One more vacation.....

Every summer for the past 17 years, my family has rented a cottage at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire for a week.  Before that I would go for 2-3 day visits to this very nice, middle-class ocean resort.  I kind of like this video because it's from the summer of 1988, and that was the year I took my 7-year old nephew to Hampton and we stayed at a hotel which no longer exists, right on Ocean Boulevard on the boardwalk.

I spend my days at Hampton taking long walks along the beach, talking to fishermen in the early mornings and evenings, watching the whale watch boats head out just after dawn (went on a whale watch about ten years ago, lots of fun....)  At night I play old video games (I wore out "Time Pilot," neither of the big arcades have one anymore, pretty much switched to Qbert after that) and get ice cream cones and listen to the live music at the Shell Stage.  And walk along the beach some more, especially if we are treated to low tides during the right time of the evening.

Anyway, all this is just to explain why I won't be posting again till next Saturday- I'll have my phone at the beach but that's just for emergencies, I'll have my tablet but that's just to check my email in the evenings.  When I get back it's time to start thinking about school again and the non-summer routine, but before then, I've got a week of bloviating (a really underused term) ahead of me, with very little television- which means, very little exposure to crappy commercials.  Looking forward to it.

Check out the archives while I'm gone!  'Bye for now!

Yeah I really don't get it, Viagra

This is about the dozenth or so Viagra ad I've seen which suggests that the way men get themselves in the mood for sex is to spend a long period of time away from women.  They all end the same way- the guy comes home from a long day of Not Being With a Female ready for sex because....well, because not being around females got him hot, I guess.

And of course the Little Lady is ALWAYS ready for sex.  She's just waiting for you to finish fishing or sailing or herding cattle or driving your truck through mud or whatever you are doing to get yourself excited.  Boy she sure picked a winner, didn't she?

What am I missing here?

Well, at least it's not a gun ad

1.  Geeky High School kid is insecure.

2.  Almost As Worthless As Bambi's Dad gives Geeky High School kid the keys to the Audi and tells him to "have a good time tonight."  He knows his son well enough not to say that while giving him a condom.

3.  Geeky High School kid is SO insecure that the very act of driving the family Audi has more than tripled his self-confidence, and he is able to stride on to the dance floor of the prom and kiss the Queen.

4.  In a rather odd twist, Geeky High School kid (now proudly supporting a black eye, presumably issued by the King) instantly leaves the dance instead of accepting the accolades and sudden admiration of the people who never knew he existed before and satisfies himself by speeding back home so he can log in as KirkRules9870 and stay up till 4 AM drinking Red Bull and telling his internet "friends" all about it.  He probably satisfies himself in other ways, but this is a family blog so I'll just leave it there.

5.  A day or two later, Geeky High School kid comes to the realization that instead of pulling off some Great Moment in his life, he experienced a massive Lost Opportunity by running back to his cave so quickly.  Then he'll console himself with the thought that at least Dad owns an Audi- never mind that no one at the dance got to see or praise it, so really, what was the point again?

This is Beyond Pathetic

So beyond pathetic, in fact, that it really deserves to be it's own series.

If the good people who post ads at YouTube cooperate, I'm pretty sure I will be posting several of these Verizon Fios "My Life Is Television" ads, just because they are so irritating and the people in them are such horrible zombies.  I'm especially waiting for someone to post the one where Fios customers are sitting on a big white couch in the middle of a showroom talking about their "Awesome Fios Experiences"- when a salesman says "you can record and watch up to fifteen shows at once" (!!!!!!????? Seriously??? WTF???)  a woman who may or may not be drooling responds "I DVR everything."

Anyway, the punchline of this ad is that doofus dad seems to like ice skating, and of course it's very wrong and bad and unmanly to like ice skating so it's funny, get it?  Personally, I'm too caught up in the notion that this family APPARENTLY HAS A TELEVISION IN EVERY FREAKING ROOM
I MEAN COME ON WHAT THE HELL?

