Absolutely disgusting Kraft Mac and Cheese Commercial

Your kid responds to the prospect of fish for dinner by acting like he's gagging and wants to throw up in advance?  Well, once you get over the fact that you raised an entitled little twat who has zero respect for his parents, I guess the only thing you can do is ditch the healthy dinner choice and go to tacos drenched in fatty fake cheese.

Because in the end, all that matters is that Your Precious Little One gets what he wants and there's Peace in the Family.

Here's another idea- don't raise a kid to respond to a dinner he wouldn't necessarily choose for himself in this way.  Instead raise a kid who is willing to try everything placed in front of him before prejudging it because it's not covered in batter, gravy, or cheese.

In other words, be a PARENT.

Or, you can just let your precious nine-year old write up the grocery lists and dictate what you are going to be cooking at every meal.  That works, too- especially if you are terrified of your kid.  And aren't really interested in being parents.

Ugh, Kraft.  This is seriously damaged.

Credit Associates: More "duck your responsibility" garbage

"Here's what the credit card companies don't want you to know: If you owe more than $10,000 in credit card debt, you have the RIGHT to allow US to WORK to lower that amount to a fraction of what you owe..."

Here's what Credit Associates, CreditRepair, Optima, and every other "pay us to do what you can do yourself" scumbucket organizations like this Don't Want You to Know:

First, you don't have to owe $10,000, $5000 or even $1000 to talk to your credit card companies about setting up a payment plan or reducing your interest rate.  Pretty much EVERY credit card company will be more than happy to work with you on the former.  You are far less likely to achieve the latter, unless you've already got a great credit rating and/or threaten to move to another credit card company which has already approved you and is ready to transfer your debt over to them.   The reason why these scum-sucking cretins always pitch the "If you owe more than" line is because they are specifically targeting people who are in deep, deep trouble and know that people with moderate debt are far less likely to fall for their pie-in-the-sky promises of getting out from under responsibilities.

Second, you don't have a "right" to anything from your creditors other than a monthly statement explaining exactly how much you owe, what the interest rate is, and how long it will take you to pay it off (and what the final amount paid on the original debt will be if you foolishly opt to make only minimum payments every month.)  When these companies say that you have the "right" to lower your debt, they are simply lying.  You have the right to negotiate. You have the right to ask.  You don't have the right to lower payments, lower interest rates, or to have your credit card company simply forgive part of your debt (this last can be achieved only through bankruptcy proceedings. Which leads me to my final point...)

Third, even if by some perfect combination of stalling, begging and negotiating you did manage to get your credit card debt reduced by these weasels, your celebration of victory over The System will last only as long as it takes for you to check your new, Far from Improved Credit Score.  Because guess what?  No credit card company, having evidence that you pulled crap like hiring one of these bottom-feeders, is going to extend credit to you for years, if not decades, if not For Ever.  Think about that before you decide that the long, slow slog involved in paying off a credit card debt isn't for you and you'd rather go for the Unlikely Quick Fix with long-term consequences.  Or get to know the Payday Loan guy down the street.  Bring your car title.

How to translate Coast One and all other "tax relief" commercials.

Want to win sympathy from your audience?  Here are a few tips on the proper language of deadbeats and other "obligations just don't work for me" scofflaws:

"I owed the IRS $37,000" sounds a lot better than "I owed the American People $37,000."  The IRS is a big, scary Gummint Agency that wants to take your money away from you.  The American People...well, that's Us.  And we have this annoying habit of wanting everyone to pay their fair share.  We aren't all that sympathetic to people who want to "maintain their lifestyles" on our dime, which is exactly what people who are in debt to US want to do.

"They can garnish your wages, ruin your credit score, come after you" all sounds a lot better than "they can make you pay your legal debt to the country."  Yes, the IRS has enforcement power.  Taxes aren't voluntary contributions you make because you've got extra money burning a hole in your pocket, and it's perfectly convenient for you to chip in at the moment.  They are the mandatory fee you are required to pay in order to enjoy the benefits of the society they provide.  This isn't complicated.  But apparently a lot of people don't get it.

"I saved 93%" sounds a lot better than "the firm I hired managed to delay and harass the United States into cutting me a deal which benefited my bottom line, rewarded me for being an irresponsible, selfish douchenozzle, and punished the rest of you suckers who pay your taxes every year without complaint because you understand that Freedom isn't Free."

So seriously, FU to Coast One and every other tax relief "service" out there, and a great big FU to its customers who think that their debts are Unfair and should be made Our Problems and not theirs.  You people make me sick, especially this time of the year.

