How did I miss this gem from Best Buy?

This commercial is six years old.  I found it because I saw a brand-new Best Buy Time To Get Greedy And Overspend for Christmas commercial while watching the Patriots-Chargers game and went looking for it on YouTube.

I couldn't find the new ad, but this one will do because somehow it got past the radar in 2011.  I'm sure I just never saw it, because if I had I certainly would have posted it instantly.

I mean, look at what happens here.  Stupid, Selfish, Absolutely Horrible Woman just can't wait to see what hubby bought her from Best Buy.  Yet she has to until the family visits grandma.  So the moment Stupid, Selfish, Absolutely Horrible Woman sees her husband's mother, Missing Accomplished Lets Get Back to the House So I Can Rip that Wrapping off that Box and I can see what piece of machinery you've Added to my Life.

That was six years ago.  Maybe grandma is dead now, so SSAHW doesn't even have to hold her g--d d--mned s--t together long enough to go to her house and wave (maybe hubby makes the family drive past the cemetary every Christmas before the annual Ripping of the Wrapping Paper.)   Or maybe hubby one day woke up to the vicious monster that his wife is and called an attorney.  Either way, this is way too nasty to leave alone just because it's six years old.

Yes, we're done here.

The Intensely Sad world of Samsung

....and cell phones in general, I guess.

Anyone my age can probably remember the exact moment they first heard the words "I love you" from their significant other.  It's a magical moment I doubt any of us ever forget.  The softness of the tone, the exact time of day or night, the exact situation when the words just come out.

I can't imagine the same impact coming from a freaking text message.  How sterile and robotic is this?  "I think I'm ready to send you a scrawled virtual ink message to show up on your electronic device, I hope you respond with an emoji bc that would be kewl LOL."

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for having me be born when this wasn't considered normal.  I would not want to be growing up in this world.  It's really sad.

It's two seconds of this Nissan ad. But it's the only two seconds that count

There's a lot going on in this ad- as near as I can tell, the suburban dad here can't just have a nice time throwing a frisbee with his daughter, but notices that the family dog feels left out and is inspired to drive everyone to a stadium so he can....um....throw the frisbee and have the dog catch it instead.

Yeah, it's really stupid and pointless and maybe I'd understand if I were a dog owner- but you know, I'm not a dad either, and I'm pretty sure that if I had both a daughter and a dog I would put a higher priority on playing frisbee with my daughter than in making sure that the dog was being sufficiently entertained.

But putting all that aside, I can't get past the part where the giant Nissan Rogue comes extremely close to slamming into another dog owner and another dog because the guy driving it insists on cruising through a city street at 40 MPH.  Seriously, take a look at that moment in the ad- it's pretty clear that if this car didnt' have the auto braking feature, the Nissan Rogue Suburban Dad Moron would have ruined his daughter's day by running over another guy and another dog crossing the street at the crosswalk.  Don't believe me?  Watch it again- that car is going WAY TOO FAST and if it hadn't braked itself, the pedestrian and that dog would be DEAD.

And why was the Nissan Rogue driver going so fast?  Um... to get to a stadium so his dog could catch a frisbee in front of thousands of cheering people.  In other words, because Reasons.  So if this car didn't have automatic braking, the guy driving it would have MURDERED a fellow human being and his dog.  And then the driver would have shown up at the funeral to explain to the pedestrian's widow why he was driving so freaking fast through a city, and how he's learned his lesson and his next car will have auto braking for sure, Promise.

Ok, I'm going to be seriously ill now.

Heads up, Trophy Wives!

Get off that Peliton bike and put down that cup of cottage cheese and pay attention to the latest news!  Pores are bad things- your husband knows they exist, but he just as soon you not remind him that you have them!

So take a tip from Penelope Cruz and Loreal!  Want hubby to keep his hands off the babysitter?  Keep yourself looking her age for as long as possible, and rub this stuff all over your face several times a day!  Might just buy you another year or so of marital....um...."bliss!"

Ok, that's all we have for today!  Get back on that bike before you start sagging- but get hubby another beer first!  I mean, while you're up and those heirs you made for him are still in naptime!

