"Aaaahhhh!"

We both leapt back from the screen, shielding our eyes from the monstrous vision. Actually, I leaned back. Jeff leaned forward. The parrot, which had appeared so innocent, was perched upon some poor fool's erect penis.

Being morbid, disgusting creatures, we quickly retreated to the main page to see what other horrid images awaited us.

"Let's look at the dead bikers," Jeff prodded.

"No, I want to look at the train accident," I argued.

And then there were the deformed fetuses, the autopsies, the sexual oddities such as elephantiasis of the testicles. And last, but definitely not least, there's the rotten archives, of which I won't even go into. Not just because the description may make you want to upheave your last meal, but also because I don't quite understand what half of them were.

So our boring Thursday ended up being filled with nightmarish images. I have since introduced rotten.com to all of my fellow morbid comrades, and the pictures have given us discussion material for hours.

Now this is fine and dandy considering we are all immature adults, but what happens when some kid goes traipsing through the Web and accidentally trips upon a site such as this one?

Fortunately, for all of us overprotective older siblings, parents and anti-pedophiliacs, there are programs we can download to ensure our children will remain naive, at least when they're on the fastest growing medium in the world, the Internet.

Among the hundred different Internet filters, I narrowed the search down to the top three.

I discovered all three programs are fairly similar. They all offer free 30-day trails; blocking of a variety of subjects at home, at school or at work, (everything from drugs and alcohol-related categories to astronomy and chat sites); password access; and range from $20 to $30 per six months. And all three can be downloaded off their respective home pages, bought in various computer stores, as well as ordered by mail or via the telephone.

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