Yep and your right it will connect to the db to get the ad image data AND it will also do inserts into the DB for tracking impressions that is the killer.
select statements are far quicker than inserts and in your case it doing 6 inserts just for your sponsors ads

It no BIG deal but it will slow page loading down.

Thanks! but I am using the IMG tag for all 6 – but if you look the IMG tag has a specific code that I think it dips into the database to get the graphic and pings back to load it

nice, I will definitely look at the videos – since I just started using it

Not sure if you are aware of this or not but…
The type of invocation code that you implement to serve your ads via Openads can have a big impact on load tims.
For example, if you are using the javascript tag for all 6 of your 125×125 ads in the top right hand corner of your blog, this will load more slowly than using the image tag or the iframe tag. Although that is not always the case.

I hope this isn’t too spammy

I have a number of video screencasts on the basics of Openads at openadsblogger.com. I go through installing Openads through implementing our custom built WordPress RSS feed/Openads plugin so that blogger using wordpress can sell ads in their feed and have them tracked by Openads