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Selling weapons to the enemy: Adam Vinatieri a Colt, romping the Astroturf of the RCA Dome with Peyton Manning? Could Adam have found a crueler way to stick his thumb in our eye?

It's already a wince to see pictures of the Adam in Patriots blue. Today I'd rather think of him with a gun, shooting pheasant in corn fields -- he's a bigtime hunter, says Field & Stream.

Not that I'm not grateful for the snow game and many, many more clutch kicks. But, as Journal sportswriter Tom Curran reported earlier this month,

"If he's smart, he will (stay in New England)," Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells said when asked if the Cowboys would have interest in Vinatieri. "He could be Bobby Orr and Carl Yastrzemski and John Havlicek. That guy's done a lot."

Vinatieri faces an interesting dilemma. He may get more money up front somewhere else as a free agent, but how much money in endorsements and appearances will he be giving up if he leaves New England? And it's not just while he's still kicking. Simply being Adam Vinatieri professionally for the rest of his days could be a pretty lucrative business.

Instead, somebody (probably a serpentine sort) poked his pride and convinced him he was getting no "respect" from the Pats' front office, And he threw it all away for a onetime chunk of a signing bonus. Think of Babe Ruth leaving the Sox.

ESPN: "...league sources told ESPN.com that the multiyear deal includes a signing bonus of $3.5 million and that it averages $2.5 million over the first three years of the contract. " That's what Adam made last year -- minus the bonus. Security was already his, on the field or off.

The story broke late, and The Indy Star isn't whooping like you'd think they would be. Reaction at the Star's newly created Adam Vinatieri message board is mixed -- some are pleased, others wonder if kicking is where the Colts should have spent big bucks.

Better hope Bill Belichick and Scott Pioli have a dozen rabbits in their hats to redeem the 2006 no-name Patriots. Gone now are Willie McGinest, Ty Law, Lawyer Milloy, Christian Fauria, Kevin Mawae, Ted Johnson, Tim Dwight, Damien Woody. Troy Brown, Stephen Neal and Tom Ashworth are shopping around, too.

The Pats are going to need a lot more touchdowns, since without Adam the squeakers are no longer in the bag. Veteran wide receivers Eric Moulds (Bills) and Keyshawn Johnson (Giants) are available.

But when it's fourth and crunch, who we gonna call? Doug Flutie?

Using users: Longtime Web-sters roll eyes -- and get a tad hostile, sometimes -- when landlocked marketers bring an "I'm here for mine" attitude online.

From Doc Searls (Were there eyeball hors d'oeuvres?):

Mary Hodder got a little more than a day in at SXSW before she headed west to PC Forum. There she wrote,

There was a guy on stage yesterday that Esther Dyson kept trying to get to say that the users could create on his site, and he finally blurted out, ".. we just let them think they are creating...". (You know there was a publicist in the back of the room saying "Take him out. I repeat. Take him out" to a sharpshooter on an ear radio somewhere. In fact there are tons of publicists and PR folks here.. many more than last year.)

It's too bad because "Users in Charge" is a great topic and Esther and company have put in a lot of work to frame these issues thoughtfully. But most of the attendees can't help themselves... they can only think of consumers buying things, being fed something packaged and consumable and neatly branded from these companies and making boatloads of money, with seemingly little care for the users, the experience or anything else.

Brian Dear added,

The most absurd was during the Me Media roundtable session where someone was talking about "content-producing consumers"... I had to walk out about then.

Do they also consume what they produce? The absurdity of this rests in the buyer as object, "the mark," to be deceived and hustled.

The golden rule applies online, even if your job is to sell a product. Make it a good product, make using it a good experience, and don't hustle us.

And please don't call us consumers unless we eat your product. We're users, readers, writers, people.

As Mary writes, "people who participate are not consumers."

Want Gmail? Hack Attack: Become a Gmail master. I haven't delved into Gmail this deeply -- I'm just a bit wary of letting Google see and store my private communications -- but If you want an invitation-only Google Mail account, just send me an email with Gmail in the subject line, and I'll invite you. (No spam will result, I won't use your email address for anything else.)

Go play: PandAventure is a quick Flash game where you're a panda who follows your friend to get more tender bamboo shoots. You can probably solve this one without help, but that doesn't mean it's obvious. There just aren't that many parts to it.

More about it at Jay is Games, which will get you started.