Sunday, August 2, 2009

KGB: Because You STILL Aren't Using Your Cell Phone Often Enough!

A guy is standing in his yard, surrounded by friends and what looks to be some kind of physician doing an examination of his condition. The guy appears to be frozen.

"He's suffering from brainlock" announces the "physician."

"He was trying to remember who played first base for the Red Sox in 1986" a girl suggests helpfully.

Grooannn...stop right there. Of all the stupid things to get "brain freeze" on....as if anyone, ANYONE who knows ANYTHING about baseball could suffer "brain freeze" on the question "Who played first base for the Red Sox in 1986?" At LEAST the question could be "who was Bill Buckner's defensive substitute?" I can see missing THAT. But BUCKNER? Oh well....

"Physician:" "Buckner." And the guy unfreezes. Problem solved.

The commercial is for something called "KGB" (it's not just a brutal police force operated by a totalitarian Communist state anymore!") which offers to answer dumbass questions like this for you if you just use the cell phone you already have stapled to your palm to text it to 542542. Yes, there's a fee involved. Yes, if you just give yourself a couple of seconds or- hey, here's a concept- actually ASK A HUMAN BEING IN THE VICINITY, you can probably get the answer without texting or paying a fee. Yes, any answer available through KGB is also available through a 10-second Google search. But KGB gives you another excuse to whip out your cell phone and start developing that third layer of callouses on your thumbs!

And that's what drives me nuts about this commercial. It's not enough that "tweeting" went from rather silly non-activity to common practice adopted by CNN in about five minutes. It's not enough that we've been made to believe that if we don't have streaming video and XM radio and this "Ap" and that "Ap" with our phones, they are just paperweights that will leave us showing poorly to our friends. Now we are being told that any time we can't remember something, we should abandon the old-fashioned methods of thinking for a few minutes or asking someone (after all, the latter might start a CONVERSATION with a person who is ACTUALLY THERE- a conversation carried out without the use of cell phones, is such a thing stil possible??? Is it really conceivable that no one at this little lawn party knew the answer to this guy's "brain freeze" question?) and instead go right to our electronic security blankets. Because God Knows we don't ever, EVER want to debate or discuss ANYTHING with ANYONE, EVER, right?

Not to mention that in this economy, who WOULDN'T mind dropping a quick dollar or two every time it takes you more than a few seconds to remember something? After all, thinking makes my brain hurt. Not knowing is bad and wrong. Instant Gratification- that's where it's at!

So the next time you can't remember who won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1988, for God's Sake do NOT ask someone in the same room. Do NOT give it any thought at all. Just text away- it's probably what you were doing anyway. And when you look up and you find yourself alone, breathe a sigh of relief that there's now no chance that your texting will be interrupted by one of those organic life forms you are forced to share the planet with.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

The Continuing Adventures of AT&T Boy and Harpy Jellyfish-Spine Mom

The voice from the back seat simpers "hey mom, I need some more minutes." Naturally, he's holding his cell phone, which I think are now being surgically connected to the palms of anyone under the age of 30, for a small fee. For convenience.

Harried, clearly on-the-brink-of-a-nervous-breakdown-if-this-kid-pushes-just-one-more-button mom spins like Linda Blair in The Exorcist and snaps "What? I just gave you some back at the restaurant!"

"Uh....no, those were old. I threw them away."

Well, we know the rest, don't we? A tape recorder in mom's head goes off, and she proceeds to give the same speech she's given in at least three other commercials about how the "old minutes" (still represented by little plastic clocks) are just as good as "new minutes," and how other people (starving children in China, perhaps?) would consider themselves lucky to have the old minutes....only this time, Worthless, Apparently Stoned Ungrateful Choad Son interrupts by parotting "Saving Minutes Saves Money, I know."

Mom glares at son. Stoned son stares blankly at mom. Mom stares at son. Stoned son stares blankly at mom. Mom stares at son- and actually appears on the verge of bursting out laughing- maybe these commercials are getting to this actress, who is on the verge of being typecast. Stoned son stares blankly at mom.

