I was looking up lawn care products online, especially weed
killers because I’m overrun with dandelions. I cut them down but they pop right
back up and get twice as big before I can get the lawn mower back into the shed.
Someone asked me why I don’t use this yellow bonanza to make dandelion wine. Because
I just don’t have the space for thousands of gallons of the stuff, that’s why. That’s
how many dandelions I have. Apparently the pre-emergent I put down in March
didn’t work. Or maybe it did and these are just the survivors, their headless
stems rising in mockery of me and my lawn mower. Either way, we have a serious
weed problem at the old homestead and I was looking for a solution.
Several websites I
clicked on had the words “weed killers” in green with two underlines and a
square that had an arrow pointing to its upper right corner. Thinking I was going
to get some deeper insight into the process of eradicating lawn pests, I clicked
one of them. All that got me was a link to an ad. This particular ad let me
know that Amtrak has wider seats. Every one of the “weed killer” links led me
to the same thing. When you’re knee-deep in dandelions twenty minutes after
cutting the grass, your last concern is how wide the seats are on a train.
These intrusions, called AdChoices, are
placed by an outfit called Vibrant Media. In conjunction with Google, they “…provide you with a more relevant online experience. Vibrant may deliver
ads aligned with your current interests. Your interests are identified by words
displayed on web pages you visit and/or by the webpages you have recently
visited, along with the ads that you have viewed and clicked on.” At least that’s what their
website says. Please explain to me, Vibrant Media, how the width of the seats
on a train going anywhere is relevant to keeping my lawn weed free.
Wait. Wider seats?
Are they telling me my ass is fat? How would they know? I haven’t looked at any
websites that show you how to shrink your ass. I haven’t searched “ass
shrinking” on Google either. Honest. Maybe they have some kind of sensor in my
desk chair. I wonder if they know about the size of any of my other body parts.
Moving on.
Delving further into the Vibrant Media
website I learned that these intrusions into my surfing experience can be
disabled by the use of “cookie technology.” (What happened to the days when
cookies weren’t technology?) Yes, the good folks at Vibrant Media will leave me
alone if I put their cookies on my computer. This is a company that spies on my
internet activities to place so-called “relevant” advertising as roadblocks on
the information superhighway. And they want me install their spyware on my
computer?
I have a better idea. I won’t click on their
AdChoices anymore. That’s my choice. And
if I choose to do a search on “ass shrinking,” it’s my business, not theirs.
My latest book is now available. https://www.createspace.com/5297249