Awesomesauce Advertising: Let’s give this a go, shall we?

And now for something completely different.


Except, not so much.


I’ve been contemplating the idea of ads and things of that ilk for a goodly bit. Would it change my content, overmuch? Might people resent the sponsorrific nature of certain posts? Will you still respect me in the morning? (Although, let’s be honest here. If you’re a repeat reader even after my Michael Bolton post and with the knowledge that I can eat a bag of tamales in one sitting- you’re not in it for the hard-hitting journalism.)


Then it hit me like a pile of cash: my blog postings are peppered with ads, billboards, titles and random media just because I think things are hilarious. No gain whatsoever. Except for the fact that you can’t put a price tag on a smile. (Unless you mean orthodontics. And since I did that twice, that would be- oh, about twelve grand.) So what would be the worst that could happen if I posted occasionally about someone else’s minutiae? And what if I kept it on a separate day from my other postings, keeping Mondays as my weekend recaps and my Thursdays for…whatever it is that Thursdays are supposed to be about? (If I go from past tags, I’m seeing a lot of soft rock and binge eating.) And how about if I only posted about humorous nouns, nouns that I believed in, or nouns for which I had a really good story? Yeah? Are we cool?


No? Fine. I’ll see you on Thursday.


Yes? Let’s begin.


Oh, I’m getting a really good feeling about this one. Ladies? Gentlemen? I give you- the tiki torch.


Or, as I will now refer to them: Kiki’s Tikis.


Okay, apparently I “can’t say that.” I didn’t have “anything to do with” the creation of “any tikis.”


But good grief, I really love a good tiki torch. I’ve built entire parties around this singular idea (and by “singular,” I mean that Peej has been forced to buy truckloads and line the yard with military precision. And by “military,” I mean “doing exactly what I say,” a.k.a. “marriage.”)


Note: No one has asked me to put anything in quotations. That’s just kinda something new. I hope it goes away.


Back to the tiki torch. I am nothing if not prepared, so I did a little research. Okay, I Googled. Oh, God bless you, Internet. And I discovered that what we [Americans] consider Tiki Culture is actually…a made-up thing. That’s right. Americans, inspired by the South Pacific and all things Polynesian, began taking aspects we dug and shoving them right into popular media. So eventually, that became more “Tiki” than anything going on at a luau. Kinda like American pizza, I imagine.


(And right now would probably be a bad time to admit that I perpetuated this stereotypical misappropriation by staying at Disney World’s Polynesian Resort. Repeatedly. It was great.)
But I needed- craved– more knowledge. So I searched some more. (Because what’s more factual than multiple things posted on websites?) Here’s how my “research” went:


-I kept coming up with the suggested keyword “gouging torch,” which apparently has something to do with building or destroying or something like that…but it made me think of Vlad the Impaler.
-And then I remembered that horrid “special” I saw on the Real Dracula. My mother most likely remembers this. I was scarred.
-So I tried to block out the images by scrolling down for more keywords. I discovered a very troubling series of comments that discussed how polluting any backyard fire is.
-Someone countered with the FACT that people were harming the environment even more by being on the internet AT THIS MOMENT.
-I began to think about my carbon footprint. I got depressed.
-Turning on all the lights in the house, I went back to the kitchen and made myself a vodka tonic.
-I sat in the yard and admired the lawn and the tiki torches, drinking the tonic, still kinda upset.
-Enjoying the atmosphere made me remember what I supposed to be doing.
–I powered through the guilt. And I found a really lovely [and expensive] tiki torch that I am simply coveting right now. Halfway down the page. There yet? Yeah. Okay. It’s not so much a “torch” as it is a “tiki hut.” I may have found the priciest backyard object ever, short of something sculpted by Bernini. [P.J.: No. Keely: FINE.]


So there you have it.


That’s right. My investigative skills are a cross between Nick n’ Nora and If You Give A Mouse A Cookie.


The description for the torch I liked insinuated that one’s party will never be the same.


After this glimpse into how I “research,” I think that could also be said for your brain cells.

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