Dogged Determination

It's Not What You Think It Is

It's my goal to reveal the mistakes bloggers make when setting up their soapbox. This revealing tidbit caught me off-guard. The photo to your left is the logo-photo on a family orientated blog.

Yes. Family Orientated.

I'm not going to be up front on which blog this is. I'll only crack wise on this anonymous picture.

Click on the picture to see what I cannot unsee.

If you're going to use your dog in your photo, get it to sit slightly to the left or the right. It's not what it is that's weird about this photo, it's what it looks like.

I need to find my therapists phone number.

Stick This Where The Sun Don't Shine

Blame It On My Lazy Mouse

I had a little surprise today at "There I Fixed It". I was attacked by a pop-up ad encouraging me to stick a contraceptive ring in my vagina. Last time I checked, I didn't have one.

No. Don't ask. I won't let you check. You'll have to take my word on this one.

I was stunned. Why the hell did this ad pop up? What had happened for this horror of advertising to interrupt one of my favorite blogs?

I come to this blog because it calls to my sensibilities as a fix-it guy. Not for suggestions on vaginal inserts. Is this really the best ad for this site? I'm a guy. I'm a homeowner. I'm always fixing things. Then I fix the things I didn't fix the first time. Then I call a professional to fix the fix I had to refix. Is this a guy thing? Maybe. I wouldn't know about how women go about fixing things. Given my lack of the appropriate contraceptive ring orifice, I only have the non-vagina-equipped view of life.

But I digress. Here's how I became vulnerable to this attack on my viewing pleasure:

Two things to note (besides LG and KMart's inflating ads wrecking each other for space):
1) The top banner which reads "Ad will expand in 3 2 1"
2) I use a tabbed browser.

I start my blog viewing by going to my other blog page and CTRL-Click on all the blogs in my list of favorite blogs. This opens up ten or more tabs and they're loaded up for viewing with minimal delays. I do this to be efficient. No time wasted going back to my blog page, clicking the next blog, and waiting for it to load. I just load them all up at once.

Today, when I clicked the "There I Fixed It" tab, I started reading about the "Tree House" without noticing that my mouse cursor had drifted down into the Pop-Up Ad Trap. I am so involved in reading about funny "fixes", that I failed to notice the three-second warning that I was being hijacked to Contraceptive Land to view the Vaginal Ring Toss show.

Hang on. I'm going to go check something...

Still there?

I checked. While there is a chance of the ring falling out during sex, no mention is made of a successful ring toss onto the penis. I have other questions involving areas best not discussed in polite company. If I were to get answers to those questions, I'm not sure where I'd publish them. But that's neither here nor there.

Back to my complaint.

Be careful where you stick your mouse. Watch out for pop-up warnings. I fear that advertisers may be winning, but not in a way they'd like: I'm looking at the ads, but only to say "Eaaugghh! Don't touch THAT! Or THAT! Or THAT!"

Your Lovely Wreck Is Wrecked

T-minus 21 % and counting...

Here's a special ad from Chevy which appeared when I was viewing lovelylisting.com. Ever since this site was taken over by the Cheezeburger people, it hasn't been the same. Something snarky has disappeared. Now an SUV has crashed onto the page and I can't remove it.

This is the screen as I see it when I visit. How much of this page am I interested in viewing? I calculated it as 21%. Less than 1 in 4 pixels are of interest to me. That's before the SUV drove over the corner of the listing photo.

In the upper right corner of the Chevy ad is a "CLOSE [X]" control. It doesn't work. I click the control and the ad remains. I click it again and again and eventually a new window opens up and I'm at the Chevy site. The original window? Yeah, I'm stuck with the damned ad overwriting the only thing on this page I'm here to see. Thus, the wreck is wrecked.

Another calculation and I see that I'm down to 19% of the screen having any interest to me. Signal to noise ratio is now less than 1 in 5 pixels of the window.