I also like how in all of these ads the entire family has to be available so that the Verizon Fios guy can explain to them how they never have to miss anything on television ever again because it can be recorded and watched in any room in the house and oh you can pause it too in case you want to actually get up and move for some strange reason (when is someone going to market that Homer Simpson chair with the built-in toilet already?)  I really really want at least one family member (one of the ADULTS would be PERFECT for this) to simply decline the Awesome Fios Setup with a polite "we don't have six televisions- I mean, there are only four of us, for Chissakes, and besides, OUR LIVES DON'T REVOLVE AROUND THE FREAKING IDIOT BOX!") 

I also like how nobody in the family except Dad is ever shown to be really super-excited about any of this. It's more like "yeah, uh-huh, I can record everything and watch it anywhere from 200 different devices, whatever, it's about f---ng time."  Dad of course HAS to be excited because this being a commercial, he must find a way to stand out as the Family Moron Who Humiliates His Family By His Very Presence, and the ugly shirt and uncombed hair doesn't quite pull it off.   Even the people hired to act in Fios ads aren't capable of generating the level of enthusiasm we regularly see in commercials for Kit Kats and light beer.

The daughter's pretty cute though. She'd be cuter if she got that nasty "WTF-ever, can I get away from these people I'm related to and get back to texting now?" look off her face.

Discover not very much here

Watch this ad over and over again, convinced that you MUST have missed SOMETHING.  I did.  Turned out it was a real waste of time.  Other than this douchenozzle blathering about a free service from his credit card company while strolling down the hallway of his apartment building (because God Fucking Forbid you wait until you are somewhere private to have a private conversation, oh and I'm sure his neighbors appreciate how he cranked up the volume so he wouldn't have to put the phone up against his ear Again God Forbid) there really isn't anything here.

I mean, unless you count "good 'cause I hate surprises" followed by a surprise party in his apartment- uh huh, whatever, really this is all you've got, Discover?

BTW, I really want to spend some time working in a credit card phone bank, if this is the kind of bored jagoff who regularly calls in.

Caller:  "I was just checking my balanced and I noticed by FICA credit score..."

Me:  "Yeah, and?  So? What is your issue?  No friends, huh?  You know, there are real people with actual problems who are trying to get through right now.  We give you your credit score, ok?"

Caller:  "Good, because I hate surprises."

Me:  "What, are we dating now?  Who gives a shit what you hate?  Can you hang up now please?"

I don't care what century it is. Keep to your own "kind!"

Blackpeoplemeet.com- because stick with your own, and make sure that when you look at someone, if skin color isn't the ONLY thing you see, at least it's the first and most important thing you see.

Jdate.com, ChristianMingle, etc.- again, stick with your own.  Limit your heart to people who already believe what you believe.  Expanding your horizons to include other viewpoints is scary and stupid and scary.  Stay in your bubble.

Most important- we were intended to stay within certain tribes- race and religion are only among the biggest ones.  After all, without these limits, how the hell are we ever going to maintain bigotry, ignorance, and hate?

Some of the best life lessons come from musicals-

You've got to be taught to hate and fear,

You've got to be taught from year to year,

It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear,

You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made,

And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,

You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,

Before you are six or seven or eight,

To hate all the people your relatives hate,

You've got to be carefully taught!

- "South Pacific"

Because "Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained," Money-Grubbing Capitalist Pig

I could be nice and suggest that Father With Just the Right Amount of Gray Dusting His Immaculate  Hair just explain to his son that "there's risk to investing money, and even though my broker handles it, I'm the one who ultimately makes the decisions and is responsible for them."

He could go on to add "I could put the money in the bank where it would be 100 percent safe, but then we might not be able to afford this Brownstone in the Upscale Neighborhood, or your Private School, or for mom to stay home to give you milk and cookies when school is over, or those Aspen vacations.  So I risk it because after all More More More More More."

He could go on to add "if brokers had to pay clients back every time investments lost money, everyone would invest because there would be no risk.  Which would make investments like banks, and we'd be back to that problem with not being able to afford All This Stuff."

He could go on to add "my broker doesn't have a fucking crystal ball, and if brokers were held responsible for losses, they'd go out of business really fast because losses are going to happen.  You might not realize it because you live the pampered life of a spoiled rotten white kid in America, but there really aren't any gaurantees when it comes to investments."

