I firmly believe in the saying “A fool and his money are soon parted.” I know this is true because I go through a lot of cash.

You probably have notice my little this space for rent banners. I hold little hope of actually selling that space, but put them there for two reasons. One, I want those panels to have content for future growth (and I want to get this template finished so I can propagate it to my other pages), and two, I have a site I plan on launching in October that will most definitely have ads. I just want to start trying to figure out the best way to make them work now. Oh, and if I can actually sell one, well, then this fool gets a little more money to part with.

I like having ads on this site. They generate some small amount of cash, but also, I actually like the Amazon ones. They usually show me things of interest. And I find the google ones humorous. If I write about erectile dysfunction, student loans, and depression, up pops Viagra (pun intended), loan consolidation offers, and Prozac ads. None of which I particularly mind. As far as I know, these services or information are actually valid. Personally, I’d never use the internet to get drugs (my dealer only has dial up).

Anyway, because I spend more time writing about writing than actually writing, a lot of times the google ads are for writing contests, and poetry contests, and other things I do not believe in. These are generally scams. Bad ideas. You usually end up having to pay to get your poem or whatnot included in some anthology of other people who paid to have their work represented. Then they make more money by selling you copies of the book to give to all your friends and family. And please, don’t be so cruel as to give anyone a book of poems where the writers paid to get in it. Yes, grandma will be proud to see your name, but the poems will still suck. Besides, everyone know the internet’s the place for bad poetry (and porn).

I am going to go into the settings on google, see if I can elect out of certain ads. These ads have been popping up lately:

I find irony in that in some the grammar is bad. No, I am not a grammar Nazi (wonder what kind of ad mentioning porn and Nazis in the same post will bring up), but I do think if you are running a writing contest you should know “a lot” is always two words.

This is just my opinion, and since this is the internet, you’re not entitled to one.