Stouffer's offers us a choice

Want to enforce a "no phones at the dinner table" rule in your house?  Well, you have two options:

1.  You can be actual parents who raise your kids to be something other than antisocial, technologically addled cell phone addicts who understand boundaries like "when you are at the dinner table, you don't answer or look at your cell phone, because....you're at the dinner table."  The great thing about this option is that it could actually result in your kids being well-balanced human beings who get priorities and realize that staring at/responding to their phones is not their Reason for Existing.

2.  You could serve your kids their Very Favoriteist Food at every meal, hoping they love it so much that not only will they eat it in slow motion and act like they've been transported to some blissful heaven with every bite, but they'll actually forget that their cell phone- which is going to be right on the table regardless- even exists. 

Your choice, "parents."  I'll just warn you, though- if you choose Option 2, and sit there in frozen horror when the cell phone buzzes wondering if that slop you served up is good enough to do what you are apparently incapable of doing- those quotation marks are going to stay around the word "parents."  Also, if your kids are this distracted by frozen trash lasagna they aren't just going to be ignoring that cell phone, but you as well- too bad if you thought that Family Dinner was going to mean Conversation.  And one more thing- in ten minutes, those kids are going to be done with their lasagna and back on those phones unless you grow a spine and move to Option 1. 

Dominos + Desperate Need for Attention= Garbage like this

Not much to add here, except that I really hope that fifteen minutes after filming each and every person who appears in this ad was deeply ashamed for having played a part in its creation.

I mean, my god- how desperate do you have to be be for ten seconds of "fame" to do any of this stuff?  It looks like we've got a couple interrupting their wedding to pose with a pizza.*  We've got another guy who apparently spent hours taking disgusting old pizza boxes and making a suit of armor and shield with them...seriously WTF?

It's disgusting bland pizza, people.  That's all.  Get over it.  And yourself.

*Prom, sorry.  That's almost worse.

A few pointers for this ugly Pepsi Commercial Dork

1.  It's perfectly fine with me if no one ever, ever lets you forget that you made a total ass of yourself for a few moments of TV "fame" in a Pepsi Commercial.  You asked for it, after all.

2.  In real life, you get to pull crap like this for exactly as long as it takes to be appreciated by the Jumbotron, and then by the crowd.  When you try to extend your moment beyond that by starting your pathetic begging for attention all over again, it's just super-cringey and the crowd stops rooting for you, and starts feeling sorry for you instead.

In other words....you aren't why we bought our tickets.  Sit the f--- down.  Shut the f--- up.  And for this guy in particular:  see a doctor about that massive growth between your mouth and your forehead before it applies for freaking Statehood.

Peloton hits a few racist buttons with this ad

1.  Props for finally featuring a black person in one of these ads.

2.  Props for finally showing a person who doesn't live in a ridiculous house or apartment in one of these ads.  Kind of odd, though, that you waited until you were ready to feature a black person before you decided to feature a less-than-ridiculous house/apartment.

3.  I agree with the YouTubers who overwhelmingly find this ad to be annoying and insulting.  The kid hears his dad singing along to the Peloton workout person all the way in the other room, which means he's being really loud about it (oh, and this is the first time we've seen one of these commercials where the person doing the exercising is singing- strike three, Peloton.  Seriously, what the hell are you trying to tell us about your view of black people here?)

4.  If you can sing while you're working out, you aren't working out hard enough, sorry.  I thought these spinning sessions were supposed to be grueling, exhausting, challenging, etc.  Not if you can sing during them, no.

Why does anyone care about this "fight?"

Four years ago, Colin McGregor was the "hottest thing" in that joke non-sport called MMA which features non-talented non-athletes kicking and punching each other in a cage.  Then he made a really, really dumb mistake that exposed MMA for the fraud it is and would have lead to its instant demise in any country not populated by white male Trump enthusiasts:  He challenged an actual boxer- an over-the hill, light-hitting but fast and talented boxer- to a fight.

The result was almost laughably predictable- so predictable, in fact, that even mouth-breathing MMA fans just assumed it would come off exactly as it did.  Floyd Mayweather Jr, who couldn't punch his way out of a wet paper bag in his prime, fighting for the first time in two years, dominated McGregor and stopped him in the ninth round of what was much more of a Show than a legitimate sporting event.

So any question as to the seriousness of MMA as a sport and its participants as athletes was answered, then and there- no, it's not and no, they are not.  The very best MMA fighter was beaten silly by an elderly, rusty boxer and even KNOCKED OUT by a guy who can't knock out anyone in his own sport.  Case closed.  Fraud exposed. 

