IKEA Taking a Poke at Lasse Viren?

It may be coincidence.

It may be that after naming hundreds of thousands of affordable Swedish furniture, food, and nick-nacks, the branding people at IKEA are at the end of their ropes.

But naming a toilet brush/holder after four-time Olympic gold medalist Lasse Artturi Viren whose past is spotted with allegations of reindeer milk and more troubling accusations seems a little too ironic.

Then again, the universe has a way of making sure that these kinds of coincidences happen...

Irony, Thy Name is AdWords...

Yesterday after work I was messing around with the various customizable features offered by Google Blogger. It is that experimentation you have to thank for the link to my YouTube videos, my bio, and some news feeds to the right of the blog. On a whim, I signed up to host some "highly targeted ads" powered by Google's AdSense - lauded to be the best thing to happen to advertising since the Budweiser frogs.

Receiving notification this morning that my page had been approved to host ads, I scrolled to the bottom to find this carefully targeted, highly topical advertisement.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Well played, Google, well played. Although unless Marion Jones is checking the blogosphere on articles about herself, I don't expect many click throughs...