Quick Quiz: Who is the Biggest Loser in this Commercial?

Is it this guy, with his hang-dog look, his greasy hair, and his total inability to stick up for himself and tell this wretched woman what he thinks of her "its not like you are a human being or anything" attitude? I mean, can we all agree that a glass of cold water to the face would be a perfectly appropriate response to the look she gives him in the ad's final seconds?

Is it this woman, who we can easily imagine spent each moment of every date consulting her Facebook page, tweeting, texting, and otherwise treating the guy she was with like a worthless piece of crap who only existed to pick up the check at the end of the evening? Is she really such a prize that guys are likely to instantly note her "single" status and start calling her asking for an opportunity to take her and her phone out for a nice dinner and get treated like a pile of shit for their efforts?

The answer is really None of the Above. Yes, these people are both really pathetic losers. The guy has no spine and no dignity, the woman probably once had a soul, but it's been exchanged for a Social Network, and all that's left behind is a hollow shell which, sorry, does not have the surface attraction to pull off this level of cruelty for very long. But in a way, they are also winners- they are both getting out of what was probably a miserable non-relationship anyway, not that they are likely to provide warmth and a level of happiness to anyone else in the near future. Or ever.

So, who are the real losers? The answer is actually pretty obvious: the real losers are the other people sitting down for dinner at what looks to be a pretty nice restaurant, because they get to hear these two disfunctional knobs "communicate" with each other through their cell phones, which at LEAST are on vibrate (but anyone who has ever been in a confined place near a person with a constantly-vibrating cell phone knows that this is only a small comfort.) Never mind the glass of water to the face of the woman in this commercial- I think that the other customers would be more than justified in ganging up on these two insufferable twits and cracking their skulls together if they won't turn off their damned phones and just TALK TO EACH OTHER. It's not like they were using the contents anyway.

Oh yeah, this marriage is going to last

The narrator of this commercial is so happy. I mean, she just got married to the Perfect Guy.

Except that he's got horrible taste, and no way is she tolerating it. Dogs Playing Poker poster? Got to go. Beer can collection? Not in HER house.

And except that he acted like a total baby when he learned that the equation is (OUR stuff= MY stuff -HIS stuff.)

That's ok, he'll grow up quick under this woman's thumb. I mean, it's not like she's demanding that he throw it away. She'd never be that unreasonable. She just wants it packed away where she will never, ever see it again, or be reminded of the time when he was a bachelor or had an identity beyond Her Husband.

So everything this guy has ever prized, everything he ever treasured, is packed away in a U Store It, locked up nice and tight, and for a few dollars a month, it will stay there. Probably not too many months though- I mean, really, how long can it be before this woman decides that her husband's crap isn't worth those few dollars a month, and decides to hold an impromptu yard sale? (I bet her husband acts like a baby when THAT happens, too.)

Message received and processed: Marriages aren't about respect or compromise. They are about one person getting what she wants, and the other person getting the hell out of the way. Lovely.

I can't see the forest with this tree in the way

"Mom, do you remember the day I was born?"

"Boy, do I ever! I had come in for my 41-week check, and the doctor decided to induce me."

"Do you remember how you felt when you realized you were going to have me?"

"I remember the doctor was impatient, I guess I took longer than he expected, because I distinctly recall that he looked at his watch over and over again."

"Weren't you thinking about me coming out, how you'd hold me and..."

"Sure, sure. I also remember how the nurse kept trying to distract me by getting me to 'breathe' or something. Oh, and then the doctor left, and I made a mental note- between gasps of air- of the clothes he was wearing."

"Um....but then you called Dad, right? Wasn't he there when you..."

"After I made the mental note that the doctor was wearing tennis shoes as he was leaving, all I could think was 'wait till I get home and get online, I'm going right to Angie's List!"

"I bet you were so happy when you brought me home..did you love me even then?"

"Sure, sure. When I got home I went to Angie's List right away- I had to tell my story and nail that doctor, what a jerk.."

"But you brought home a healthy baby, everything went great, you brought me, a new life, into the world..."

"The guy left early. And he was wearing TENNIS SHOES. TENNIS SHOES!! I'll never forget it!"

"So when you think about the day I was born, you think about..."

"TENNIS SHOES! I mean, can you believe it?"

Sure, I believe it. Especially if this is the same woman as the one who starts her nag with "I was tired of cleaning my house" (oh you poor baby, I know exactly how you feel) and ends by bitching about how the otherwise-perfect wage slave she hired annoyed her with her whistling. What is it about Angie's List that breeds obnoxious, whiny, demanding, ungrateful, anal-retentive idiots?

Shipping is a Hassle- which is why USPS sucks at it

Here’s another one of those commercials that only “work” if the people in them agree to act like disfunctional morons who think something incredibly ordinary is incredibly extraordinary. Oh, and it also helps if you think puns- ANY puns- are worth telling. “No Weigh?” Yes, I get it. No, it’s not worth getting.

