The last thing I expected to find in my mail box was a letter from Google trying to win back my love.

Maybe it was just coincidence, but I found it interesting considering that just a few weeks I put up a blog post entitled Google Ads are useless and don’t work. Perhaps the semi-sentient, Skynet-like Google bot had noticed that I had complained about low Google AdSense revenues, run a quick check to confirm my low Google AdSense revenues, and then fired off this automatic card. It does feel a bit weird to receive a Valentine from a machine entity.

Nonetheless, here it is. Google is offering me a “free” $100 to spend on AdWords, so that I can advertise my own blog. Buried in the fine print is a little “gotcha” line about how unless I cancel, Google will continue to charge me long after the $100 is gone, a nice source of recurring revenue for them. It’s a great endless loop of cash for the search engine giant—I pay money to Google so that people will visit my blog, then I put AdSense ads on my blog page so that Google can charge other advertisers money for viewing them. Only in the unlikely event that someone actually clicks on a link do I get my fraction of a millionth of a penny in payback. Google, meanwhile, is laughing all the way to the bank.

Still, I wonder if it might be worth playing with my “free” $100 just to see how the other half lives. How much traffic could I drive to my site with a few AdWords? Perhaps I could forget about trying to get big numbers on for my blog and just advertise my novel, Edge of Infinity, directly. At least if people buy my book I get a measurable bit of cash, rather than millionths of billionths of a penny.

Maybe I’m just being a grumpy old curmudgeon. Google has been a great resource for me for years and has never charged me a penny for their services. Maybe I should give them a chance. Maybe Google really does love me.

On the other hand, maybe Black Mesa will help me out. That was a joke, ha ha, fat chance.