Did MMA fold?  Nope.  Heck, even McGREGOR's career escaped unscathed.  He's several years older, sports a record (21-4) which is pedestrian in boxing but worthy of a "superstar" in the MMA, and is about to step into the ring with someone called "Cowboy" whose own trial-horse record of 36-13 is apparently also good enough to rake in big bucks on PPV.

Well, hope you enjoy the spectacle, you idiots. Just don't call it a sport.  That was settled years ago.  You didn't care to notice, I guess because you've got $50 burning a hole in your pocket and absolutely no taste between your ears.  Must be nice.  Just stop voting, ok?

Invented too late to save Howard Hughes...

In short, as long as you are forced to live IN A WORLD where every single other person on Earth is a clueless, thoughtless, disgusting, germ-infested rodent/sub-species of homo sapiens, you will need this product to save you from all those other barely-people who are determined to kill you with their loathsome, germ-spreading behavior.

I could not watch more than a few seconds of this nonsense- I didn't even get to the name of the item being sold- but I'm sure whatever it is, using it involves letting everyone around you know that you are a germaphobe/sociopath who feels entitled to live in a plastic bubble and finds having to be in proximity with Others not only incredibly distasteful, but downright Dangerous.  And since the thoughtless, disease-spreading airlines won't accommodate you with your own pre-sterilized cabin, this is what you are going to have to do to "protect" yourself from Ebola, the Bubonic Plague, and all the other nasty diseases People are trying to kill you with.

Or, you know, you could just stay home and watch the Big Scary World of Invisible Death from your window.  Believe me, you will NOT be missed. 

With McDonald's just around the corner, you never have to go anywhere else

From the people who brought us Shamrock Shakes and McLobster Sandwiches comes a new atrocity which encourages Americans to never really move away from their dietary comfort zone:  the "Southern" spicy bacon cheddar onion Faux Exotic Somethingburger (I'm not watching this again to get the actual name of this Stack of Bland Crap on Bread- I'll probably see it in the description once it posts.  That's how many f--ks I have to give.)

Why would anyone travel when you can get country-fried steak at the Cracker Barrel, Authentic Italian Cuisine at the Olive Garden, seafood like your Parents Never Ate at Red Lobster, and Pizza Just Like Back in the Old Country at Dominos (oh my god, I just commit heresy like four times in one sentence?)

So save your money and the hassle of travel.  All the awesome Home Cookin' is right down the street being served up by the nearest of several thousand carbon copy franchises.  And you didn't even need a passport!

Another terrible Next Gen Stats commercial

These ads are all so unintentionally hysterical.  The narrator is always so nasally enthusiastic as he attempts to convince his audience that we are about to relive a truly unbelievable moment in sports- and that truly unbelievable moment in sports is always just a good catch by a guy who has been making good catches since he was in High School thrown by a guy who has been making good throws for the same amount of time.

And the lame attempts to be a dramatic wordsmith always fall flatter than last week's Bud Light- just check out today's version of OMIGOD THIS IS AWESOME AND WE'VE GOT PROOF ITS AWESOME by Next Gen Stats:

"...the only thing coming for Russell is an 800-lb PAIN BRIGADE!"  Yeah, and if that "Pain Brigade" hits Russell hard enough to muss his hair, we're going to see a flag and an automatic first down.  Unless Russell stops backing up to pass and becomes a runner instead, I don't think that "Pain Brigade" is going to be inflicting all that much pain..."

"He has to scramble like eggs in the morning...." Um, eggs don't scramble.  They get scrambled.  Stop doing this.  Please.

"Nobody is open, catch probability is under 25 percent..." first, where does this stat come from?  We are never told, and nobody I know who understands stats can tell me where it COULD come from.  Second, you are telling us that even using your BS non-stats, there's a one in four chance that the catch will be made.  How does this justify your breathless hype-fest?

And why we're at it- how does this prove that Russell Wilson is "fearless," again?

And when the catch is made, the narrator roars like he didn't expect it to happen- hell, didn't think it was even POSSIBLE, and tells us "Russell Wilson is a monster" because....he connected with his receiver, which YOU just told us he had a one in four chance of doing.  Seriously, calm down, you freaking idiot.  I mean, if that's even possible.

Then we get the "cutesy" conclusion, where Wilson is shown at a tea party presumably being put on by one of his children.  You do a quick search and find a seriously damaged dunce who takes great offense to this part, but I think it's the commercial's only saving grace myself.  Unfortunately it comes too late to save my eardrums from being assaulted by the ridiculously easily impressed loon who narrates the first 90% of this crap.

Fisher Investments: Because Paternalism

What.  The Actual F.  Is happening in this ad?

