Music and effects

I've been reading Doonesbury online lately, and it's great that there's a whole website for the comic but the website itself is a little idiosyncratic. I wrote them a note the other day, because I'm a jerk who does that sort of thing:

Hello,
This Doonesbury site is very nice, but there's some weird problem with the
navigation menu: whenever it loads, it makes a soft "dunk-swish" noise, like
some piece of machinery coming loose. It's not really a big deal, just kind
of irritating to hear over and over every single time you navigate to a new
page.
Also, making it a flash-menu rather than text-based means that it's
impossible to get permalinks from it, or to middle-click to open in a new
tab. I'm not sure what the flash adds to the user experience.
Otherwise, a lovely website. Thanks for keeping it running.
Matt.

And here's their reply:

I'm afraid the "swoosh" sounds are deliberate. Beauty is in the ear of the
beholder, and I'm sorry they don't do it for you!

We went with Flash 11 years ago, and....well, there you have it.

We truly appreciate your visiting the site -- and caring enough about it to
write and share your thoughts.

All the best,
David, Duty Officer
Doonesbury Town Hall

I'm feeling kid of meh that the Doonesbury website is created so much less deliberately than the strip itself. Obviously, embedded audio and flash navigation aren't best-practices when it comes to web design, and I'm at a loss to read that the only defense is "we made it once 11 years ago, and we're not about to make it again."