The Answer is Gold! What was the question again? Never mind, just buy gold!

This commercial is practically a parody of itself.  It's almost hysterically funny that anyone would take it seriously- hell, I'm impressed that the actors here manage to keep a straight face during filming.  I could probably go on for several pages on how utterly asinine and insanely dishonest this whole thing is, but I have a really long weekend of test writing ahead of me so I'd better just boil it down to a few observations:

1.  "The U.S. Money Reserve?"  What the hell?  That just SOUNDS stupid.  So this isn't the Mint, and it's not the Federal Reserve- it's the "U.S. Money Reserve?"  Why didn't they just go with "Here at the U.S. Dollars-keeping Place?" It doesn't sound any more stupid or obviously fake than "The U.S. Money Reserve."

2.  "Tens of millions of dollars are being shipped here every month."  So what's with the reporters and other "important guests" who have been "invited by Special Invitation?"  If this happens every month, what's so important about this moment exactly?  And if this is such an important, By Invitation Only moment, why the hell are you broadcasting it on USA Network in between reruns of Law and Order?

3.  Oh, I see.  "Tensions are high" because an "Emergency Gold Conference" has just been called by "the 35th U.S. Mint Director, Phillip N Diehl."  Let's note, first of all, that Mr. Diehl is standing outside the U.S. Mint, just like you or I or any number of tourists could stand to have their picture taken so that the words "U.S. Mint" can appear above our heads.  Secondly, let's remind ourselves that Mr. Diehl resigned as the U.S. Mint Director in March....of 2000.  More than 17 years ago.  He's not an official of the U.S.  Government.  He's just a private citizen picking up a quick paycheck shilling for a company which specializes in convincing stupid rubes to put their hard-earned money into shiny pieces of metal that are valueless unless someone is willing to give them back paper for them in the future.

4.  Oh, wait.  Mr. Diehl is here because "he's about to reveal his new Classified and Confidential Gold Report," which sure looks like a single sheet of paper made up of nothing but a title page.  " Um, what?  How can a sales pitch by a private individual be "classified?"  Sure, it could be "confidential," but it sounds like Mr. Diehl is about to share that "confidential" information with a crowd of reporters, VIPs there by invitation only, and the shut-ins watching Law and Order on the USA Network in the middle of a random afternoon. 

5.  My favorite two lines from Mr. Diehl during his "press conference"- in the event of a crisis, "gold could be the only money you could get your hands on if everything else were inaccessible."  Can't argue with that.  The secondl line refers to the threat of terrorists armed with automatic weapons and CGI nuclear missles:  "It could be just a matter of time before a major attack may happen on U.S. soil again, and the Dow could drop thousands of points just like it did in 2008."  Wait, what?  The United States suffered a major terrorist attack on September 11, 2001.  The Stock Market crash occured for totally unrelated reasons seven years later.  WTF?

Holy crap, I'm only 29 seconds into this thing and it's two minutes long- I can't spend any more time on this total bs, so I'll just wrap it up here- Mr. Diehl's "report" on the "25 reasons you should buy gold right now because bad things happen around the world so trust us pretty rocks are a great investment even better than burying your cash in coffee cans or purchasing time shares" is available exclusively to people capable of holding their phone with one hand and a credit card with the other for thirty seconds.  And stupid enough to buy in to this choreographed schlock pitched by a retired beaurocrat who is currently a member of organizations such as the Industry Council for Tangible Assets, The Coalition of Equitable Regulation and Taxation, and the Gold and Silver Political Action Committee.  No, I did not make any of those up. 

Fools, Money- I wish you both a happy parting.  I'm sure it won't be painful, as you probably didn't get a chance to know eachother very well anyway. 

I hope Amazon is Skynet. It would serve us right

Here's another thorougly depressing commercial featuring a piece of technology which went from nonexistent to Absolutely Essential How Did We Ever Live Without this in about fourteen minutes following it's release.

