Help is just a click away

One of the funny little byproducts of the Internet is charity clicking - basically how it works is you go on to a charity site and click a button and this donates to the charity - the donation is given by advertisers to the site (so you also help the longevity of charity clicking by visiting these advertisers at least once in a while or otherwise they will decide it isn't worth the money).
I've known about this site -the hunger site - for years - it is the original charity click site since 1999. It has expanded and now also has affiliated sites for breast cancer literacy, child health, the rainforest and animal rescue.

There are now tonnes of them - so you now find sites that produce directories of them (and also enable you to bulk click - though again, this practice makes it even more likely that charity clicking will become unprofitable for advertisers, unless you do visit them occasionally as well).

I go through stages - sometimes I am a committed clicker, and at other times very infrequent - it does cost my time, and you have to weigh up your time constraints versus actual beneficial outcome - some sites seem to be more generous than others - more cash for your click if you like. Also, it can lead to a feeling of having done your bit just by clicking, when you should also put your hand in your own pocket!

Clicking is not very exciting though so a new site a friend had on her blog (2nd ref to this blog in 2 days!) is the answer to that (though way too addictive and definitely is catering to your pride, which may not be a good idea) - its called Free Rice, and you test your vocab and each word correct donates rice. And yes, this is boasting - I have managed so far to get to a rating of 47/50 (48/50 now)... see BBC news service for an article on this game.

tv versus internet

Only a few years ago, i was astounded that the gen yers that i knew really didn't watch Tv and instead spent time on the net. I didn't use the net until I was an adult, at my first job post uni - in 1996 - and didn't get it at home until 1999.

i have enjoyed it from the start, but as i grew up on tv not net, i didn't see tv watching getting taken over.

but i have to admit, the net is drawing me in more and tv is drawing me less. Surfing, ebay, facebook, blogs, email - on the net i can direct what I am interested in a lot more, rather than being stuck with the very few options of today's free to air tv.

As a relational kinda girl, I am interested though in how it affects these - I think it is good for relationships outside my family - instead of sitting watching tv i am often on the net interacting. but i think it isn't as good for my r/ship with my husband - tv watching can be a shared activity, but with the net we sit in different rooms - even now we are watching tv, but i am also on the net.