We end the day with the traditional burning of a giant, cross-shaped celery stalk

There's a place- a very magical place- where people aren't afraid of vegetables. A place where white Anglo-Saxon Protestants gather with their children to joyfully consume huge amounts of vegetables in a wholesome (did I mention WHITE?) setting. Where boys wear pants and girls wear their moms 1960s-era hand me down skirts. A place which just looks so gosh-darned lush and green and wholesome, you just want to pick it up and hug it to death. Or take a photo of it and use it to create a Hallmark Card, or a commercial for your Republican candidate for the Senate.

That place is Hidden Valley.

In Hidden Valley, nobody attempts to distract their spouses when the word "vegetable" is uttered in front of small children. You won't catch anyone banging pots and pans, or crashing grocery carts into pyramids of soup cans, to drown out the "v" word. In fact, in Hidden Valley, vegetables are to be celebrated, not shunned or disguised as junk food.

Yes, in Hidden Valley, people love their veggies. Specifically, they love them drowning in thick, fatty tar called "salad dressing." Pouring Hidden Valley Ranch dressing all over your salad isn't EXACTLY the same as deep-frying it or encasing it in fudge, but it's pretty darned close. And teaching kids that vegetables are really yummy if you can't taste hem isn't QUITE as bad as hiding a single serving in a can of Chef Boy-R-Dee's Big Ravioli, but almost. And eating salad dressing mixed with vegetables is a far better idea than daily trips to the local McDonald's where you can watch them sugar the french fries as they explain to your toddler why the Shrek Over and Over Again Collector's Glass she's been shrieking for was too dangerous to keep adding to Happy Meals, but it's still not the way to develop healthy eating habits (especially the way the people in these commercials do it- jesus, is a bottle of Kraft Salad Goo a "single serving," or what?)

Oh yeah, one more thing- in Hidden Valley, self-satisfied suburban parents think that they are being responsible caregivers for their Precious Little Ones by keeping them away from Mac n' Cheese and Canned Ravioli and feeding them food that was naturally green, red and orange before they slathered it with bottled white crap? Can't you just see these pretentious idiots carefully selecting each piece of produce at the local farmer's market, paying upscale prices for the stuff labeled "organic," and then wrecking their own good intentions by adding loads of fat and salt to their groceries?

The Stupid! It Burns!

And He and his Kin lived Happily Ever After

I think that the following are fair assumptions, based on my observation of people who seem to be obsessive-compulsive when it comes to using their cell phones in public places:

1. Cell phones, far from making life "easier" or "more fun," simply create more work. It's been years since I first heard a person complain "Now that I have a cell phone, I'm on call 24/7!" and then gave me a dirty look when I asked why they

A. Had a cell phone, if they wanted to be out of contact, or
B. Had a cell phone they did not know how to turn off, or
C. Felt that just because they received a call or text on their cell phone, they were compelled to answer it (has Voice Mail ever achieved the same usefulness as an Answering Machine? Apparently not.)

(Actual quote from my twenty-something niece: "the problem with texts are, you have to answer them.")

2. FaceBook, far from being a fun distraction from the real world and a new way to engage in "Social Networking," has become a time-sucking obsession for people who are convinced that

A. If they note what they are doing, someone, somewhere, will care, or
B. If they throw themselves at the mercy of the World Wide Web, one of the other 5 billion people out there will find them interesting enough to want to talk to them, or
C. If they spend enough time on FaceBook, they will somehow convince themselves that they have this really cool life which includes lots of friends and fun.

Assuming these two things, I have to make one more assumption about anyone who would buy a KIN, this new gadget which combines the obnoxiousness of the cell phone with the fantasy life offered by FaceBook: Judging from how long this idiot spends scrolling through photographs, maps, contact lists, etc without ever actually accomplishing anything of value other than managing to avoid eye contact with his fellow carbon-based life forms and developing a crick in his neck, I believe that it's reasonable to conclude that the photographs shown on the screen (especially the one of the girl at the beach, which appears in multiple ads) of people having fun dancing, hiking, mugging for the camera, etc. are all pre-loaded. Because there is simply no way that anyone who owns one of these stupid things actually knows any of these people or does any of this stuff. What the KIN offers is another element for the weird parallel universe some people began to live in when they realized that no matter how many times it was updated, The Sims just didn't cut it for them. FaceBook allows one to indulge in the seductive fantasy of popularity- "look how many friends I have"- without fear of rejection or loss. KIN takes it a step further, making it easy for you to take your FaceBook with you, so there's no excuse for you to not update it constantly with photographs of random people doing random things, with whom you can now claim to have a strong interpersonal bond.

It's only a matter of time before we hear someone complain "Now that I have a KIN, I have to add to my FaceBook page 24/7!" But don't worry about answering- they aren't really talking to you, they are just repeating what they just texted onto the internet. Because really, if they wanted to start a conversation with you, they might have to look up sometimes. Can't have that.