Because I'm not especially nice, I'll just hope that Gray-Dusted Hair Douchenozzle switches to iTrade and walks in front of a bus while his eyes are glued to some fucking marketing chart on his iPhone.  Because I'm not especially nice.

(BTW, notice how pretty much every brokerage ad features someone wistfully thinking either "gee, I think my broker is ripping me off for making me pay him to manage my money" or "I don't think it's fair that 'risk' means I could lose my money, I want to redefine the word 'risk?" I mean, what the hell?)

This means his hands were all over that cereal, BTW. Just another episode of You Married It, You Live With It

You can tell by the resigned little smile Wifey gives to Fat Stupid Doofus Hubby that she doesn't really mind all that much that FSDH actually went through the box of Lucky Charms and picked out all the marshmallows and is now eating a "breakfast" of marshmallows and milk (yuck.)  Because hey, he's Hubby and there's this nice house and all that.

Still.  Breakfast is a bowl of marshmallows and milk.  And unshaven slob FSDH is walking around eating it with a dumbass look on his face and never mind that he's in his thirties and not a preteen eating Lucky Charms in the first place (he picked his What the Hell Gotta Marry Someone partner well, because she likes them too.)

Have a great life, people.

Sargento's Perfect Pairing: Your Money and Sargento

This commercial has exactly one message: that it's a really good idea to buy cheese in the most economically stupid way imaginable.

It's not rocket science, people.  The smaller the unit you purchase, the more you are paying.  Cheese is expensive enough already, but anyone who knows anything about shopping knows that the way to save money when buying it is to go for the largest block you know you will be able to consume while it's at peak flavor.  A block of cheese is one price.  The same block shredded is much more expensive.  The same block sliced up is much more expensive.  The same block sliced up and sold in individual units is MUCH more expensive.

Buying it by the bite?  Well, it's your money, stupid.  But when you are old enough to trust yourself with a knife, and greedy enough to want to keep as much as your hard-earned dough in your pocket as possible, stay away from dumb "convenience" food like this.

And I'm not even going to START on the wasteful packaging.  This is one step above those hideous Snackables things.  Grrrr....

Easy Answers for this Quantum Fios kid

"We can't record more than twelve shows at once." 

"Why?"

Here's a better question, moron:  Why would anyone NEED to record "more than twelve shows at once," unless you just love recording or plan to spend the rest of your freaking life doing absolutely nothing but getting caught up on the junk you stored in your DVR.  Jesus, I can't remember the last time I saw TWO things on at the same time that could hold my interest.  Twelve shows at the same time?  How many hundreds of cable channels does this dicktard family have, anyway?

"You can't pause a show here and watch it in another room."

"Why?"

Because Daddy would rather put money into your college education account and paying down the mortgage than fill this house with a bunch of stupid, useless, time-and-life sucking toys.  Daddy's also not excited about the idea of his kid wandering around the house like a freaking zombie pausing and unpausing his "favorite cartoons" on a dozen energy-vampire television sets Just Because He Can.

And here's the real bottom line for this kid:  Life Isn't Television.  Get your butt outside and breathe in some freaking fresh air.   Read a God Damned Book.  Ride that bicycle.  Actually have face-to-face conversations with Real Friends rather than Virtual ones.  And get it out of your head that the main purpose of existence is to record every piece of banal junk that just happens to make it over the airwaves and then gaze at it as your body atrophies.   Of course, this all has to start with Daddy actually modeling some of this behavior instead of standing there with a vacant look on his face that says nothing to this kid except "hey yeah, why not?"  Why do I think this is really unlikely, and that Daddy is about to invest in This Is Awesome Because It Means Nothing But Television Television Television Everywhere All The Time FIOS?

Oh get the F-- off my radio already, Jay Farner and Quicken Loans!

"If you're a homeowner who's faithfully made his mortgage payments, you deserve thanks for doing the right thing."  Um, huh?  Come again?

I'm a renter who faithfully makes his rental payments.  My landlady thanks me by not calling the sheriff and having me evicted.

I'm a cable subscriber who faithfully makes his monthly cable payments.  Verizon thanks me by not cutting off my service.

I'm a cell phone owner who faithfully pays his phone bill.  AT&T thanks me by--- well, I think you get it.