Well, we see two middle-aged people sitting on stools like obedient children while a middle-aged white male stands behind them and a narrator tells us about the differences between money managers who "only call when they want you to buy something," and others who call you constantly to ask how you're doing, with the strong implication being that you should prefer a money manager who is constantly calling to shoot the breeze.

Then we are told that a lot of money managers try to put all their clients into "cookie cutter" investment fund portfolios, and this is bad and wrong- never mind that whole Safety in Numbers thing, and never mind that spreading money out among many, many different investment strategies just makes sense.  Fisher Investment choads don't do this- they "tailor" your investments to something that matches your specific goals.  Uh huh.  Because the goals of middle-aged people are so very different:

Some (lets call them Group A) want to invest their money in a way which allows them to comfortably retire when they are sick of working.

Others (lets call them Group B) have other ideas for their money....like....ok, turns out that the population of Group B is zero.  Unless you include all those imaginary guys from Life Insurance Commercials who are planning to die fairly young and leave everything to that vampire wife and kids....

And then we reach the end of this ad, where I get seriously triggered when the middle-aged money manager puts what I guess is supposed to be a reassuring hand on his client's shoulder.  Again, What. The Actual.  F.  Is that??  I get we are probably supposed to see this as a friendly gesture, kind of like "I'm with you all the way" or something.  But I read it more like "you're stupid with money, but don't worry, I'm your daddy, I love you, I'll take care of you, trust me."  That's weird but ok until that hand shows up.  If I were the client, I'd respond by telling that guy to take his hand off my g-d d--ned shoulder.  You're not my spouse, you're not my father, and you just crossed a line, creep.

Unless, of course, he takes my paltry monthly investments and turns them into a few million dollars.  Do that first, then we'll talk about broker-client privileges. Until then, I don't trust you to stand behind me while I sit on a stool because your track record of respecting boundaries really sucks.

So can you cash your Unemployment checks at Golden Corral?

Somewhere out there in 'Merica, this is the perfect idea for lunch: "Endless" entrees, "Vegas-style" deserts, and basically just a gigantic carb and sugar overload which (for some people*) is just absolutely ideal for.....a middle-of-the-day meal.

*So....who exactly ARE these people who are looking for a huge amount of bland, fatty food to interrupt their weekday routine?  They can't be employed, can they?  I mean, who the heck notices that the clock indicates time for a meal break and thinks "I'm going out to gorge myself, that's the perfect solution to get me through the rest of my busy day?"  No, I can't imagine anyone who has ONE HOUR for lunch and who must clock FOUR MORE HOURS of productivity afterwards intentionally scarfing down 5,000+ calories before rolling on back to the office.   

Now, if your afternoon plans include nothing more taxing than a nap or binge-watching Game of Thrones on Netflix before slipping into a calorie-induced coma, maybe this makes sense.  But if your workday DOESN'T end at noon, well.....I'm just not seeing it.

When your Treatment is a Comfort Dog, it's time to panic

"Sigh....more treatment...."

"Nope- today, we're going to try something different.  A dog!"

"Yay, I love dogs...wait, what?  I have a serious disease.  We aren't trying new Meds?  Maybe radiation?"

"Nope, a dog!  Isn't he cute?  His name is Max!"

"Yeah but...I have this serious illness.  I mean, I've got this rubber tube in my arm, and this machine is beeping.  I'm a Sick Kid from Central Casting.  What ideas do you have to make me better?"

"Scratch him behind the ears.  He LOVES that."

"Can I get a second opinion?"

"Ok, here it is- we can't do anything for you, but this is a great opportunity for Pedigree to manipulate the rubes into buying dog food by somehow connecting it to the idea of Comfort Dogs.  I think the tagline is 'Pedigree makes Dog Food, and if you don't feed your dog, it will die."

iPhone's "Slofies." I don't want to be here anymore.

Several times over the last few years, I've snarked on iPhone and their penchant for making commercials encouraging people to be totally self-absorbed douchenozzles and buy the latest update because it has a slightly better camera which will allow the owner to spend huge amounts of time lovingly editing self-portraits for "sharing."

I should have figured this was coming.  Now you don't have to settle for taking selfies and hitting Image Editor for the next hour or so.  In fact, still shots of yourself have suddenly become very retro, if not downright quaint.  Get the iPhone XI and you can make "Slofies" (shoot me now, please) because it's definitely what everyone you know has been waiting for- slow-motion video of you staring at the Lucky To Know You or at least Follow you on Twitter recipient and otherwise doing absolutely nothing. 

Because nobody is doing anything anyway.  There are no books to read, essays to write, or jobs to do.  There is no actual human interaction to be had.  After all if there was, you would not have been spending all that time taking Selfies.  So here's something else you can do all by yourself to kill whatever time you have left until this thing we used to call Life is over.  And all you need is a $700 device the old-timers once used to make calls.

