And now, a word from our sponsor

I like to think of myself as an observant person. Put me in a situation where social interaction is the norm, and I'm more likely to pull back and observe how other people interact. In one of my previous employment incarnations, it was my job to observe how processes varied based on specific measured data, and to determine whether this variation was of the normal sort or of the sort that required action.

Yessir, nothing gets by me. Eyes like a hawk. Most of the time.

I just noticed a few days ago that there's an ad banner at the top of my blog page. These ads are provided by Google, and I have no control over them. This seems only fair, since Blogger is a part of Google, and Google is providing this service and space for free.

But I noticed that the ads themselves seemed a little peculiar in their subject matter. One was for the Conservative Book Club. Another was for the Republican Book Club. At the bottom of the ad is a little tag that says "Related searches". While these particular ads were showing, the "Related searches" included "Condoleezza Rice", "Dick Cheney", and "national security advisor" - all mentioned in my June 27 post.

Looking at my blog as I write this, I see that the current ads are for "Patriotic Party Supplies" and "The Santa & Holiday Shop". Okay, those must stem from my reflections on the Fourth of July.

What fun. So maybe I do have some control over the ads. By salting specific words into my posts, I may be able to steer the ads in a certain direction. I'll have to think about where I want that direction to be.

In the meantime, I can't help but wonder: what sort of ads did my Satanic Goat Lawn Ornament post spawn?