Targeted Advertising FAIL

Esteemed Advertising Companies -

I regret to inform you that your creepy-pasta stalking methods have utterly failed you.

You seek to gather up all the little droppings I leave behind when browsing the internet- where I go, what I do, how often I do it, what I search for, what I buy, how long I stare at Benedict Cumberbatch's cheekbones - in an effort to compile a secret data file on the inner workings of my mind. This data file, you reason, could then be used to temp me with my deepest, darkest temptations, and present me with ads that would serve as a metaphorical blowdart full of distilled consumerism to the jugular.

Which is why I am disappointed - nay, appalled - at how terrifically off the mark all the ads you shove in my face have been. To put it in coarser language: you missed the barn when aiming at it from three feet away with an RPG.

I expected to see panels advertising literary magazines, or perhaps banners pimping the latest Dresden Files book. I waited and hoped for the day I would be peppered with ads telling me that the the cast of Sherlock (BBC) would soon be making a publicity appearance near my home town. Even shady pop-ups trying to get me to buy art classes like a guy in a trenchcoat hawking watches would have been mildly acceptable.

Instead, I get....boobs. Big boobs, bouncing boobs, almost-coming-out-of-the-dress boobs, all attached to 15-year-old anime girls in fantasy "armor". They appear in floating pop-ups, in videos I can't pause (or mute), in side bars that stretch the entire length of the page and take up almost half of the visual space. These Boobs flounce and bob and, on one particularly disturbing occasion, jiggled in opposite directions as if possessed of individual sentience. It's as if these "games" are trying to batter me into clicking on those flashing links just by the shear force of those titanic monstrosities poking out from every corner of my screen.

Oh yes, I forget to mention. All these adds are for quote-un-quote Fantasty Games, with such inspiring subtitles as "male gamers only". 

And here's the thing:

I have never, not once, played any of these "games". I have never even searched on google for these games. I don't go to porn websites, I don't haunt hentai anime forums, I don't even try to find pictures of big-breasted celebrities. In what bizarro mirror world could these advertising companies with their fancy algorithms and their mountains of data on my personal life possibly believe that I would ever be interested in seeing these ads???

And for the record, I am not the least bit tempted to try out the latest version of the male-only "Angel Sanctuary."


Not At All Yours,
Virginia

PS: Thank God for adblock

Okay, now for a real post.

To start off with, let me introduce you to my cats.

Meet Jasper, the rug dweller.

And Gabriel, the alarm clock. 

Gabriel is a stress eater who's goal in life is to become so fat that Petsmart will require him to purchase a second litter box, as he will be too wide to fit into just one, which are sized for regular-girthed cats.

His secondary goal is to ensure that I am sticking to a highly regimented schedule of his choosing. He achieves this by emitting a high-pitched meow with the regularity of a metronome - one whose tone closely mimics that of a disabled kitten abandoned in a cardboard box by the side of the road on a winter's day. In the rain.When it is time for my next daily activity (as determined by the Himself), Gabriel will sit at my feet and pin me with the sort of unbreakable stare commonly seen in black holes, and begin to assault me with his patented soul-rending meow.

And he will continue doing this, unceasingly, regardless of whether or not I pelt him with balled up napkins to try to get him to stop, until I finally get up and go to my next activity. I imagine this daily accomplishment brings him a great deal of occupational satisfaction, like a telemarketer who has figured out how to hack people's phones to keep them from being able to hang up, and then bombards them with sales pitches until they finally give in and buy something.

My daily schedule, according to my CatAlarm (c):

• 6:30 am - Get up and feed me
• 7:30 am - Now actually get up and go to work
• 1:00 pm - Make yourself lunch
• 3:30 pm - Pick me up and hold me right this instant
• 4:00 pm - Pick me up again, if not still holding
• 4:03 pm - Now put me down
• 5:00 pm - Feed me
• 5:07 pm - FEED ME MORE
• 8:00 pm - Pick me up and hold me
• 8:01 pm - No wait, put me down, I didn't actually want you to hold me
• 11:30 pm - Take your shower so I can stand on the edge of the tub and watch you
• 12:30 am - Go to bed
• 1:00 am - Stop interneting and go to bed, you stupid human

 (Gabriel's third goal is to someday coat my entire face in cat spit in one sitting.)


Jasper is a much more simple cat. Mostly this is because he doesn't seem to realize that he actually IS a cat.  Things Jasper thinks he is: A dog, a naked mole rat, a Chipotle employee.

The Dog: Jasper will come when his name is called and likes to play fetch. No, I'm not kidding.

The Nake Mole Rat: See "Rug Dweller", above. Jasper is also a part-time Sheet Dweller, as he likes to burrow under the sheet I use to protect my sofa and do normal cat/dog things under there. Like grooming himself. And attempting to come when his name is called (which results in confusion when he finds that he can't simply phase right through the sheet and leap off the sofa, but must actually burrow his way back out).

The Chipotle Employee: With the current state of the economy, Jasper has decided to apply for a job at Chipotle. Below you can see him practicing his burrito-rolling technique. Gabriel was not amused, mostly because being used as burrito filling was preventing him altering me to the fact that it was time for me to feed him his second dinner and help him on his way to attaining the approximate size and shape of a watermelon.

YAY FIRST BLOG POST