What the hell kind of pitch is this?  Why does someone who willingly takes on debt and then pays it back "deserve thanks?"  We don't pay bills because we are "faithful" to our creditors, Mr Jay Farner of Quicken Loans.  We pay them because we don't like the consequences of defaulting- loss of service or property and a damaged credit score.  Get it, you knob?

I thought that the "thanks" people receive from paying their mortgage payments was being allowed to continue to live in their houses.  Why isn't that enough?  Oh, right- because Jay Farner wants you to pay your monthly bills to him, and not your current lender.  Well, why can't he just SAY that, instead of elevating people who do what they are legally obligated to do to the level of Sainthood?

Ok, I am off to do some shopping now.  I intend to pay for the food I put into my cart.  No, I'm not Jesus- it's just the right thing to do.  Don't I deserve thanks?

Burger King brings insulting our intelligence to a whole new level

Even if there are people out there stupid enough to believe that these are actual home movies of people eating Burger King crap* over the last fifty years, why would BK think that trying to con us with fake home movies would make us want to buy what some laughingly refer to as it's "food?"

And BTW, how is producing fake home movies showing idiot dads sharing their love of greasy garbage to be twisted into a "salute to Dads?"  I mean, what the hell?

*So what keeps happening here? "Hey, dad's shoveling that artery-clogging crud down his cake hole again- get the camera?"  And what happens when families gather to remember Dear Departed Dad by watching these films?  Who gets to say "you know, if we had known how much damage that awful junk was doing to his vitals, maybe we could have kept him away from it, and he'd still be with us today?"

Stupid Insurance for Stupid People

When a relative dies, that relative is DEAD.  That relative doesn't give a flying damn what kind of box you put him in before you drop him into a hole in the ground- in fact, he doesn't even care if you don't do that.

My grandparents were both cremated.  Their ashes sat in matching cardboard boxes in the basement for several years before I accidentally came across them while doing some re-arranging.  We had simply forgotten that they were there.  I took them outside and scattered them.  Then I threw the cardboard boxes away.  Done and done.

There is ZERO reason why "the average funeral costs $7500."  Well, sorry, there is ONE reason- because people are morons with money and feel they need to put on some kind of show to "honor" the corpse (seems to me it would make a lot more sense to throw a $7500 party BEFORE the guy is dead, but that's just me...)

Donate the cadaver to a med school.  Go with cremation (like EVERYONE in my family.)  Skip the morbid party with sad people and sandwiches and this body wearing an expensive suit sitting in an ornate box which will never be seen by anyone ever again after that day.  It's the 21st century, people.  Trust me.  The guy in the box DOESN'T CARE.

If I'm totally wrong and there is a spirit world, I know my parents would be pissed to no end if they looked down from Wherever Spirits Go and saw their children go into debt to dress up their spent remains for display before tossing dirt on them.  So we aren't going to be doing that.  So we don't need this ridiculous "burial insurance."  See how easy that was?

Even if "whatever happens" includes a crippling spinal injury?

There's no way you can "drink responsibly" AND be an adult using a slip and slide.  Adult bodies are simply not built to handle the stress of sudden halts which come with these things.  Flexible, growing children?  Probably ok.  Adults? NO.

Don't take my word for it.  Ask any doctor specializing in spinal injuries.  This commercil is encouraging people to "drink responsibility" and act irresponsibly.  Doesn't really make a whole hell of a lot of sense- but then again, this is an ad for lime-flavored Budweiser, so what should I expect?

This is how they buy cars in Notheastern Ohio, I guess

The woman in this ad was so impressed that a car salesman was willing to rush a sale because she "only had an hour" to get herself a new car that she agreed to do this testimonial.  Yeah, lady, that guy deserves a freaking medal- we all know that car salesmen would much rather go slow, talk you through each option, give you all the opportunity in the world to think it over, maybe even back out for now...

YEAH, RIGHT!

This car salesman tells us that he was in a mad rush to get the sale done because he "wanted to make sure she got to work on time."  Um, no, sorry, that's not how it happened.  It's more like "this woman is in a hurry, she wants a car RIGHT NOW, and if I can just breeze through this in less than an hour I'll have her signature on a piece of paper and her idiot body out the door before my first coffee break"- I'm surprised he managed to avoid the fist pump and "KA-CHING!" sound effect.

