So, for the latest news, I usually turn to the only reliable news source on the Web: Fark.com. Run by a Kentuckian named Drew Curtis, Fark presents a run-down of all the important and unimportant news happening around the world. Whether it's how many tons of ordinance we dropped on some Central Asian camel drivers today, what Wesley Crusher's doing now, or a news flash about a pit bull swallowed by a boa constrictor, you'll find it on Fark. And, unlike Salon.com, you don't have to pay for the privilege of posting your opinions and communicating with real human beings.

It was on Fark that I saw the article on the holographic ads. It seems that in the latest attempt to get us to consume in the most Brave New World way possible, you'll soon be treated to holographic images of our favorite consumer products in shopping malls and department stores. Very cool, but also very Blade Runner, if you ask me. Why the heck is this technology being used for advertising, when it could be used for useful applications, like medical diagnostic tools, landmine locating, and pornography?

The story about the expensive, flashy holographic ads, and the success of ad-free sites such as Fark (which can get, literally, a million a week) brought home an important point: Advertising no longer works. TV commercials are more entertaining than 95% of the drek that passes for "programming"these days, but what was the last time you drank that Budweiser piss-water instead of some real beer because you liked the commercial? Did you actually run out to buy that rugged SUV because they were selling it with a song from your rebellious teenage years? What is the last time you actually clicked on a banner ad?

Ads have ceased to be ads anymore, and have become a sort of pop art. They're what church sculpture was in the Middle Ages, anonymous images for public view. Of course, none of us have any interest in the products they're trying to sell-just in the art of the ads themselves. I spend my commute analyzing the ads in the subway for how artistically they get across their point: "Drink Captain Morgan! It'll make you a cheap slut!"

Of course, the so-called "real world" is beginning to figure out the obvious, too. The dot-conomy has already crashed because the brain trust on Wall Street finally figured out that click-through ads just won't pay them back the investment money they sank into that Web site that lets you leave messages for all the cute anonymous strangers you see on the subway. The current recession is caused by some financial genius asking obvious questions, like: "How do the cute anonymous strangers know to pick up the notes?" I don't understand why people have to have Harvard degrees in economics to do this shit since it's pretty obvious to me how the economy works: On expensive call girls and fine cocaine. Less hookers and cocaine means lower stock markets; more (as in the Clinton years) means the economy soars. That Ayn Rand-worshipping Alan Greenspan may not be such a genius after all.

Of course, then, nobody could have predicted that a couple of jets were going to crash into Wall Street, further sending the economy into a nosedive and limiting brokers' access to hookers and blow. Consumer confidence is down, which supposedly means that people are less willing to buy houses that will get blown up tomorrow and cars that burn Saudi oil and college educations for kids who might get killed on a mountainside in Afghanistan.

Of course, I personally think that it's just that so much of the consumer crap they're trying to sell us seems so, well, September 10th.