I mean, look at what's going on here- remember how you used to make To Do Lists and then cross off each item as it was completed?  Well, that's way too cumbersome for busy 21st century people like these, now you just tell Alexa to cross it off for you.  Remember how you didn't know how to spell words and had to ask a fellow human or consult a dictionary?  Now you just ask Alexa, there you go.  Hell, you just figured out how to send text messages- and now you don't have to anymore, because Alexa (all you had to was figure out how to add all your future ex-friends to Alexa's saved data, but I'm sure that was super easy anyway- nobody in this ad looks or acts like a rocket scientist, after all....)

And thank goodness for Alexa for times like this, because it sure used to be super-awkward to have to call people on the day of a birthday party they were invited to and ask them to bring....candles.  Seriously, that happens in this ad.  Because Alexa isn't yet capable of producing candles out of thin air for these mouth-breathing, helpless dimwits.  Next year.

(Oh and you didn't have to ask Alexa to ask anyone to bring wine, lady.  It's a kid's birthday party.  The other adults are going to bring wine.  Lots of it.  They weren't planning on bringing candles- because who the hell forgets candles?- but they were bringing wine.)

Anyway, Alexa never gets shut down for the entire day of prepping for some stupid kid's stupid birthday party, and it's a good thing because it's pretty clear that the adults in this ad couldn't find the oven or the front door without it's assistance.   I can't believe that this helplessness-encouraging brain replacement device was produced by the same company that gave us the Kindle at the dawn of this millenium.  Oh but they turned that into a television in about fifteen minutes, so maybe I can.

I can clear this up, Stephen A Smith and Taco Bell!

(Oh and all the non-celebrities, cartoon characters, non-celebrities acting like cartoon characters etc. in this commercial- I'm here to help you ALL out too!)

See, what this is is Taco Bell's latest idea for selling cheap, greasy, fat-laden garbage to people with no money or taste buds.  This time it's a package of fried egg and cheese that fits into your hand (wow, how original.)  Eat enough of them, and someday your doctor will show you your EKG scan and you'll mutter "what the...." before he explains to you that your eating habits have shortened your life by many, many years so he's going to have to insist on full payment on the spot, as he can't be at all sure you aren't going to drop dead on your way home from the office.

Glad to be of service.  No charge.

Why Amazon Go is, in fact, the Mark of the Beast

No, I am not being hyperbolic here.  I hate hyperbole.  I've said many times that I view hyperbolic people as worse than Stalin.  But in fact when preparing to post on this particular ad I considered these alternative titles:

Because you need to justify spending hundreds of dollars a year on "updated" SmartPhones

Because we can't stop "improving" technology until everyone on Earth has lost their job- which will in turn solve all the other problems related to shopping, won't it?

Because you want to limit your social interaction as much as possible but aren't quite ready- or organized enough- to do all your shopping online yet.

Because you need another way to set yourself apart from the Lower Classes who still use stores staffed by actual people.

And settled on something which came close to "this is the end of civilization."  It's over.  You've already lost your ability to speak to people face to face or even over the phone, and must now express yourself using emojis and #HitAndRunAlmostSentences.  You already can't walk and chew gum at the same time without getting Google to explain to you, in step by step instrutions downloaded to that phone, exactly how to go about doing that.  Five minutes after chip technology replaced Swiping (which replaced those carbon-paper receipt machines five minutes before that, and which replaced cash and checks five minutes before that) you're ready to be convinced that holding your phone over a scanner for three seconds is So Very Yesterday and An Enormous Time-Wasting Hassle Surely We Can Make Things Go Faster Oh Yay Amazon Go!

Civilization.  It was fun while it lasted.  Remember people?  In the end, I guess we decided that their negatives outweighed their positives, so they just aren't part of our lives anymore.  Whatever.  It's a beautiful, sunny autumn day, so it's time to check out Netflix.

Hanes' Smellfie ad just murdered my soul*

Ok, let's just go with the idea that there's something called "the Smellfies," and it involves emitting foul body odor at very inconvenient times, like when you show up for a date or are at a wedding or actually pretty much any time you are in public.