I'd complain to the Cheezeburger people, but who the hell cares over there? They're a corporation. Corporations don't care. I like this site back when it was run by one very funny person with a personal interest in the site. Now that she's gone...? The content is still funny, but the wreck is not.

UPDATE: She cares! She really really cares! I've been told by by the lovely Sara that she's still very much involved in writing for the site. Maybe my knowing that its a Cheezeburger site has jaded my view since the takeover. Well, Sara assures me that the Cheeezeburger people are taking these blowups seriously and are looking into it. Yay Sara!

Sprint Goes Kanye On Hoover

AD BATTLE!

I submit, for your consideration, the static ad bar at the blog "There, I Fixed It." It's a quiet affair. It won't go away, but it does mind it's own business. I support this sort of advertising as it doesn't get in the way of my viewing of blog content. Will I buy a Hoover product in the future? When the time comes, they'll be on my mind.

Sprint, however, won't let Hoover get a word in edgewise. Just look at it! An animated top banner roll-over blow-up ad that blocks my viewing of whatever it is on the static ad bar. Sprint doesn't piss me off the way other inflatable ads do, but only because they're blocking other ads, not the blog content itself. They're pushy, but only Hoover should be mad.

So what's up with advertising today? I go a good long while waiting to catch them doing this and I'm hit twice in a row with blog inflatables? Must be the shopping season. They're getting desperate.

Why I Won't Buy Duplo

I found you!

I started this blog account just minutes after seeing a Duplo ad take over my reading pleasure on another blog site. I didn't get a screen shot of that ad, but I got it this time.

Why am I reading "the 'blog' of 'unnecessary' quotation marks"? I want to be amused.

Why will I NEVER allow Duplo products into my home? Because I'm not amused.

Advertising on the Internet is being driven by marketing weasels who just don't give a damn about driving customers away. They only care about getting in front of viewers' eyes. This product does nothing for the betterment of mankind. It does nothing to alleviate pain and suffering. All it does is keep your kids amused.

Sadly, it's such a poor product that the marketers can't draw a click without interrupting my purposeful browsing of blog content. It's stuck there on the right side bar of the blog just waiting for me to accidentally pass it over with my cursor. Given that the scroll bar is on the right side, I'm bound to hit it. It's bound to pop-up. I'm bound to hate them for their arrogance.

I don't come here for the ads. Yes. I see them. Yes, I've clicked them and bought products this way. But you'll have to wait for me to click your ad through patient application of appealing messages. Don't do it by pissing me off. Go away, Duplo. My young children are officially off your customer list.

Mission Statement

Good Blogging
Blogging is about saying what's on your mind, entertaining others, or just rambling. Communicating effectively is critical. Visitors to blogs come to read the entries and should be able to do so easily.

Distractions
Advertising, poor graphics, and any other distractions on blog pages should never interfere with the blog entry.

This Blog
This blog is about identifying those blogs who's signal to noise ratio is low. This includes:

• Pop-up ads
• Inflatable ads
• Floating ads
• Noisy ads
• Offensive ads (not in the theme of the blog)
• Malfunctioning ads
  
• Bad blog graphics and color schemes
• Illegible text
• 2nd-Grade English or worse
  
• Dead Links / Photos / Videos within mere hours of posting

This Blog Is Not
This blog will not be about personal attacks or debating issues. If your blog sucks, I don't care. If your blog can be read easily, then you won't show up here. This blog is not about any of the following:

• Seldom updated blogs
  
• Boring blogs
• Offensive blogs
• Interfering with blogs or bloggers
• Inhibiting free speech
• Blogs engaged in illegal activities
• Blogs stealing pictures or text
• Typos
• Making fun of non-native English
  

If you take personal offense to my pointing to your blog and saying "WRECK!", that's your psychosis, not mine. If your blog champions the most noble causes I'll still put it here if it's a wreck. After all, the most noble causes deserve to be displayed cleanly. If you screw it up, you're doing a disservice to your cause. Go cry to someone else.