Seriously, I don't care what this woman's schedule is- this is NOT the way to buy a freaking car!  Get a ride to work for a few days, and go to the dealer on the weekend, when you have all the time in the world to bargain your way to the best deal.  I can just see this woman breathlessly dashing into this place waving her check book and shouting "I need a car but I've only got an hour, who do I give this money to someone PLEASE sign me up and give me some keys!"  The guy who closed the sale must have knocked down two of his colleagues to get to her.  She didn't even give herself time to test drive it, let alone check out the interior and all the bells and whistles.  I've had second thoughts about cars I've purchased after three hours in the dealership and another twenty minutes on the road.   How could someone with more than half a brain do what this moron does?

While these cops were assuming the guy in the Audi was important.....

.....the shortage of motorcycle cops resulted in:

....several African-Amerian motorists managing to get to their destinations without being pulled over for Driving While Black.

.... several African- American teens violating social norms while flagrantly and blatantly walking through white neighborhoods without being "politely" asked what they were doing there by a cop.

.... thousands of commuters noticing that the ride home is much smoother and considerably less stressful when police don't use  their autos as pace cars to slow traffic down to a crawl.

... two convenience stores in poor neighborhoods being robbed because hey, Someone Important Needed To Get Somewhere And Needed An Escort.

All is forgiven, howeve, if the motorcycle cops cite the Suburban Douchenozzle for being a Suburban Douchnozzle and haul him in on a charge of Overbearing Self-Satisfaction Unbecoming a Human Being Living in Society.

Great Message, Miller

"A little skittish about doing something illegal?  Consume some alcohol.  That will remove your inhibitions and make you a man."

It's an ancient message, but not one I really thought I'd see actually used in a beer commercial.  Having the typecast villain from Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood try to sell it doesn't help, either.

Hey Miller, for your next ad maybe you should show a guy trying to convince a woman to have sex with him. When she expresses uncertainty, have this creepy actor guy suggest putting a few Millers into her. Have him say "Fortune favors the Bold" or something.  Hey, might as well go for broke, right?

BTW, this ad becomes an instant favorite if they tack on a sequel showing the guy with beer-induced stupidity disguised as courage getting beaten into a bloody pulp by the bouncers and tossed back on the street, only to have Creepy Instigator offer him another beer- "hey, it's a painkiller, too."

A few questions for this Humira patient....

1.  If you are sick of explaining your skin issues with "yet another stylist," why do you keep changing stylists?  I mean, it's not like you are having anything done with your hair that any competent barber couldn't pull off. (Seriously- you go to a stylist to achieve THESE hairstyles?  Got money to burn, do we?)

2.  How many freaking times a year does this woman go to a stylist?  Does she ever do anything else?  Judging from this commercial, she must be popping in to "yet another new stylist" every two weeks.

3.  Oh wait-- is the reason why you keep changing stylists because you keep freaking out stylists with your skin condition, they recoil in horror, and "politely" ask you to find somewhere else to have your weekly do-up?  Well, that's mean.

And one question for the makers of these ads-- why must drug patients always be shown walking in slow motion?  It's not on the list of horrible side effects* after all.

*Personally, I think this woman would be wiser to tell her stylist "I could take a drug which might get rid of my nasty red skin, but I don't want to risk a heart attack or any number of other problems associated with the drug which are all far worse than nasty red skin,  so you'll just have to deal with being kind of grossed out for a few minutes, ok?"

This Taco Bell ad gets it half right.

This would almost be a cute commercial if I wasn't too busy being creeped out by the fact that the guy takes one glance at a girl he's never met and is instantly fantasizing about getting her pregnant AND being old together.  I'm sorry, but that's just stalkerish and obsessive and just too damn weird for me.  It's almost as bad as that idiot dreaming about spending the day with Flo the Freakishly Pale Zombie from those Progressive Insurance ads.

I do like the girl's much more realistic, sensible, sane reaction (if wanting to eat a taco wrapped in a pizza can be described as "sane.")