You COULD just take regular showers, use deodorant, and make sure you are wearing clean clothes and not just whatever you found piled up at the foot of your bed this morning.  You COULD do that.  But that's a really low-tech, 20th century solution, something your parents might have done.  It's practically 2018, so....

What you should do now to "Stop the Smellfies" is invest in Hanes High-Tech BO-inhibiting undergarments.  Sure, it costs more than their regular t-shirts and underwear, but if you wear that stuff you have to go back to bathing regularly and using deodorant, like your parents did.  You want to be like your parents?  You want to keep clean? 

Didn't think so.  Buy this stuff, and continue to revel in being a dirty, sweaty slob who lost your ability to practice basic hygiene around the same time you lost your ability to carry on an actual conversation that didn't involve emojis.   The world you're stinking the hell out of?  You're welcome to it.  And if you're on the fence about being a customer for Advanced Tech Anti-Stink underclothes?  Just take a freaking shower, hippie!

*Silver lining:  The Youtube commenters hate this ad almost as much as I do.  That's got to count for something.

Subaru's latest Love ad just ramps up the stupid....

The TV version of this thing mercifully cuts the pain down to about thirty seconds.  The internet version is a painfully drawn-out, hammer-to-the-brain-smarmy minute and a half of your life you will never get back.  Hey, I didn't tell you to watch it.

The punchline isn't grampa's "I Love Thoreau" bumper sticker (holy crap, we GET IT Subaru.  We didn't need that hammer to the brain!) It's the grandson asking if grampa felt compelled to lie to grandma and tell her that he was going fishing instead of surfing.  Because I guess grandma has no problem with fishing but would dissaprove of surfing because....reasons?  Maybe Subaru thinks that Thoreau fans are best known for lying to their wives?

Why can't this guy tell his wife he wants to go surfing with his grandson?  And what does a pointless lie about it have to do with "love" again?  And while we're at it, what does any of this mess have to do with Subarus?  I mean, WTF?

Yowie, this is stupid!

The thought of this pale, fat, stupid little kid eating enough cheap chocolate to collect all those stupid plastic animals makes me want to call Child Protective Services on his parents.  It also makes me want to hurt everybody.

And the punchline is that his "mission" to spend all that money to purchase and consume that cheap plastic-that-tastes-kind-of-like-chocolate isn't over just because he's managed to complete his collection, because hey look here's ANOTHER set to collect.  Strap on your African Safari hat and grab mom's purse, Stupid Fat Kid!  It's back to the store---err, jungle---for another encounter with the cashier---err, tribal chieftain....or something.....

I can remember when commercials didn't whip me up into a psychotic rage on a daily basis.  I miss those days.  I really do.  But what am I going to do when I live in a world where people are encouraged to buy Easter Bunny-quality chocolate so they can get a stupid plastic toy you used to be able to get out of gumball machines for a nickle and can still buy by the bag at the Dollar Store for 99 cents?  I mean, what the hell is going on here?  Are you people completely f--ing insane, or what?

Domino's Soft Sell + Hard Sell = No Sale

I couldn't care less how much you love your stores, Dominos franchise owners.  Don't care how you got the money to start them up, don't care if they "mean everything to you," and sure as hell don't care that when the order came down from the people who REALLY own the stores to remodel, you were just fine with that.

So now that you've failed to win me over with your Tales of American Entrepreneurship....

I couldn't care less that Domino's sludge factories look more modern now, or include plexiglass partitions to allow stupid gawky kids to stare at the pizza-building monkeys who must really feel like they are in a cage, and wasn't working here for minimum wage humiliating enough without being on display like this?

And I'm sure you think that watching people smash windows and knock down walls in slow motion to some crappy rap song (I don't care how many YouTube commentors desperately "need" the song, btw) is super entertaining and all that, but it's not going to distract us from the simple fact that for all of the Spirit of the Small Businessman, the Glossy New Decor, or the Really Cool Destruction that went into making Domino's Lowest Common Denominator Pizza Distributors look different, this is just an attempt to put a whole lot of lipstick on a really, really ugly pig.  Because in the end, this is still just Domino's.  Adding giant pans of pasta isn't getting me through that door.  Improving the look isn't getting me through that door.  The only thing that could get me through that door is decent food- and I notice you aren't talking about making radical improvements to THAT anywhere in these ads.

