Saturday, December 01, 2012

Day 3 as a Pugilist and a Rant on Internet Advertising


Today is a good day for a rant…  Thursday morning I had a lipoma removed from my forehead so they could biopsy it.  It has been there for eight years, but had grown some according to my doctor who measured it during my physical.  It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal and really wasn’t but I feel like I’ve been beaten to the pulp.  Because of the location, they did the procedure in a surgery center and with some general anesthesia.  Also, due to the location, a plastic surgeon did the operation which is good.  I didn’t want to take the risk of waking up and looking like Frankenstein.  I was a little nervous; after all, this is my head and I didn’t want them to go too deep and end up like the Chief in One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest.  But the procedure went well.  The surgeon said he was sure it was what he suspected, a lipoma and not a sarcoma which would have been very bad news.  I was home a little after noon and as the drugs ran out, began to pop the pain pills they’d ordered and put on the ice packs. I’d sleep a little, talk on the phone a little, and try to watch a movie.  But my head kept swelling and pounding.  After dinner, I began to itch and then lost everything in my stomach.  It was about nine in the evening and I was exhausted and once I fell asleep, slept till 5 AM.  I wasn’t going to take another pain pill (Tramadol) as there was a rattle in my breathing and I was itching like crazy, which was the same thing that had happened a few years ago when I had taken Vickodin some work on a toe.  I feel like I’m flunking out of junkie school—I can’t seem to take any of the good drugs!
The good news was the pain wasn’t nearly as bad as the swelling (although still there) in the forehead went down.  I had slept in a recliner at the doc’s recommendation).  I’ve been taking Ibprofen which has kept the pain at bay.  Only problem is that as Friday wore on, the swelling moved down to where my right eye is nearly shut and both eyes look like I’ve been knocked out in a title fight.  I took yesterday off and didn’t feel like doing much of anything (I’m not supposed to lift over ten pounds, lean over or raise my heart rate for a few days).   
   
Now for my rant….  Is it my imagination or have the internet advertisers become more creative.  Recently I’ve noticed that sometimes (but not all the time) there are hyperlinks in my blog that I haven’t authorized.  My last post where I used the term ABS (a type of plastic material used in boat construction among other things), there was a hyperlink that would pop up a picture of a guy who looked like he’d over-inflated his muscles and a link that said something like: “You too can have abs like these.”  About the same time, I was doing some research and reading a sermon by George Whitefield (an 18th Century revivalist dude).  On the word “friend” there was a hyperlink and a picture of a young woman with one of the skimpiest bikini I’ve seen—small triangles that could have only barely covered the nipples—popped up.  This couldn’t have been the bikini that she regularly used to tan as there was plenty of pale flesh showing.  The caption asked, “Do you want to be my friend?” Two thinks that will foster friendship, at least short-term memory, is money and flesh.  This must have been her “friendship bikini.”  Poor Whitefield, he’s spinning in his grave at the thought that he is advertising such “friendship.”   It seems that whatever the site, there are more clever ways to advertise and it’s beginning to be a little evasive. 

18 comments:

  1. Glad your OK. But you look like you've had a tussle with Ali and lost. Still who cares as long as the thing is gone.

    On the ad's. Get one of the security programmes with 'ad-block' and 'do not follow'. And set the browser to not keep anything. Otherwise you become the product of each and every site you visit and each and every site you put an e-mail, buy a product or plus someone on google.
    Now I don't know Whitefield but the 19th C people were far more realistic that they were subsequently made out.

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    1. You might add Ghostery and NoScript. That seems to soften the cough of most prying.
      BTW, the Ghostery is blocking 5 on your site. 4 from Google and one from the site meter.

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  2. Oh my goodness my heart flip-flpped when I saw your photo, but the title kind of made things a bit easier! Holy cow, so happy you had it done and things we (soon) be fine- and I think it rocks that all those good drugs are bad- cuz I think pretty much all drugs are bad- so much better to never need any of them. As for your ad rant- gee whiz what in the world- it's kind of like a bittersweet thing- the girly thing from this end was kind of funny- but you are so right it is so BAD and not right on all levels. So far I haven't seen that- but I have noticed some spam posts are slipping through- it used to be I only had to go to the spam comments and clear it out...those that do evil things do and do and do, don't they. I sure am sending you a big cyber hug! Get better SOON!

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  3. Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Sage.

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  4. dude it looks like you caught the wrong end of a fight....whew....glad it will be all ok soon enough....

    and did i read that right...they put a hyperlink in your post without your knowledge? how do they do that?

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  5. Oh ouch..poor you. I sure hope you heal quickly and as painlessly as possible. I'm glad that the biopsy results were good.

    And like Brian, I'd like to know how links appear in a blog post? Is Google that sneaky and invasive these days? They used to be the fun good guy. Now they're becoming Big Brotherish.

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    1. With google it is in your control somewhat. Once you open google all the searches you've done come into play. You can go into settings and make it delete your history after each session.

      The worst I heard was with the airlines. If you book for a family all is good if you do it in one go. But should you break for some reason and return later. Their system will pick up you have booked to a flight and will up the price hugely for generally you are caught. But should you go to another computer you will book for the old price.
      And google is worst simply because they have so much generally used applications that are interlinked.

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  6. Yikes. I DO hope you feel better than you look.

    I will have to check the links on my blog. That's terrible - can we delete them somehow?

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  7. If I was you, I would make up a better story like I took on three guys in a bar fight!

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  8. Stop. Your pic is giving me flashbacks of previous surgeries.

    Seriously, do what the doctor says and take your meds.

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  9. Ouch, man. That looks like it hurts. Hope you start to feel better soon from that.

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  10. Hope you have a speedy recovery!

    The ads are certainly tricky! I am a little comforted by the fact that they seem to not know me at all though. I don't need to pay back my New Zealand student loans or get an ambassadorial position in the West Indies. :)

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  11. So glad you're ok!

    I see you're with Blogger -- I'm with TypePad and on TypepPad there's an option for having relevant links link up... not sure if it's the same with Blogger?

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  12. Sage: I want to wish you a speedy recovery and I hope you are able to get back to a regular routine soon. Heal up, my friend!

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  13. You do look a little like a pugilist there - I'm glad you are OK and that you will heal nicely.

    Yes - there is a pain management link at the bottom of your blog now. Crazy. :)

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  14. Uh how is it now..you just are not using the right drugs my friend, trust me on this.

    I had the same problem and you have a virus called ad.vert nasty little sucker that as soon as you find and remove its cookie it replicates faster than you can remove.

    For a one time fee of $29 download MalwareAnti Bytes. It udate automatically and of the 3 programs i have running it is the only one that fund and deleted it.

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  15. Darn, now I'm feeling stupid I fell for that stupid abs ad and clicked on it. I thought, well if this is Sage-endorsed, it must be a good product :)

    Hope you are feeling better and back to normal soon, Sage.

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  16. Google gave me the option to add relevant ad links automatically in my posts. I need to make sure I said no. It's in your adsense dashboard somewhere, I think.

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