AdSense lacks common sense

In a sad ploy to generate pocket change I decided it would be a good idea to sign up for Google AdSense. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a program that injects little Google-sponsored ads onto web pages (and in this case, blogs).

They look like this:

The basic idea is that if someone sees the ad and decides to click on it, I get a small financial reward. Easy, right? Here's the problem. I don't know if I've wronged someone over at AdSense or their system thinks this blog is deviant. For whatever reason, my sponsored links are an amalgamation of bizarre, and sometimes disturbing, material. I present to you:

Exhibit 1- You are diseased

What?!? Seriously? Lump in side of neck? Not even a whole sentence? What the hell! Who's going to come strolling along, click on this blog, read some hilarious and poignant material, then see an ad for neck lumps and be inextricably drawn to click on it? No one! I have five friends. None of them have lumps on their necks, nor are they going to suddenly discover one and rely on my stupid blog to find a cure. Dammit!

Exhibit 2- Learn English

Man, this keeps getting better and better. On a blog...is an ad to learn English. Google must have assumed that visitors accidentally stumble onto this site, and what's worse, can't even understand the garbled mess they see on the screen. Even better, the ad is written IN ENGLISH. You're killing me, Google.

Exhibit 3- Toilets

Ok, this has gone too far. It's one thing to assume that my readers are diseased and illiterate, but I draw the line at assuming they don't have a healthy supply of toilet partition hardware. We are not animals.

I'm not certain what will appear under this post, but I hope it's as completely useless as the other ads have been. To celebrate the futility of my decision to include ads on this blog, please feel free to submit a list of PG-rated words or topics in the comments section that you'd like me to test out. If I pick yours, chances are it will result in some kind of story or poem starring- you. You'll be famous.

What's wrong with executive bathrooms?

Let me preface this by saying this actually happened.

Yesterday the men's room on my floor was out of order, so I seized the opportunity to go up to the executive floor and check out their facilities. We all have the same vision of a white marble room, exhibit-hall sized, with soft music playing and the faint scent of sandlewood, right? Well let me tell you about the harsh realities of my executive men's room experience.

In my fantasy exec bathroom the urinals are like black holes, with flushes so hard you better not stand near them for fear of losing your belt. Water cascades like a torrential downpour. Well not here. The weak dribble of water was eclipsed in disappointment by the sad gurgling sound of the drain fighting to avoid overflow. And no urinal cake! Where's my target?

What I was expecting

How I felt

Saddened, I decided to look into one of the stalls to see if there was a prodigious throne as I had envisioned. Again, a huge letdown. Not only was the toilet dark gray with a plastic seat, but the toilet paper appeared to be single ply. No gold leaf or anything! What the hell?!

Dejected and having seen enough, I moved to the sink to wash my hands. Here is where the story gets a little strange(r). This particular bathroom has the kind of soap dispenser that's mounted on the counter and has a motion sensor to dispense soap. The sink does the same thing, but oddly enough it dispenses water. When I put my hands under the faucet, the soap dispenser shot a glop of soap foam onto my forearm, nowhere near my hands. I stared in disbelief, then moved my forearm under the faucet to rinse off the soap glop. Big mistake. Another glop of soap foam hit me square on the shoulder. Damn it...

The Antichrist

Now I was pissed. I carefully washed my hands while standing as far away from the dispenser as possible, but to no avail. Every time I rinsed my hands, more soap shot onto my arm. It was a nightmare. Eventually I finished my handwashing and proceeded to the automatic paper towel dispenser. What could go wrong here? How about uncontrollable paper allocation? Paper began pouring off of the roll, quickly reaching the floor with no end in sight. Luckily I was quick-witted enough to turn off the lights, which in turn cut power to the machine. Great! Except now I'm in the dark. I fumbled around for a moment, found the six-foot stretch of matted paper and completed my adventure.

Twenty minutes after leaving on my escapade I returned to my desk. I sat down and prepared to complete a report on website traffic when one of my coworkers walked by and said hello. I glanced over and put my chin square in the middle of the forgotten soap glop on my shoulder. Come on!

What's the moral of the story? Executive bathrooms suck, and automated sanitation devices are the devil.

5 Things I Hate- part 1

As most of you know, there are many many many things that I hate. This will be an ongoing series outlining just some of those things. They are in no particular order because I just don't care enough to organize them.

1. Overly complicated charts

Please punch yourself in the face if you ever construct a chart like this:

No one will read this. Ever.

2. Spam emails that are not only annoying, but also employ poor grammar:

I hate your run-on sentences, Mr. Bonnie Botsford

of Schlumberger Technology Corp.

3. People who are way too conservative:

Come on people, spruce it up a little.

No one's going to notice you if you stay a wallflower.

4. People who use the word "snarky" like they invented it.

Ok seriously, the thesaurus has been around for like five years or maybe even more. You didn't invent anything in the English language- including trendy adjectives. Stop wearing black librarian glasses too.

If these define you as a person, log off the computer and go outside immediately.

5. People who make ridiculous lists for no apparent reason:

Come on dude, no one cares.

So that is the first installment of things I hate. No worries, there will be others. We all know how accepting of others I am...

Haiku of the day 10/17/2008

i miss childhood stars
where is steven q urkel?
he flips burgers now

No Thank You

My buddy Erik is walking in a fundraiser for Juvenile Diabetes. No, not to promote it. To stop it. What a jerk.

Being the humanitarian that I am, I made a modest donation to the cause (before I knew it was for prevention, of course). He insisted on sending a thank you note despite my browbeating and mockery to discourage such an act. This was his punishment for sending one anyway:

(See below for text, this is just for show)


What it says:

Attention:

The cover of this card has probably tricked your pea-sized brain into a false sense of warmth. Ha! I do not thank you for your thank you note. In fact, if your thank you note had a heart, I would rip it out of its chest and show it to you like that crazy priest in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Alas, it does not, so I am instead forced to crush yours.

I hope a small, sugar-intolerant child knocks you down during your walk and you scrape your knee terribly. And it hurts. And gets infected. And you get gangrene, which would normally smell like almond but yours smells way worse, like rotten almonds. And you cry, then look up to the heavens and curse me. And I will look down and laugh.

P.S.- you're a jerk and people pretend to like you but really don't. Like me.