Dear Amritsar,
Yesterday, I did something really – hey, our names are almost the same! If we were playing Scrabble, you’d just have to drop a tile under the table and rearrange the rest and there you’d go! (Too bad proper nouns aren’t allowed – although house rules in our house allow improper nouns.) It’s a small world, isn’t it?
Anyway. As I was saying, yesterday I did something really stupid. As a result, some clown started following me. When I logged on to Farcebook to see if my sister’s garden gnome had given birth to a puppy (it’s a family tradition), he was there. When I logged on to ChainLinked to respond to an ignorant post about the proper storage of weasel chow, he was there. When I logged on to Tackometer to tack pictures of my cat teaching my three year-old how to play piano (so adorable, with just a hint of attention-getting desperation!) on my virtual corkboard, he was there.
He was everywhere! Whenever I checked my email, his dumb face was there grinning at me. When I posted to Twitherd, his sponsored tweeps were always at the top of my feed. It’s like he knows where I’m going to go before I know it myself, like he’s one step ahead of me all of the time, like Christmas, 1911 without the cranberry sauce! (Sorry, long, irrelevant family story.)
I know it’s my own fault for clicking on the ad on the Imaginary Movie Database for Sergeant Striver’s Chicken Fried Candy Apples, but I couldn’t help it! They looked so delicious, with the special recipe of 17 chemicals and additives dripping off the succulent fruit, and they had a special coupon. Now, whenever I go anywhere online, I can’t avoid Raul McDowell, Sergeant Shriver’s clown mascot. On the Scale of Clown Evil, he’s not as bad as Pennywise, but he’s worse than Bozo, which is still plenty creepy.
How can I get this to stop?
Maritsa
Hey, Babe,
People who eat something as disgusting as chicken fried candy apples don’t deserve whatever they get, but it’s a close thing. A very close thing, indeed. I try not to judge, but, in your case, I have to admit that the only reason I’m answering your question is the hope that it will save others from your fate. And, maybe, make them reconsider their diet.
Sophisticated computer algorithms now not only track your every movement on the Internet, but use that information to figure out what advertising is most likely to get you to buy things you don’t want, can’t afford and are bad for your figure. As long as you don’t click on an ad, they will rotate as the programme tries to figure out what works and what doesn’t. As soon as you click on an ad, though, well, you may as well put flares around your bank account and say, “Take me, big boy. I’m yours!”
You might think that there would be software to address this issue, but it usually gets gobbled up by an ad producing company before completed (read “Seven Lessons Pac-Man Can Teach C Suiters” by The Biz Whiz for more on this undoubtedly fascinating for some people subject). For instance, AdMonishment (led by CEO Phillipe Monishment), a company doing research into ways to feed ad tracker programmes false information, was bought out by AdHawk, a coalition of advertising companies. So, no luck there.
The simplest way of dealing with the problem would be to look for a replacement ad that follows you everywhere online that is more acceptable to you. I would suggest clicking on an ad for porcelain card playing dogs, but you have already revealed yourself to be a cat person. (That’s another strike against you, but helping others, Amritsar – focus on what’s really important, here.) You might want to look for an ad for a firemen calendar; it won’t stop the ads, but there’s something about seeing a ripped young man without a shirt on carrying an axe that just oooooooooh!
The lesson should be clear: don’t click on online ads unless you want them to follow you everywhere, like a puppy. A puppy with its paws in your pocket sucking every dollar it can out of you. Unless you’re a cat person, in which case who knows if you even have the capacity to learn from other people’s mistakes?
Send your relationship problems to the Alternate Reality News Service’s sex, love and technology columnist at questions@lespagesauxfolles.ca. Amritsar Al-Falloudjianapour is not a trained therapist, but she does know a lot of stuff. AMRITSAR SAYS: Samara, Starrim, Ramstar – Amritsar has heard all of the possible variations on her name, and most of the impossible ones! So, if you’re trying to butter her up with a phonetic coincidence, don’t bother. Besides, Amritsar is not a fan of Scrabble – she’s been a Clue girl ever since she saw the movie in her youth. Okay, her late youth, but the fact remains.