Placing Ads on My Blog

You may have noticed that over the past week or so that ads have starting appearing on my bog. This was a conscious effort to satisfy my curiosity and underwrite the $12 per year that it costs me to register the domain name exceptionalmediocrity.com. I can safely say that the former has been a success while the latter appears to be a bust.

As of this writing, I have around 600 views but amassed on 2 cents worth of ad revenue. Apparently people who read my musings have a reluctance to click on Internet ads. This paradoxically fills me with both financial regret and great intellectual pride. In order to resolve the two, I have created a fun game for the entire family. Think of it as an online revenue generator connect-the-dots.

Since I currently do not have editorial control of the ads that appear on my page (they are generated by a complex algorithm) I thought it would interesting to discern a pattern between the seemingly random offerings that appear in the margins of my blog. What follows are actual ads that have appeared on this site and my attempt to place them in a logical progression:

1.      #1 Reason That Men Pull Away

This would appear to be targeted at women who wish to prevent emotional, spiritual, or physical separation between themselves and their male partners. Of course, one can only become privy to this astounding secret by clicking on the ad itself. Since I am prevented by policy from clicking on a live ad, I may never know the secret (Is it irreconcilable differences concerning national fiscal policy?) but fortunately the next ad generated on my page might hold a clue….

2.      Beautiful Russians

In what could be described as self-fulfilling prophecy, you now have the opportunity to meet attractive Russian co-eds by simply clicking a button. I suppose the idea is that if American women find you immature and repugnant, a Russian woman might dismiss these shortcomings as a cultural difference. If the man you are in a relationship with spends a lot of time online and suddenly remembers that he must attend to some important business at the Siberian branch office, he may have already starting pulling away…..

3.       Air-Bag Deployment

The ruse is up when your already suspicious wife recognizes your Rosetta Stone purchase and softening stance on Putin’s foreign policy as a harbinger for the end of your relationship. An argument ensues and in your haste to leave you run into the maple tree she has been asking you to cut down since you bought the house last fall. Now your Pontiac GrandAm is un-drivable, but you don’t have a great deal of money to spend on repairs because you will need any disposal income to cover the cost of…….

4.      Long Distance Moving

So, what would be the next step for a gentleman who has decided to settle down with Natalya Philanderoff? Well that XBOX 360 and your Waffle House memorabilia aren’t going to get themselves to the motherland, so you are going to need a specialist. Fortunately, there is an ad to help you begin your new life. Before long you have assimilated with the culture, starting enjoying the food, and almost come to terms with the glaring discrepancy between Natalya’s profile picture and her actual physical appearance. There is one peculiarity that has occurred since you moved in with Natalya; you have begun noticing a strange dental issue….

5.      Sensitive Teeth

Apparently the tap-water in Russia is not of the highest quality and now every time you wolf down a bowl of re-heated Borscht it feels like there are holes in your molars that lead directly to your central nervous system. Thankfully, you had the good sense to click on that online ad from that blog you read and packed a few tubes of Sensodyne in you toiletries case.

6.      Bible Verses

By now, summer has given way to fall which inevitably leads to winter and being a “turnip extraction technician” hasn’t been has rewarding as you thought that it would be. You start to think that you may have made a mistake when you left the life you had before. You want to start over, you hope for a clean slate, you yearn for the ancient words that speak of forgiveness and grace; and as if by some miracle here they are in front of you.