So I'll continue to pass on the bland, flabby carbs and sugar, sorry.  Hope you own the rights to that music, though.  There are a lot of idiots on Youtube who apparently are willing to pay for it.

Subaru's Camping Dog commercial screams nothing but RUN!

Yeah, sorry, but the girl in the ad isn't anywhere cute enough to pull this crap.

You're taking your dog on a camping trip with your boyfriend?  Seek counseling, please.  Or just admit that you don't really want a boyfriend as much as you want to keep your relationship with your dog.

And, buddy?  Like I said in the first sentence- this girl isn't cute enough for this level of stupid.  There are worst things than not having a date on the weekend.  Unless you think that you're going to REPLACE that dog before too long, I'd really rethink this whole thing.  But heck, I guess there are guys out there who don't mind dating women who can't be parted from their freaking smelly mammal housemates.  I'm just not one of them, and I don't get them.  At all.

(BTW, anyone else think that I could just devote this blog to these Subaru "love" commercials and have plenty of opportunities to post?)

And I'm doing the Calling BS on Dairy Queen thing

This guy couldn't make it more obvious that he's a boyfriend doing the Daddy Thing - maybe, trying out for the role of daddy- and is in no way related to the little boy he's purchased a small amount of ice cream for to distract that boy from the honey barbecue wings and fries he's purchased for himself.

And even while he does his best to "do the daddy thing" in the hopes of finally getting the boy's mommy to rescue him from the Friend Zone, he's rather quietly waxing poetic about the good old days when he could wolf down real honey barbecue wings at Hooter's with his equally obnoxious, equally single friends.

So good luck with that whole "Daddy Thing," not-Daddy.  I'm sure this boy's mother will be super-impressed that you blew a whole 99 cents on that cup of ice cream so he wouldn't go without any lunch at all.  While you ate chicken and talked to the cameraman how cool it used to be to spend all afternoon at the sports bar guzzling beer and wings brought to you by hot girls in tight tops and even tighter shorts.  Takes dedication.

Ok now THIS is a funny ad, though I don't think that's what the makers of Jardiance intended...

So the guy in this ad is walking around town carrying a tablet and accompanied by a cameraman and an intern hauling around his pretentious director's chair, randomly asking people on the street if they have diabetes?  And if they say yes, asking them if they know that diabetes increases their chances of a "cardiovascular event?"  And if they say no, whipping out that tablet and showing them "evidence" in the form of a cheap powerpoint one of my ninth graders could have created in five minutes?   Really?

If any of this was even remotely sincere, how long did this guy have to wander around town before he finally found someone who answered "yes" to the question about having diabetes and "no" to the question about cardiovascular issues AND agreed to take part in a conversation about Jardiance which would appear in a national television commercial?  Did he just walk up to people who looked middle-aged and overweight, figuring "hey, they look like their are at least candidates for diabetes, and they also look like they have really lousy doctors who didn't explain all the risks involved to them?"

And I seriously can't get over that director's chair.  When does this guy use it?  It's only him and his cameraman- who is he directing?  Does he just use it to take breaks from annoying (and then frightening) total strangers on the street about their potentially fatal health issues Better Get Your Doctor To Put You On Yet Another Drug Right Now?  What the hell?

Cars.com's Lie Detector ad - all the humor is in the comment section

Never mind the ad- it's even dumber than most car ads and even less to do with actual cars than most car ads.  In a nutshell, the message is that Cars.com makes car buying so easy that you might miss the "drama" of buying a car the old-fashioned way (personally, I'd rather walk into a car dealership and make the salesmen do their job, and I've never experienced any "drama" while buying a car- that's all on the salesman's side, I am the one who will make the decision which will determine if he makes money, after all- but that's just me.)