All this while, Younger Son does nothing but give a sympathetic glance at his older brother- might as well say "Oh Christ, here goes mom being a total bitch about her minutes, again. God she's lame!" And Unseen Dad, presumably driving the car, says nothing- which means he's as helpful in dealing with this ongoing problem as he is in all the other commercials.

Will someone PLEASE get SNL to do a parody of this commercial? Because I really need to see this woman take that fucking cell phone out of the kid's hand and toss it out the goddamn window. Or, failing that, order Unseen Dad to turn the fucking car around and go back to the restaurant, so mom can drag her Stoned Son into the manager's office and ask him to put Stoned Son to work washing dishes- because, you see, Stoned Son needs more minutes and thinks money grows on fucking trees.

Seriously, I've had more than enough of the Battle of Wills between an Alleged Head of the Family and her Asshole Son who can't stay within the confines of the Family Plan. And the truly pathetic thing is, AT&T's "solution" is to just sign up for their Unlimited Plan, so your worthless slacker kids can Tweet and Twitter and Roam and Surf and Text and Gab their fricking fingers off without annoying you with their presence, or a big bill.

AT&T continues to hate people, and I continue to hate AT&T. ESPECIALLY these commercials.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

From Drug Addict to Thoughtless Ditz, thanks to Advil

The woman who is the only character in this commercial is standing in the medicine aisle, filling her basket with one box after another of Tylenol. I think she ends up with about eight boxes of the stuff in there, before the disembodied voice so popular in ads like this intones "you can get the same relief from one Advil (All Day Long, All Day Strong) as with EIGHT Tylenol...."

She then proceeds to do something that would probably not set me off if I had not spent four years working at a Wegman's Grocery Store: she puts her basket, still filled with boxes of Tylenol, right down on the floor, and walks away, carrying her one bottle of Advil.

I know people like this woman, and worse. I worked in the Dairy Department at a Wegman's in Cheektowaga, New York back in the early-90s. I saw seniors open 1-lb boxes of butter so they could remove one quarter- even if there were already boxes open from the last band of marauding "I buy butter one stick at a time" old farts to pass by. I saw people open cartons of eggs, find one broken one among the dozen, and then carefully close the cartons and put them back right where they found them- so the next customer could find the broken eggs, I guess. I saw drooling hick morons take gallons of milk off the shelf, decide they didn't want them, and leave them on the floor to spoil (or WORSE- attempt to put them back on another shelf, causing a gallon already sitting there to fall backwards into the refrigerated stocking area, creating a huge puddle for John in Dairy to clean up.) I saw worthless Please Die In a Horrible Accident on the Way Back to the Trailer Park bottom-feeders prove utterly incapable of taking a container of yogurt off the shelf without spilling two onto the cooling grate at their feet.

And I saw many, many, MANY clueless, indecisive, ADD-addled morons move through the store, picking items off of one shelf and dropping them on a random shelf with each mood swing.

Look, I get that stores these days are big, scary, complicated things. I understand that the choices offered are enormous and bewildering, especially for people with IQs roughly equalling that of brain-damaged lemmings. Sometimes, people think they want to buy something, change their minds, and just don't have the time or energy to go ALL THE WAY back to the correct aisle to return it. But GOD DAMN IT, this woman is STANDING RIGHT NEXT TO THE SHELF. Is it really too much to ask that she PUT THE MEDICINE BACK and RETURN HER BASKET TO THE FRONT OF THE STORE??

Ok-- I'm calmed down now. I'll just leave you with three additional thoughts which ran through my head while suffering Wegman's flashbacks:

1. Is the woman in this commercial stocking medicine for a bomb shelter? Before she realized that 1 Advil = 8 Tylenol, was she really planning to buy what looks to be two decades' worth of pain medication?

2. If this woman really needs to take this much medication, shouldn't she, maybe, check with her doctor?

3. If I was the cashier at a grocery store and this woman plopped down eight boxes of Tylenol, I'd call a manager. I don't know what powerful hallucinogens can be extracted from large amounts of Tylenol, but I'd be convinced she had some form of meth lab off the basement rec room. Or in the bomb shelter.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

The Oedipal--err, Olive Garden's Creepy Storyline

I don't know where Olive Garden is going with it's Mom Wants To Know About Son's Girlfriend commercials. I'm sure I don't want to. Because first, judging from the age of the kid (maybe sixteen,) it's not going to end with a "we're engaged!" announcement (and what if it did? Why should we care?) And second, this woman is just way too wrapped up in her son's life- seriously, she and her husband must being going through some serious issues.

