Get Incensed

“Early in the mornin’, I’m giving you a warnin’ …”

I realize I’m not the first guy to complain about Internet ads.

Most of the time, though, I don’t have a problem with ads. I used to be a bartender, so I’m accustomed to ignoring people who are trying to get my attention.

I understand everyone has to make money. I know that server space, web programmers and stocking your IPO party with fashion models costs money. I don’t begrudge AOL, Yahoo or NaughtyNeighbors.com their ad space. And I’m very appreciative of the ability to have 24-hour access to news, e-mail and porn.

I look on with amusement when advertisers try to make their Internet come-ons more “interactive.” If you want invest money on designing a banner ad that lets me shoot ducks, putt golf balls or step on cockroaches, that’s your prerogative.

But here are two things I can promise wont’ happen in my lifetime: I’ll never change my mind on a serious issue because of a bumper sticker and I’ll never buy a product because you let me win at a javascript video game for morons.

I barely even look at those ads and I’ve never stopped to play one of those stupid games. I don’t have as many friends as Hillary Clinton, but there isn’t anyone I’ve ever talked to who has ever clicked on one of those ads either. So, to me, it all seems like an incredible waste of marketing dollars.

And yet, I’m really okay with the fact that my web page has more signs tacked onto it than the community board at a local supermarket.

But I draw the line when you interrupt what I’m doing because my cursor happened to make inadvertent contact with a corner of your ad as I tried to navigate the article I was reading.

Suddenly, even having my cursor touch an ad has become the online equivalent of making eye contact with a homeless person. Let’s get this straight, rolling across your link on my way to doing something else isn’t an invitation get in my face and yell at me by having a window pop up.

Do you really think you’re building customer goodwill when people have to stop what their doing to search for the “Close Window” button? Sure, you may get one person out of three million who actually follows the link to subscribe to Newsweek, but you’re aggravating the hell out of the rest of us.

There’s a special circle of hell reserved for those advertisers who have taken it upon themselves to camouflage the “Close” button to the point where it’s harder to find than a woman’s G-spot.

Nobody should have to pick their way through a minefield of mortgage and herbal remedy ads while they’re trying to get some quality surfing in during work hours. If I want to navigate through a maze in a bizarre world where scary creatures keep popping out at me, I’ll play World of Warcraft.

I can’t wait for the day when somebody comes up with an application that allows me to zap unwanted pop up ads and send a torrent of phony subscriptions to the offending company’s server.

I’d pay good money for that.

Even if I found it through a pop-up ad.

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Awarded to us by The Cult of Qelqoth