your numlock is off

Made ya look!

I think this entry will be sort of short, since it's not so much a planned out post, but more of a "I just thought of something, I might as well jot it down since, a) I'm bored, and b) I might forget. I've always wondered about those age restrictions at websites. No not porn websites, get your mind out of the gutter. Let's say... a trailer for a movie that's rated R or something; or maybe a site for a game that's rated M. You know the ones where it asks for your birthday? It always amazes me when I see the default setting as:
| January |▼| | 01 |▼| | 2007 |▼|
Wait... 2007? I knew that as a species we should be getting smarter and all, but seriously, that's not even 1 year old yet! That's amazing. You know what I think? I think if someone enters an age under.. 2 or 3 years old, they should be let in the site or view the video, or whatever. Hell, why not just give the person a million dollars! That'd be the smartest baby the world may ever know! Is it really that hard to set the cutoff to say, 3 years? I honestly don't think any 3 year old is going to be browsing the internets - and even less so: be able to understand that you need to be 18 or older AND put in your birthday. If the 3 year old can handle that, I say, give him/her the content.
This leads me to my next point (well it doesn't really lead me, but I thought it'd be a good transition point as I was just repeating myself). I never understood what's to keep people from just putting in a random date. Yes, yes, formalities and law and all that jazz. But do you really think teens are going to abide by it? You might as well have a button that says:
"If you're under 18 GTFO. If not, press continue. Have a nice day!"
It would save both the designers and the users some time. Designers wouldn't need to code 3 stupid pull down boxes and a function that checks to see how old it would make the person. And the user wouldn't need to select their day, month, and year from those stupid dropdown menus. It sucks even worse when your day is in the middle of the month and you need to scroll down some distance. (and it gets worse when the dropdown boxes are in Flash and instead of just typing the number, you actually have to select it). A [Proceed] button would make both lives much easier - it's essentially the same thing. If the user wants in, all they need to do is turn themselves into a 107 year old. You know, bottom of the list kinda stuff. The internet is a wonderful place. I think, though, putting in an age older than the oldest person alive should raise a red flag. But,... nevermind, you know where that was going.
It just boggles me that someone could be so gullible.. or innocent. Speaking of which, I don't think any commercial for products (I'm excluding movies and games) has ever made me want to go buy it. It's interesting to think that there are people in the world who are influenced by cheesy commercials. If I'm talking about you, no hard feelings eh?

Ok I think I'm done. Time to make dinner. Have a nice day!