Let's wrap this up by appreciating how much the girl in this ad absolutely adores herself.  Wow.

Verizon Commercial, Part II: Why they Fight (um, I mean, Chose Verizon)

Ok, so I'm going to skip the middle part of this commercial, because it seems to somehow suggest that having Verizon made it easier or possible or something to get great concert seats yadda yadda yadda whatever.  Instead, let's go to the "military mom" and her ridiculous bowl of treacle:

"It's so important to me that Verizon supports military families.  When I have a child deployed it's so important that we have a reliable network."

 Um, what?  Ok, I'm going to assume that Verizon is playing a little Lying by Omission game going on here and we are supposed to hear "deployed" and think Afghanistan or Iraq.  Except- really?  Soldiers in war zones are carrying around cell phones and can take calls from the States any time they want?  No, I really don't think so.  So let me clean up Military Mom's pitch so that it at least passes the smell test, even if it doesn't hit all those cheap Patriot buttons like it's supposed to:

"So when I have a child who's been deployed in Germany, or Japan, or Guam, or any other scary Hotbed of Anti-American Freedom Activity because spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year to maintain a massively bloated, ridiculously unnecessary but vastly profitable for Certain Companies Military Industrial Complex, it's good to know that I can video chat with them from the War Zone that is Any Place Other Than The United States."

"I have all these grey hairs because my Hero Patriot Daughter keeps getting sent to places with weird non-American names like 'Poland' and 'Samoa' (sticking "American" in front of that name doesn't fool me, that's not in the USA I found it on a map!) which means she keeps getting sent to places where the Time Zones are totally different and a lot of people haven't even learned how to speak English as G-d Intended.  No matter where she's sent they speak Foreign Languages, I can hear them in the background during the video chats when she calls from a cave she pronounces "cafay" to make me feel like she's safe."

"Military Moms Serve Too."  Yep, and you're in about the same level of danger that 99.9 percent of the military that's allowed to casually video chat back home is, so seriously Verizon shove this manipulative garbage.

Why They Chose Verizon, Part I*

"So here's why I chose Verizon- I was in this flash flood, see, and I ignored all the 'Road Closed' signs- I didn't actually ignore them, I just didn't see them, didn't really know they were there until I watched the video I made on my phone when I was supposed to be watching the road but I was thinking 'man this is gonna go viral when I put it up on YouTube gonna get some serious hits with this."

"Anyway, my car ended up gettin' swept down the river.  I managed to get me and my phone (not necessarily in that order) out on to a branch, where I was in imminent danger of drowning if that branch cracked under my weight, plus that would have totally ruined my phone.  So then I did what any sensible person woulda done under the circumstances, I videochatted with my wife to let her know how amazing this all was an' also to let her know I was ok."

"After about twenty minutes she told me to stop yakking about how awesome everything looked and how this was all going to totally go viral and call emergency services.  Fortunately I had a magic phone which never runs out of battery power, 'cause I was able to make five calls to emergency services even after spending hours recording all this carnage, videochattin' with the wife, and changin' my Facebook status to In God's Hands Y'all LOL!"

"Come ta think of it, that phone ought to be the subject of this commercial...."

"Anyways, a helicopter finally showed up and saved me, wish I could show you but even magic phones run out of battery life eventually and wouldn't you know it I left the damn Jackery in the glove compartment.  What was I sayin'? Oh yeah, that's why I got Verizon, 'cause...I had a phone so I didn't get bored out there on that branch durin' the flood."

*I'll check out the other two chapters in this commercial and get to them for separate takes if they seem worth it.....

Hyundai Happy-or-Else Holiday Ad

1.  Hey look, TrophyWife decided that she would use the joint bank account to buy her husband a car for Christmas, how generous of her!

2.  Why is it that, in the moments leading up to the reveal of the "gift," TrophyWife has the same terrified look on her face that the now-infamous Peloton version of her had in that other commercial?  What is it with ads this season showing us women frightened of their husbands like this?

Northwestern Mutual total fail

I can say from the bottom of my cold, dead heart that I have never cared less about anything than this middle-aged bond trader's dream of spending a healthy retirement running all over the world.  I can only hope he blunders into North Korea one of these days, bringing his blissfully self-indulgent retirement to a very abrupt end.

Until then, the musings and longings of a guy who obviously has all the money he could possibly want and was never even once prevented from taking long vacations to exotic locations to run during his 30 years or so of wealth-accumulating hold zero interest for me.  I guess I'm just funny that way.  Funny and cold.