“Patient” is not a word my wife would use to describe me. I’m allergic to standing in line, and waiting more than 10 minutes to see a doctor makes me want to go “rock-star in a hotel room” with the chairs and old magazines. And if scientific studies on impatient “want it all now” individuals are correct, then it’s one of the primary reasons I’m such a huge failure.

This is what I see when I see a line of any size. © Mike Kiev - Fotolia.com

But self-flogging aside, there’s a new villain when it comes to making me feel like a big chump: the 30-second internet commercial.

I go out of my mind when I have to wait 30-seconds while an Internet commercial plays. It feels like 30-minutes. I think it’s all about the “ratio” of the commercial time to the video clip length.

If I watch a 60-minute show, then a 30-second commercial doesn’t push me over the edge. But if I’m waiting to watch 15 seconds of “Labrador puppies playing poker,” the ratio of commercial to clip is too much to bear and I shut down the page.

A conventional hour of TV contains approximately 1/3 of the time devoted to advertising – or more for a popular show (American Idol feels like 50/50 while I’m skipping through the commercials on our DVR).

And, to watch a 15 or 30-second clip on the web, I’m forced to watch all of the commercial time up front. Can you imagine being forced to watch 20 minutes of commercials before watching 40-minutes of a TV show? You’d run screaming from the house by minute 8.

That’s what watching 30-second commercials is like for me. I can’t do it. Even if I click on another browser tab while it plays, it still feels like a huge waste of my time.

Companies need to get off their rear-ends, buy some imagination, and create 5-second commercials for the web. Until then I’m boycotting the companies who are too cheap to create ads that don’t make me feel like an idiot, which isn’t hard to do, as I’m really good at feeling that way every day of my life.

That’s it. I’m done ranting here. I tried to capture my frustration with this topic in a tweet or two, but I couldn’t do it. I’m glad it’s finally off my chest.

I’ll try to be more patient in life. [the Universe laughs]