In the first commercial, mom tells us "when my husband works late, I like to take my son out to Olive Garden." I suppose Freud would have a field day just with this statement- but it's the mom's body language that disturbs me- she's curled up on the couch, right next to her son, knees up against her chin, wearing this stupid smile as she minces "and maybe I can find out about his new girlfriend!" Ugh. And as if that's not bad enough, throughout this commercial- and the second one- she's constantly tugging at her kid's clothes, picking at him, brushing his hair back, stroking his ear- good lord woman, what is WRONG with you? BOUNDARIES!!

In the second commercial, mom has successfully maneuvered her teen-aged son (who, btw, is the oldest of the preteen "heroes" from the film Unaccompanied Minors. Hey, there was nothing else on) into a booth at Olive Garden. Surprise surprise, she's sitting right next to her son (practically on his lap) and is constantly leaning toward him, touching his shoulder, and otherwise violating his personal space. And always with that same stupid "count my teeth" grin on her face.

"So, is it serious?" she asks her boy. "Yeah!" He responds, holding up his fork. "This is SERIOUSLY good!" Naturally, this evokes a chuckle and yet another lunge by mom.

The way this "storyline" is progressing, I suspect that the next episode will feature the mom tucking in her son and smoothing his hair back before giving him a kiss on the forehead (if we're lucky- hell, it wouldn't shock me to see this woman crawl into bed with the kid) before heading off to lay out his clothes for the morning. The weird vibes these commercials set off- who thinks this is cute?- make me nostalgic for another "we had an amazing time doing something really stupid" Smirnoff's ad. They sure don't make me hungry for cheap, faux-"Italian" food.

And I thought that the Taster's Choice Soap Opera of the 1980s was lame. At least that involved a romance developing between two unrelated adults. These commercials are just disturbing. I don't want to see some middle-aged mom trying to live vicariously through her 16-year old son, thanks anyway, Olive Garden. Please go back to pushing the Endless Spaghetti and Bread Sticks angle. Those commercials didn't convince me to go to Olive Garden either, but at least they didn't creep me out.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

A Match Made in Heaven- Just Don't Lend these People Money

"My fiancee and I were shopping for her engagement ring. We picked out the perfect one- but then my credit card was rejected because I was over my limit. I was so humiliated!"

What happened next? Well, let's see...Once Upon a Time, I was engaged to a beautiful, smart, and above all financially sensible young woman. We went shopping for engagement rings, figuring out exactly how much we wanted to spend, because after all, very soon our financial fortunes would be intertwined and our credit rating would depend on how responsible we were with money. Buying a piece of rock wasn't our top priority. Surely, we can say the same for the couple in the American Express Ad, right?

Wrong. "My fiancee suggested that I get the American Express Card, which has No Pre-Set Credit Limit." Oh, SUPER IDEA!! Because clearly, the best way to deal with being maxed out on your credit cards is to get a credit card that can't be maxed out!!

And his FIANCEE suggests this- so she can get the engagement ring of her dreams, of course. Having let her husband-to-be know what her priorities are, it's not hard to imagine their future together, when they decide to splurge on all sorts of wonderful and "necessary" items because after all, there's no risk of being stopped short by an annoying credit limit. These two are made for each other- a guy who can't keep his spending within his means, and a girl whose "solution" is to make sure he keeps spending regardless of cost. Lovely.

If I had been maxed out on my credit card, my fiancee would not have suggested another one. She would have suggested- strongly- that I get my finances in order before we proceed with the wedding plans. Because she wasn't a selfish dunce living in the moment, like the dope in this commercial and her clueless partner-in-debt-to be.

Monday, July 13, 2009

And I thought Doogie Houser was Implausible

A child who can't be more than five or six years old walks into a dark bedroom carrying a bowl of Cheerios. He wakes his father up, apparently just by standing next to the bed.

