I love the net. I loved BBSs and FidoNet in the 1980s; I love the internet now. But I was offline for a few years. I missed the early days of the web and the first wave of civilian net pilgrims (civilian meaning non-geek). By the time I rejoined the show in progress in 1995 or so, the net had become commercialized. My first reaction to seeing the web was, "Oh my god, look at all those ads!"

I hadn't seen anything yet. Lately, ads have become so frankly obnoxious that they're actually convincing me not to buy anything ever again. Exempli gratias:

This banner normally has a yellow circle with a black exclamation point frantically flashing in the empty space on the left. I defused it before reposting so it can't fry anyone else's brain.

Let's break this thing down into its foul components:

Animated gif: thank God for the "stop animations" command. Nothing personal, but animated gifs make me want to rip my eyes out. How can I concentrate on reading a column of text with blinking graphics all over the screen? Some of the banner ads on the web are enough to send viewers into convulsions, like that infamous Pokemon episode which triggered seizures in something like seven hundred little kids.

Pop-up boxes: I mentioned this problem not long ago, but let's mention it again. I got used to the simple rectangular pop-up boxes at Geocities and Tripod. (You can kill those by turning off Javascript in your preferences.) Someone made them worse. EZ Board message boards are infested with mutant pop-ups which flash across the screen and then lurk behind open windows. Some people call them pop-unders. I have to windowshade (minimize) my browser windows to zap the little bastards closed. One company defended the pop-under tactic by suggesting that people would find them less offensive than traditional pop-up boxes. BZZT! Thanks for playing.

Assumption of stupidity: when that ad pops up saying, "IMPORTANT: if the message above is blinking, you have won $1,000,000," does anyone actually click the banner? Anyone? Bueller?

Display of stupidity: just who got paid to put I before E after C? If they're so incompetent as to let an error like that slip through, they're not getting my business.

And while I'm ranting, let me knock off these two related pet peeves:

Penis-enlargement spam: need I say more? My mail filter catches it and sends it straight to my trash folder, but still. I have yet to figure out how I got on any of these mailing lists. No, seriously.

Blinking text: if it's written with the HTML [blink] command, I can't even make it stop. Under no circumstances should any text blink. Ever.

Also on the subject of ads: Massachusetts Republicans have proposed putting advertisements on school buses to fund school committees. As Dave Barry says, I am not making this up. I don't know where to begin with a wing-nut idea like that, and I'm getting a headache just thinking about it.

And people ask me why I don't watch television.