Because of that, my favorite browser plug-in is flashblock. You can get it for Chrome or Firefox. It replaces the flash object on the page with a button to click to start the flash playing. I very highly recommend it. It keeps your browsing experience quieter and cleaner and keeps your CPU usage down.
So, now when I see a page that's more blocked flash than real content, I'm going to put it here. If you're a web page designer, see how pages look when you don't pay attention to how much flash is on your page.