We’ll get to the creepy part in a minute. First let me show you some photographs of a scene I encountered on another walk within the last 7 days (my theme for the week, as it turns out.)

Here I was, a good 2 weeks before Thanksgiving after which Portland has its annual tree lighting ceremony at the public square downtown.

Two monster trucks were parked on Pioneer Square, delivering the tree, and a load of tree branches. The tree was already erected, the branches were in the process of being hauled by a crane from truck to the ground.

First thing I saw was one of the lines holding the branches breaking, the load crashing down, back onto the flatbed of the truck, luckily with none of the workers in the vicinity.

What was going on? A friendly supervisor, standing next to the barrier keeping nosy pedestrians like me out, explained when I approached him.

They want the tree to have a spectacularly beautiful shape, so they saw off the lower branches and then nail them back on again after delivery, in ways that fills the lower space in a regular, geometric fashion, also using filler branches stolen from other trees. I guess irregular nature is not beautiful enough in this consumer oasis.

The whole process takes weeks, people busily bracing and hammering away to create this pyramid illusion.

I went home to look at what people consider “beautiful” for a tree. Up popped a site shouting its ware of artificial Christmas trees and linking, as you can see, to the appropriate Christmas attire.

I learned that artificial trees come in all kinds of sizes and three distinct shapes.

The full and fine….

The slim…

The pencil (with a Texas theme by the connoisseur of cute – where do they find these?)

And here’s the creepy part. I am now inundated with ads, no matter where I go on my computer, reading the news, opening Face Book, looking at instagram. All imploring me to dress up like a crazy elf and fill my Jewish home with the full and fine….

Here is the explanation. (The link from the Seattle Times also contains step by step instructions for how to get rid and block these stalker ads.)

When you visited Brand X’s website (to search for a blender, say,) the site stored a cookie on your device containing a unique identifier. Brand X hired multiple ad tech companies to do its marketing. The ad tech companies embedded trackers that also loaded on Brand X’s website, and the trackers took a look at your cookie to pinpoint your device.

The trackers can tell if you are interested in buying something. They look for signals — like if you closed the browser after looking at the blender for awhile or left the item in the site’s shopping cart without completing the purchase. From there, the ad tech companies can follow your cookie through trackers and ad networks on various sites and apps to serve you an ad for the blender.

Some of the ad agency proudly claim: don’t you prefer targeted ads, that are at least of interest to you, than the usual “spray and pray?” (Almost as good as connoisseur of cute…) Well, no, I prefer not to be stalked at all. As do, apparently, “according to a 2012 survey by Pew Research Center, 68 percent of internet users. They did not like targeted advertising because they do not like having their online behavior tracked and analyzed. Your browsing history can reveal a lot about you, including your health issues, political affiliations and sexual habits, so there are real privacy concerns.”

And now excuse me while I go seek revenge and clear out my cookie caches…

Music today is the appropriate sentiment:

Ha! Welch’ ein Augenblick!Ha! What a moment! Die Rache werd’ ich kühlen,My vengeance I will cool, Dich rufet dein Geschick!Your fate is calling you! In seinem Herzen wühlen,In its heart dwell, O Wonne, grosses Glück!Oh live, good luck! Schon war ich nah’ im Staube,Already I was nearly in the dust, Dem lauten Spott zum Raube,By the loud scorn robbed, Dahin gestreckt zu sein.There to be stretched. Nun ist es mir geworden,Now it is up to me, Den Mörder selbst zu morden.To commit the murder myself In seiner letzten Stunde,In his last hour, Den Stahl in seiner Wunde,The steel in his wound, Ihm noch ins Ohr zu schrei’n:To cry in his ear: Triumph! Der Sieg ist mein!Triumph! Victory is mine!

Fidelio, of course, in an amusing rendition.