"What's up, sport?" says Sleepy Dad. "You need to eat this its good fo' yo' hawt" says Adorably Precocious Little Boy.

"Have you been reading the Cheerios box again?" asks Equally Sleepy Mom.

Um, ok. It would be impressive enough if this little kid managed to get his dad a bowl of Cheerios and bring it into the bedroom without leaving a mess everywhere. But we are supposed to believe that this amazing little prodigy was inspired to bring his dad cereal at 5 AM by what he read on the back of the cereal box?

Here's what the back of the box says, by the way, word for word:

"The Cholesterol Countdown begins today! Did you know that in just 6 weeks Cheerios can reduce bad cholesterol by an average of 4 percent? Cheerios is the only leading cold cereal clinically Proven to lower cholesterol. A clinical study showed that eating two 1 1/2 cup servings daily of Cherios cereal reduced bad cholesterol when eaten as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol."

Oh wait, you say. Maybe the kid read the SIDE of the box, where the information is spooned out in words a little kid can understand. Let's check out what the side panel says about Daddy's hawt:

"Oh, what a difference Six Weeks makes! In the time it takes for your new couch to arrive, you'd be sitting at a more comfortable cholesterol level. By the tie you'd read that novel cover to cover, you could start a new chapter in heart health. Of in the time it takes your child to finish her Shakespeare report, you could report a healthier cholesterol level. And just think, between oil changes you could give your heart health a great tune up."

Oh sure, I can totally see a five or six-year-old absorbing this kind of information and then deciding to take it upon himself to help Daddy start down the road to better cardiovascular health. Maybe he's put on a pot of green tea and called Fresh Fields to order a crate of Pom Wonderful, too. Later, he'll make an appointment for his dad to see the doctor to ask if Vasacor is right for him.

Come on. When I was this kid's age, MAYBE I could get my own cereal for breakfast. MAYBE I could do it without making a mess of the kitchen. And MAYBE I read a bit of the box- to find out if there was a toy inside. But of course, I wasn't a little genius like this little boy, who already knows what "Cholesterol" is and why it's bad, and even manages to make the connection between eating Cheerios and having a healthy heart even though the box never actually makes that connection.

Cheerios is the original "finger food." That implies a little knowledge of little kids and how they think and function. There's no hint of that knowledge in this commercial, which assumes a huge vocabulary for a kid who looks like he's still a candidate for training pants. Weird.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Saturn: Some of the Customers are Always Right, for a while

"We here at Saturn believe that YOU, the CUSTOMER, know more about how you buy cars than we do."

Well, damn right! Finally, a car company that respects my personal car-buying practices!

"I mean, who knows more about how to buy a car, your dealer- or YOU?"

Again, damn right! No one knows more about how I buy a car than I do! I mean, I buy a car every six years or so, while my dealer sells them every day...um, wait a minute....never mind! I know what I know and I want what I want! Yay Saturn!

"So at Saturn, YOU decide. Want our great Cash Back Offer? Want to go for a lease? It's totally up to you."

USA!! USA!!

But wait- here come the dampening disclaimers: "Offer expires October 2009." Um, huh? So Saturn believes that customers, and not dealers, should be able to decide the terms of their purchase- but only for a limited time? What happens after October? Do customers become dumb again after Halloween? If Saturn "believes that customers know best," why do they only believe that "customers know best" only until the leaves turn orange? What the heck?

And another one- "Not all customers will qualify." How does this work? "I'm sorry, sir, but based on your credit history, it would be downright dangerous to let you make this choice yourself. We'll be making the decisions for you. And by the way, we strongly encourage you to put your kids up for adoption." I mean, how insulting is that? What Saturn really means is "we believe that SOME customers know what's best for them. Others, however, will take what we offer them, and be thankful, or get the hell out of our showroom."

Saturn truly is a Different Kind of Car Company, believing in Power to (Some) Customers, for a Limited Time. Truly Revolutionary. I can't believe it needed an infusion of government bailout money to survive, with such radically progressive ideas. I can't wait for the response of other car companies to Saturn's bold move-- maybe another round of Employee Pricing or Zero Percent Financing.

Because some of us deserve it. For a limited time.