing right next to it. For this reason I install NoScript as one of my first add-ons on new systems. It blocks the worst offenders and adds a layer of security to boot.

Simply blocking unauthorized scripts is usually good enough for a while, but eventually I'll get to a few pages with non-flash, non-javascript ads that are so annoying I go out and install AdBlock anyway.

I'm happy to meet in the middle, but I don't intend to waste my time.