Kind of odd, though: if the guy in the AT&T Commercial hadn't looked away from his phone for two seconds, he would never have met his destiny and we would never have been blessed with their offspring, the 57th President of the United States. Now I don't know what to believe.

Happy July 4th from our friends at Budweiser

Anyone who has been alive for more than a few years has probably become numb to the weirdly hypocritical way in which America treats it's historical icons. On one hand, we've got an entire "news" network dedicated to elevating them to the level of sainthood, arguing that their every utterance was inspired by God, and everything they wrote was meant to guide this nation for all eternity. Support of slavery? Disdain for the idea of equality for women? Look away, nothing to see here....

On the other hand, the Founders have always been used to sell, sell, sell everything from mattresses to automobiles. They've been part of the ad culture for as long as there's been an ad culture. Washington's image appeared on cigar boxes in the 1880s. I used to play with Lincoln Logs. Ben Franklin Paint. Ethan Allen Furniture. Turn on the Hotel Channel in Philadelphia, and you can watch some fat oaf in a costume urge you to visit every single attraction the city has to offer 24/7.

This Budweiser ad makes me wonder if we might want to tone down our treatment of the Founding Fathers as readily-available, public domain pitchmen in the future. I mean, presenting Washington , Jefferson and Franklin as beer-crazy, party-loving leches is a bit much.

Well , Ok, maybe you can keep Franklin in there. But do we really need to see The Father of Our Country propositioning a woman with a line like "how'd you like to be the 'Second Lady?" First of all, the line is ridiculously awkward. Second, dammit, George Washington was almost legendary in his devotion to Martha, who outlived him. It's one thing to use GW to sell me beer. Don't slander him while doing it, please.

How about this revolutionary (no pun intended) concept- for one weekend a year, ad agencies leave off exploiting the vague, cloudy memory that most Americans have toward the people who fought for our Independence from some country, wrote some Declaration, and then wrote something else that isn't the Declaration but which, according to Glenn Beck, still calls us to be a nation which worships Capitalism, God, and Guns, not necessarily in that order? You know, that document that Obama is spending every day huddled with William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright and George Soros plotting to destroy?

Nah. Pass the beer and Hillshire Smoked Brats, I've got to post LOL THS IS THE FUNNYST COMMERSHAL EVAH on YouTube.

Keep on Living the Dream, Guys!

What do guys do? I mean, what do they do when they aren't throwing big heavy filth-covered pieces of machinery into Ford F-150s, having orgasms at the sight of beer, or pumping gallons of Round Up on to that one weed sticking out of their driveways?

Well, we knew already what they DON'T do-- they don't shave. They don't comb their hair. They don't make themselves presentable in polite society in any way, shape or form.

Thanks to Hillshire Farms, we have a pretty good idea of What Guys Do, at least on the weekends. They stand in their designated cubicle-yards grilling artery-hardening, environment-robbing meat products, pouring god knows how many toxins into the atmosphere (and into their bodies) in the process. Ah, suburbia, ain't i wonderful?

And as they turn the one or two sausages they used an entire bag of charcoal and half a can of lighter fluid to slightly brown, they attempt to make contact with the other Neighborhood Guys, who are producing their own clouds of pollutant in their own cubicle-yards, standing next to their own suburban palaces, which by the way are all made out of ticky-tacky and all look just the same. The dominant Guy of the Herd sings out the marching orders- to pay homage to Meat- and his supplicants (one of which is, judging from the mustache, a retired 70s porn star) respond appreciatively. My guess is that the one guy on the block busy putting the final touches on the beet salad keeps his mouth shut. No point in upsetting the Neighborhood Association, after all.

None of this looks at all familiar to me, which means that either I'm not a Guy, or I'm not a Real Guy. But that's ok- being a Guy doesn't look like a whole lot of fun in commercials, and not especially healthy, either.

The Awkward, Creepy Way I Met Your Mother

It used to be so hard for stalkers to ply their trade. Before the age of GPS and Internet-connected cell phones, one might spend days or even weeks carefully watching one's Object of Obsession, making crude maps detailing her daily routine, scribbling notes into hand-held ledgers, etc. And just when you thought you had it down to a science, she'd do something out of character, like jump on a train or point you out to a cop. Stalking was an art.

Now, thanks to modern technology, anyone can become a stalker on a whim. Check out this commercial- guy notices a cute girl on a train; specifically, he notes that he can stare at her without her becoming repulsed at the gawky, scruffy creep standing on the platform. With the touch of a button (perhaps using the same magic service that idiot who left his presentation in the taxi did in an earlier commercial- you remember, the guy who managed to access an unfamiliar copying machine and send the presentation to it in roughly six seconds flat) this clown adjusts his itinerary so that he can leap aboard the train and park himself next to the poor girl, who really needs access to the same service so she can adjust HER travel plans, and quick.

Where's the train going? Doesn't matter- this girl is on it. And when she gets off the train? So will he. How adorable. I guess.

