Why I Got Rid of Adsense

I had a Google ad on this blog for a couple weeks, but no more. Why? Well, my original thought was that even though I'm anticonsumerist, I'm not anti-commerce. And besides, I could use a little extra trickle of money for my time. It turned out that the ads popping up on my site were more funny than anything. I have an article about the foolishness of renting rims, for example. The Google ad that popped up was a link to a place where you can rent rims 24 hours a day. Nice. I should have left it up just for the irony.

And I would have, but I decided that it really goes against the philosophy of this blog to advertise for things I'm lambasting. Plus, nobody is going to actually click on those ads, anyway. At least, nobody who reads anticonsumerist websites.

So, goodbye, Adsense. I think you're a good idea for some, but I'm not going to sell any rims on my site. And readers, if you like what you see, please just link me into your sites and tell others. It's not all about the Benjamins, after all.

Understanding Christmas Consumerism

Today's entry should serve as a bit of a confession from this die-hard anticonsumerist. Christmas had me spouting off my usual rants as I shopped at Target for gifts (for my niece and nephews - and only educational gifts).

Somehow I found myself running toward the back of the store. I wasn't sure where my legs were taking me but they ended up in front of an XBOX 360 kiosk. There was some WW2 game playing itself out on a screen. Suddenly I felt the old Christmas magic. I don't even *play* video games. I have a PS2 that my wife and I use for watching DVDs because we're too cheap to buy a real DVD player with a remote. And I own exactly two games for it. Yet I was enraptured with this new technology.

No, folks. I did not buy one. I'm not even sure they were available that day. But I must confess that if one had magically arrived under the tree on Christmas morning, I would have stopped my rants about consumerism for long enough to play some games. Even now when I walk by the display, I hold my nose up in snooty indifference. Yet, I am drooling on the inside.

Renting Rims: The Decline of Western Civilization

At first I had a hard time figuring out how such economically challenged parents were able to afford such fancy rims on their cars. I watched the school parking lot of a poor school with very poor students as parents pulled up rolling on thousands of dollars worth of wheels. "That's where the money goes," I thought. I happen to know that some of these students don't have computers or even books at home. But their daddy has blingy wheels. Nice.

Check this out, folks: Rent-A-Wheel. You don't need credit. Just a job. Care to take a guess where they place these stores in the cities in which they franchise? Care to guess what the interest rates are? Am I blaming this company for something? Nope. Read my last entry about McDonald's. They're just filling a need brought on by a lack of good priorities in a part of our culture. We'd all be better off with fewer flashy rented rims and more books.

And we only have ourselves to blame.