Spammy Banners Will Get Us Out of This Mess

A quick scan of my spam folder this morning and I find some fun subject lines:

"Nothing beats a huge stick"
"See your organ increase right before your eyes"
"The lady will love your monster snake pants."
"Donation from Mrs Sarah Dandr"


You probably don't know Sarah Dandr. She's from "Serbian." and has a "longtime cancer of the breast." Long, sad story. but she's a widow now with a ton of money and she needs my help. As soon as I finish this blog post, I'm sending her my bank account information. And I believe her, too, as she signed her letter to me "Yours in Christ."

And today I was checking this here blog, looking at some of the banners I have allowed to appear. I note I'm starting to get some big name sponsors like Netflix and Progressive Insurance. It's an awesome program, Google's ad thing, and since I started allowing ads on here, I've made $100, which over the life of this blog, averages out to about a nickel a day.

But when you're creating ads, do you think you might employ a proofreader; one who speaks English? My readers expect better than this ad to your left. I feel like I'm being approached by a fast talking, shady dude on the streets of Tijuana with this ad. Maybe I'm supposed to read that headline and think, "Wow, exotic. Love how she phrased that. I can hear her hot accent already."

I've always said the Internet is the Wild West, the new Frontier, where it's wide open to everyone, from Sarah in Serbia to Latin Beauties, every man and woman for him/herself. Everyone hoping to make a dollar, a euro, a peso or pound. I guess there's room for headlines like "Seeking For Latin Beauty?" Actually, I should expect more of them and welcome them. It gives the blog an international feel. We're all in this together, Sarah, this chick above, you, me. So click those banners people; shop and travel. The world economy ain't gonna fix itself.

From Decaying Corpse to Radiant Beauty in One Application

I know I've blogged about these banner ads before, but this one was so striking I had to post it. That is some seriously magical lotion.*

* Simulated imagery. Results not typical. In fact, results are seriously not typical at all. They are nothing like this. This woman went from Lizard Lady to Disney Princess in no time, and that ain't happening for you. Ever. She lost 70 years off her appearance, like backwards from the dead lady Jack Nicholson was making out with in The Shining.

I Think Eisenhower Warned About This

The "military-industrial complex" that is.

So, I'm following a link from the always funny Public School Intelligentsia over to the Washington Post's political blog, when my visit is interrupted by a GIANT TROOP-CARRIER HELICOPTER FLYING ACROSS THE SCREEN. It eventually lands in the banner ad you see at right in this screenshot, and is then boarded by brave men of our armed forces, carrying a wounded comrade. I'm sure Boeing paid huge money for this ad (as they do for their :60s on most major news networks) and a newspaper can use all the money it can get these days.

Still, it strikes me as oddly pro....something.

Here's Eisenhower's prescient warning, from his farewell address to the nation.



Crossposted to Radio Free Babylon.

NYC Scours Florida for Cop Recruits

The long arm of the law of New York's Finest is attempting to reverse the migrant trend of New Yorkers to Florida.

The pitch goes like this: So, your grandparents or your parents moved down here and you had no choice, right son? You know, there's a reason you wear that Yankees cap and have that giant Yankees insignia on the back of your lowered and loud Japanese import. You always eat at the New York pizzerias, don't you? You call pizza "pie," right? Don't fight it, man! New York is in your blood, son! Bring it on home, home slice! Make a whole lot more money up here protecting the citizens than you will selling weed to frat boys on Spring Break. Don't put that last part on your application.

Sign up today!

Banner found on a local news station's website.

Target Demo: Male 18-55, Lonely, Stupid

Oh, yes she is, boys. Believe it! That chick right there is searching for YOU! Registration is always free. Just give us your email address!

Seen at Technorati, where Reunion.com assumes stupid, gullible geeks lurk, working out of Mom's basement, lonely for a connection in the real world that doesn't involve, "Yes, I WOULD like fries with that! How did you know? I think we could be soul mates!"

Reunion, much like Match or True, will never deviate from this formula, because there really are plenty of lonely, gullible geeks out there. They're an easy target for marketers because their loneliness MAKES them gullible.

In College it Won't Be Illegal

Having done a few weeks of freelancing for the creative services division of my local paper this summer, I can attest to the fact that print journalism is having a tough time of it, particularly local newspapers. Subscriptions are dropping and no one knows quite how to monetize this whole Internet thing, aside from placing annoying pop-up ads on every page of the paper's website. The online versions of the newspapers want to be everything to everyone. “We’re your news, weather and traffic source. And dining guide. And job hunting place. And garage sale finder. And place to meet singles in your area.” Trouble is, every local TV and radio station website makes the same claims. The competition for readers and visitors is getting tough. The Post, The Times and the various wire services have all the international or national stories locked up, so the papers resort to touching human interest stories or titillating scandal.

So I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me to find my local paper scraping the barrels of salacious journalism today on their website, offering up as one of their Photos of the Year galleries Women Arrested for Having Sex with Their Students, brought to you by the University of Phoenix.

You're Doing it Wrong

Can we please keep the X in Xmas? Better yet, can we do away with it altogether and maintain the separation of Church and Commerce, like Thomas Jefferson asked us to do when he overturned the tables of the money changers in the temple?


Stupid Kohl's. Gettin' all religious. I fixed their dumb banner for them.
















I jest, of course. As do these guys. (Thanks to Warbird for the find.)

It is interesting to note that some faith groups don't mind when you poke a little fun at them, while others will cut your head off if you do.

There's an Article In Here Somewhere

Click to read

Friday Fun Facts

• If you took all the banner ads ever placed for Classmates.com and laid them end to end, they would reach to the moon, circle it 30 times, then come back to earth and still have zero creativity to them.
• If you took all the money that Classmates.com spends on banner ad placement and distributed it evenly to every citizen in the United States, we would all receive $768,349.53.
• If you took all the pictures of all the graduates featured on Classmates.com banner ads and put them in a blender and set it for "puree," that would be cool.