Ah, but this is just the beginning, it turns out- the start of a relationship which ends with this couple raising "The 57th President of the United States."

First of all, Barack Obama is the 44th POTUS. Let's assume he's defeated in 2012, and of the next dozen Presidents, half serve two four-year terms, and half serve only one. Let's also assume that none die in office or resign. This would result in the 57th President of the United States taking the oath of office on January 20, 2085. Well, ok- I guess that's plausible- the couple meets in 2010, dates a few years, gets married, and has the future Leader of the Free World a few years later-- does the guy we see waving to the crowds at the start of the commercial look to be seventy years old? Maybe. Do his adoring parents, shown beaming in the crowd, look anywhere near 100? Absolutely not.

Second of all, as a friend pointed out after seeing this ad, isn't it nice to know that when the peddlers of pointless "essential" technology sought out a guy to play "the 57th President of the United States," they immediately thought "gray-haired, slim, non-ethnic looking white guy?"

It seems that while our stalking technology can be expected to continue to grow by leaps and bounds in the coming decades, we'll be going right back to our old habits when it comes to electing Presidents as soon as the Age of Obama is over. Thanks for letting us know, AT&T.

"Shhh! We're Out of Pediasure and Mac'n Cheese!"

Here's another episode in The Adventures of Awesome Parenting. Soon To Be Obese Brat is happily chowing down on lard-laced faux food- this time, it's "'Chef" Boyardee's Big Ravioli. He thinks it's crap (and he's right) but it tastes good, so who cares?

Dad comes in and does a "bad" thing, trying to tell his son that hey, that mystery meat he loves not only has a full day's supply of fat and salt, but it also contains an entire SERVING of vegetables. Mom is mortified- if Son realizes that sometimes vegetables taste good, he might- umm, what exactly? Become more open-minded about eating vegetables? Can't have that!

So mom witlessly whacks away at the pots and pans in order to drown out the word " vegetables." Oh, the hilarity. Son will be spared the knowledge that "vegetable" does not necessarily mean "yucky," and he'll finish his lunch thinking mom is a freaking lunatic who likes to remind daddy that he has no business talking to her son about anything, especially nutrition.

After all, if dad was encouraged to do a little research, he might discover that the "serving of vegetables" hardly evens out the fact that this stuff is basically poison, and encouraging your kids to lie quietly on the couch and eat Cheez-Its every weekend would be only slightly less neglectful than serving this rubbish. He might start to ask mommy questions like "how did our kid get control of the family menu so completely that the word 'vegetable' is now verboten in MY HOUSE?" or "We obviously have plenty of money- can't we do better than a $2 can of tomatoey sludge for the guy who is going to carry on our family name?" or "Umm...shouldn't we be teaching our child to appreciate fruits and vegetables instead of catering to his childish prejudices- I mean, don't we have some responsibility here beyond making sure he has clothes and a place to sleep?" or "Is this why you insist on being a Stay At Home Mom? Because you were afraid the Daycare would spoil our son with celery sticks, carrots and yogurt?"

Better watch it, dad- Mommy is pretty handy with those pots and pans, though obviously she doesn't use them much for cooking.

Or maybe I've got Mom all wrong- maybe she's afraid that if her son finds out that Big Canned Ravioli is even remotely good for him, he'll demand it at every meal. "Hey, I want my VEGETABLES, Mommy! Get the can opener!" Then all she'll be able to look forward to is seeing Her Precious One on The Biggest Loser in a decade or so. By then, Dad will have snapped under the pressure of Mom's oppression, filed for divorce, and started life anew with a sane woman.

What tax cuts for the wealthy hath wrought

Can I just take a moment to note how much I hate the idea of people having so much damned money that they would choose to have something like this installed in their home? I mean, Jesus, how many thousands of dollars does this gluttonous monstrosity cost? Does it come with a yard sign which reads "the inhabitants of this suburban castle have one of those room-sized showers which allow the user to personalize the water temperature and pressure, so feel free to allow your dog to despoil this lawn?" "The residents found within can be seen in commercials bitching about brokerage fees- feel free to 'brokerage' a window as you pass by?"

"The middle-aged self-satisfied jackasses living inside are delighted with the recent comments of Rand Paul and certainly hope that the Unemployed of the United States get off their lazy asses and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, like their grandparents did?" Although you know, it's funny but in none of the dozen or so Horatio Alger books I've read has the hard-working, frank, honest and dutiful boy risen from the ranks to achieve such a pointless symbol of conspicuous consumption.

BTW, are we really supposed to feel any empathy for these pigs when they realize that the Kohler guy tested the installation by showering? They look mortified at the thought that their beautiful new bathroom has been defiled by one of the great unwashed (no pun intended.)

I suppose that if I just worked a little harder, maybe I could afford to convert half of my living space into a fricking shower. If I wanted to, and if I could first afford to have my social conscience surgically removed. Because commercials like this make MTV's Teen Cribs almost palatable. Almost.