So, Heath Ledger is dead. That just sucks. I mean I wasn’t a huge fan, or anything, but he’s a bit young. Sure it was drugs and there’s a part of me that pretty much wants to say, “Idiot,” and move on, but the drug thing can happen to anybody. It does, frequently. But I was more upset by the death of Adrienne Shelly, whose demise was truly tragic and unexpected.

Weirder than Ledger’s overdose rumours and his youth and his actually not being alive anymore were the Google contextual ads on the same page as the CNN article. You’d think that they’d present stories like that without any advertising at all out of respect for the deceased, but I dunno. Maybe that’s crazy talk. I’m sure the traffic on the page is unbelievable, so maybe the added revenue is worth the odd pang of conscience.

But I wanted to focus on the ads for a moment. They were weird. The first was for Sympathy Bouquets. All right. I suppose that makes sense. I can live with that one. The second was about the removal of Belly Fat. I won’t even go there, except to wonder what it was in the article that inspired the placement of that one. The third read, “Send a Bereavement Dinner.”

Huh?

Here’s the link. I guess the company delivers dinners for all occasions. Not a bad business idea, I suppose, but definitely a sign of our weird times. I could see sending a “Romantic Dinner” to a newly engaged couple, or sending a “Get Well” rib-eye to someone who’s recently been gored by a steer. But sending a dinner to someone who’s just lost a loved one seems a little off. “Sorry about the accident. Here. Have some shrimp.” Does it come with lots of extra Kleenex? Is it laced with sedatives? I just don’t know. The world is so strange.

Though in this context, the belly fat ad makes a little sense. Get enough bereavement dinners in you and you’ll stand to lose a pound or two.

I had actually grabbed a screen cap of the ad block, but I lost it. Now that the story has moved to the top of the heap it’s no longer contextual. Now it’s just University of Phoenix crap and Career Builder nonsense because, I guess, the demographic is so vast at that point there’s no sense in targeting anyone.

Sorry, Heath. You were way too young. Let’s eat.