It’s been a bit, I know. I haven’t had any focus, though. And the one day I thought I might have focus, I started getting all un-focused again.

The post title has a point, but I’m going to try to weave it in to a story about my…has it been a week? Because I do in a week what most people do in a day.

Right around the time I was thinking about doing another post, I found out that some friends of ours were going to be out here for a few days. Apartment hunting. Because they’re moving out here.

I should just create a tag called ‘self-involvement’ so I can designate those sections easily. Because I went from, ‘Oh yippie,’ to ‘Oh FUCK I’m such a disappointment’ at an impressive rate, because I couldn’t even be awake at the proper times.

I managed, though, and I got a plush Dalek out of it all. A red one. It talks. And Zombi is very startled by it.

While I was being unproductive and feeling horrible, I filled my time watching Zero Punctuation. On Youtube, because I’m so lazy I can’t even be bothered to click-play-back-click. Playlist on auto.

Which means ads. Ads that weren’t placed on Escapist, which, fortunately, means they aren’t going to be truly obnoxious ‘full-screen-frame-around-the-video’ ads, or ‘lower-banner-that-consumes-most-of-the-screen’ ads, or ‘shit my mouse touched it suddenly it’s huge’ ads.

Yeah, I hate ads. But I’m no longer concerned about places like Facebook or Google having so much information they can predict my every interest, though.

Why? Because Google has been hilariously wrong with every ad they’ve given me through Youtube in the past several days.

Before we start, you need to understand what I’ve been watching. Zero Punctuation, in case you don’t know, is a…series, I guess, of videos, about five minutes each. About videogames. Mostly about how games are less than great, with badness described in entertaining ways, and plenty of swearing. Not a perfect description, but I’m not doing all that great at describing things right now.

So we’ve got videogames. And phrases like ‘scrambled eggs on fuck-toast’. But mostly videogames. What sort of ads do you think Youtube would think to fix in front of that?

Videogame related things? Nope. Unless you count that terrible Pirates of the Caribbean thing that kept coming up, but that seemed awfully kiddie and out of context. How about ads for other comedic animated things? Possibly. I got one thing that I didn’t find very funny.

Something about the Kardashians? Yup.

Other-brand-shaming yoghurt ads? You bet!

And then, just to be fucked up, a ten minute video about ‘What is Radon?’ Presented by a guy who I swear was reading the cards because someone threatened him with, “Either you do this video, or we do a series of Jackass-style videos. Starring your children.”

Ten minutes. Before a five minute video. And it wouldn’t let me skip! I swear I didn’t click anything — in fact, I can’t even find the fucking video again. It’s nowhere in my browser history. All I know is that, one minute, guitar-music-video-ending, the next, ‘W-what…isRadon? He-re in Co-lora-do. Ur-nar-ium deposits decaying.’ What the fuck is this disjointed madness. And I control-tab, forgetting that I was actually on the right tab, go back, stare, look for the skip, see no skip, and just…wait.

Next video? The ad was a fucking tutorial on eye makeup.

I also got a tutorial on ‘a luminous and radiant look’ — which apparently involved ‘how to use glittery makeup’, an attempt at a comedic ‘lose cellulite’ ad, a truly awful Oklahoma Tourism ad. A tutorial on nail art. Something about ‘couture shopping’. Tampax. Home buying. Health insurance. More weight loss. And, of course, fucking Flo from Progressive.

This is all very, very weird to me, because it’s all very, very female. Stereotypically female. Also, a bit above my maturity level, and really jarring in context.

This was all very, very weird from a site owned by a search engine that used to think I was an 18-24 year old male. So I checked.

Google now thinks I’m a female of indeterminate age who like banking, fashion, makeup, rap, hip-hop, East Asian music, and first person shooters.

What.

Seriously, what?

This is in Chrome. Where I’m logged in with my Google account. And I pretty much only use Google. And my devices are all Android. Google should know approximately everything about me.

If this is the great, privacy-invading horror, then it’s so big that it can’t keep track of itself.

Not saying I’m cool with them selling this information, or sending it off to the government, but…wow. I don’t even do searches for anything related to ‘fashion’ or ‘makeup’. I also don’t even know what ‘East Asian music’ is. Did my profile get mixed up with someone else’s.

Okay, I didn’t do all that great at weaving anything. This is more like a shitty tape job. And I’ve run out of ability to think clearly.