All those television advertisements may irritate you. But on Nathan Alexander's CommercialsIHate.com Web site, it is a spot for the toenail fungus pill Lamisil that he clearly believes warrants a full dose of cyber-curmudgeonry.

"The commercial features an evil animated foot fungus. He stands in front of a big toe, explaining that all he wants to do is to get into your nail bed," Alexander rants. "He then rips the toenail off of the toe. I was in bed when I saw this. I screamed like a woman and clutched the covers right off the bed."

For eight years Alexander has shared his outrage, exasperation and sardonic wit over commercials he loves to hate. At a steady space of 1,200 hits a day, he figures he is nearing 1.4 million like-minded visitors since he first went online.

One thing about TV ads - there are always new ones, and plenty of them violate CommercialsIHate.com's "List of Advertising Offenses."

Did you air yet another ad on the perpetual "stupid man" theme? Slap. Bastardize a popular song to sell cars or frozen entrees? Whack. Or, did you turn candy into sexual innuendo, plunging a peanut and caramel-covered bar into chocolate? Kaboom.

That's "my current loathsome commercial," Alexander says. "It's so disturbing I can't even tell you."

Other peeves that fill the site's pages and prompt debate on its discussion boards include shouting pitchmen; "posthumous" endorsements (Fred Astaire selling vacuum cleaners?); Michael Jordan slurring through an MCI or Ball Park franks spot; not saying what a prescription medicine actually treats (Zocor, Zyban, etc.); and the incessant "I don't get it" themes (It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno . . . the duck quacking "AFLAC!").

So, what set off Alexander, anyway? The 26-year-old Burbank, Calif., video editor actually works in Hollywood, after all, helping aspiring actors compile demo reels of their talents onto DVDs.

"Well," he says, "My clients are rarely in commercials I hate. . . . But I have always been annoyed by commercials. "In 1996, I was sure there would be a site somewhere on the Web listing all these horrible ads. When I couldn't find one, I decided to do one myself."

Among the first to earn Alexander's wrath were feminine hygiene and other intimate products (think "adjustable" tampons and herpes ointments), and the seemingly endless series of Verizon spots featuring the "Can you hear me now" geek.

The latter even inspired one of the leading products offered in the online store at www.commercialsihate.com: "Can You Shoot Me Now?" T-shirts showing the cell phone pitch-nerd in the cross hairs of a rifle scope.

But the site's most popular feature remains its discussion board, where hundreds of posters keep up a lively stream of anti-ad vitriol. Harmless venting - most of the time. Enter one prolific correspondent Alexander dubbed "The Stalker."

"In February, 'Melissa' wrote to me that we were soulmates, that geography had conspired to keep us apart, etc.," he recalls. "We wrote back for a year or two. Then one day I mentioned on the site I would have a layover in Dallas. I didn't think anything about it."

Melissa showed up at the airport and tracked Alexander down. At first, he was uneasy, but things turned out all right.

"She was like 7 feet tall. Me, I'm 5-foot-7 on a good day," he laughs. "But she was good looking and funny, and we ended up having a really good conversation. I got on the plane and haven't heard from her for a while."

Oh well. Alexander and Melissa will always have Dallas . . . and of course, there will always be that next rage-triggering ad.

"They think we're really stupid," Alexander say. "Trouble is, many of us are."

bmims@sltrib.com