The car salesmen, sensing that the guy here does miss the drama, attaches him to a lie detector machine, and he goes along with it Because Commercials.  And his horrible shrew of a wife, instead of saying something like sensible like "take those stupid things off your fingers, these people are insane, let's go find the car at a dealership not run by insane people," decides to ask exactly one question that could only have been written by a male- "do you think my sister is prettier than me?"

Since the guy's response is to freeze and sweat and panic before screaming and tearing off the electrodes, I guess the answer is "yes" but he doesn't want to say.  So maybe this couple ends up in counseling instead of buying a car together.  Maybe the guy just decides he no longer wants to live with this manipulative, insecure harpy and decides to file for divorce and give her sister a call.  I don't know, because I'm kind of "never-minding" the actual ad.

No, just skip the ad and go to the comment section.  It apparently doesn't bother any of these mouth-breathing children that this ad has no punchline.  They all think that it's LOL HILARIOUS and at least one even suggests that it should have been a Superbowl ad.  That's much more horrible than this commercial.  The only thing that justifies this level of praise for a commercial as noxiously void of humor as this one is if the posters doing the praising are all paid tools of Cars.com.  That would still be sad.  But I'd rather think that was the case than believe that this many people wouldn't know funny if it crushed their skull with a hammer.  Which is also not a bad idea. 

Time to put this bit to bed, Chevy

First of all, this guy's face has become so ubiquitous on America's tv screens that it's really hard to believe that anyone wouldn't recognize him in relation to Chevrolet in about fifteen seconds.  And then punch him hard in the mouth for presuming that you want to be in a stupid Chevy commercial.*

Second, the "real people" in this ad are so quick to just "go along" with the Chevy carnival barker and get into someone else's car, aren't they?  Not like any sane people, who would say "um, no- I don't want to get into someone else's car.  I just want my car.  And I don't want to be in your stupid commercial, either.  So I'm not signing a release.  So get the f-- out of my face and get my f--ing car, please."  Yeah, these are "real people, not actors."  It would be a lot more honest if Chevy just told us that these were "real people, wannabee actors" (check out the guy's "not my car" double-take.  Very genuine, buddy.  I'm really sold on the idea that you're surprised.  Uh huh.)

Third, nobody is getting into a strange car to "check it out" when they just left a restaurant and want to drive away in their car.  If I wasn't one of these "real people, obvious actors" camera whores, I'd be pretty damned resentful that I'm basically being offered a chance to look at a really NICE car while I'm waiting for my obviously inferior one.  F--k you, Chevy.

*Can we agree that this guy has maybe the most punchable face on television?

I bought you this phone so can you at least change your Facebook relationship status now?

Hey ladies, guess what?  If a guy you've been dating for a month buys you a  $900 iPhone, he's given up trying to date you and moved on to attempting to buy you.

So if you are the kind of girl who can be bought, this guy is a perfect catch for you- looks like he's got money and he's willing to spend it.  And if you are the kind of girl who maybe can't be bought but can be guilted into being more serious with a guy because he buys you inappropriately expensive gifts after a month of dating, you are the perfect catch for this kind of guy.

I know, I know- the "message" of this ad is actually supposed to be "here's an excuse to buy yourself that iPhone you want- just buy one for someone else and get yours at the same time."  It's still uber-creepy that this guy doesn't have any longtime friends, relatives etc he can pull this on, and instead has to resort to handing someone he barely knows a very expensive gift which will be welcomed only by golddiggers, extremely shallow people or women who are genereally not users but really, really want the iPhone8.

KFC Scrapes the Bottom of the Bucket

To call this ad an example of dumbing down is an insult to the phrase "dumbing down."  It's not taking something already really stupid and making it simpler.  It's performing a lobotomy.  This ad is made for an audience which would find hand puppets too complicated.

Never mind the pathetic whoring being done by the paid YouTube commentators below.  This is the kind of ad that was once rejected as a torture method for fear of future UN reprisals.  This commercial is, quite simply, a war crime.

If you like this ad, please don't let me know.  Life is depressing enough.  Just show how much you like it by consuming lots and lots of KFC and removing yourself from the planet as quickly as possible.   You will not be missed.