to leave very long messages on their 800 numbers to drive up their phone bills. This is a variation on a tactic I heard about years ago with junk mail where you received a postage paid return card (the mail equivalent of an 800 number). Some people did more than simply return the card - they taped the card to a brick. At 34 cents per ounce, paying the postage for mailing bricks gets pretty expensive in a hurry.

This year, Colorado passed a law establishing a statewide no-call list for telemarketers. Well over 500,000 people signed up the first week with the list being binding starting July 1. According to today's paper, the telemarketers are suing the state because they claim the law restricts their free-speech rights. Sorry, but they have no right to use my phone. If this lawsuit succeeds, I think I'm going to try a new strategy. Whenever one of these telemarketers calls me, I'm going to demand a credit card number from them before I listen to their sales pitch and charge them $5 a minute. Hey, my phone and my time are worth something, so if they want me to listen to their pitch, it's going to cost them. We'll see how many of them call back. Either that, or I'll continue my long-standing policy of immediately telling them "put me on your do-not-call list and never call me again."