Speaking of something worth getting....

I’m only including it in this blog because I’m pissed at the US Postal “Service” right now. Seems my new Kindle “left seller facility and is in transit” on August 29. Estimated delivery date: September 7.

On September 1, the package arrived at Martinsburg West Virginia. Only a couple hundred miles from here, but for some reason, the estimated delivery date is still September 7. Ah well, must the be Labor Day rush or something.

On September 2, an “Arrival Scan” is performed on the package. Where did it arrive? None of my business, I guess. Estimated Delivery Date is still September 7.

On September 8, at 10:05 AM, my package goes through another “Arrival Scan” in Silver Spring, MD- the delivery address is in the same town, only a matter of time now, right? Estimated Delivery Date is still September 7.

It’s Wednesday Evening, September 8, and no sign of my Kindle. Estimated Delivery Date: September 7. And yes, it does say September 7 2010.

Thanks, US Postal “Service.” Oh well, I guess you can’t do everything right. Maybe you can’t move a 1 lb. package from West Virginia to Maryland inside of a week, but at least you make really great commercials......

(Update: Just received an E-Mail telling me that my Kindle was delivered to my place of work at 12:05 PM-- I get this email at after 8 PM, when the Post Office is of course closed, and I can't call to tell someone that no, it was NOT delivered at 12:05 PM because I was there at that time, and I don't have my Kindle...again, thanks EVER SO MUCH, United States Postal "Service.")

We Really don't know Life at All

Remember when you were five?

Remember when you were five, and your imagination hadn't been burned out of your skull by the branding iron of crappy tv and instant-gratification media?

Remember when you were five, and you couldn't imagine that you'd grow up to be a greasy, hairy loser spending your days sitting on a bench looking for inspiration from a little glowing toy in your hand?

Remember when you were five, and the world looked magical because you could look at a building and imagine a monster, when you could look at clouds and imagine ice cream castles everywhere (imagery by Judy Collins)?

Well, now that you are a dull-witted, brain-dead techno-addict adult, clouds only block the sun, and rain and snow on everyone, but the latest must-see time-consuming life-sucking garbage is only a few clicks away on your cell phone. And as you sit there on your bench, so immersed in numbing pointless bullshit that you don't notice that your "life" is ebbing away all around you, you might take a moment to pretend you are five years old again. That is, you can pretend that you are five years old again if, when you were five years old, you had the imagination and energy of a rotting zucchini.

Remember when you read Brave New World, and you thought that Huxley was prophetic when he foretold a time when people would pop pleasure contained in a pill? Now we know that Huxley was far off the mark- the drug of choice for the people of the future would not be Soma, but cell phones. The "cure" for social isolation would not be Free Love, but fantasy friends on Facebook. I wonder if Huxley's prophecy was more stark than our reality.

In keeping with the theme of the last post....

Let's see- Fairbanks Alaska has been co-opted by Prilosec, so where can we find another town filled with overweight, pasty, cold white people eager to mug for the cameras?

Hey, how about St. Cloud, Minnesota? It looks every bit as frozen and boring and desperate for attention as Fairbanks, and as an added bonus, we can make some silly wordplay with the name, getting each and every member of it's population of "no really we love living here" losers to make a reference to "sleeping on a CLOUD" and that will be clever and cute and funny because REMEMBER this is St. CLOUD Minnesota, get it? GET IT?

So here we go, roughly half a minute of watching fat choads who might as well have been bused in from Fairbanks making total asses of themselves, bleating bad one-liners as they drape their flannel-wrapped, overfed carcasses across mattresses.

"Ask me about sleeping on a cloud!" enthuses one particularly loathsome old bat. Because you'd know all about that, living in St. Cloud Minnesota. This makes no sense, but it doesn't matter, because how could we go about "talking to you" about it anyway? Never mind.

We even have one guy give his testimony standing on a hockey rink- LA must have been suffering from a heat wave when the Prilosec and Tempur-Pedic contracts were signed, to make the agencies want to rush off to the most God-foresaken tundras they could find to film these ridiculously cheesy ads.

Can someone please take a camera crew to Hell, Michigan to ask people how they deal with horrible, cloying, overly-cutesy, witlessly stupid commercials?

From the people who brought us Sarah Palin

There is just so much to love here, staring from the opening bell. The narrator tells us that his name is Jason, that he lives in Fairbanks, Alaska- a bleak, dark, lifeless tundra bathed in a gloomy twilight- and then gives us the hilarious line "you don't come here to stay indoors." Say no more, Jason! I mean, the pictures tell it all- when I see endless fields of ice barely illuminated by a weak sun and imagine subzero temps, the first thing that I think is "Wow, I'm heading outside!"

"There's snow machining...sit on your buttcheeks (I'm pretty sure this is what he says) ice-fishing....." let me finish your thought for you, Jason. "There's drinking, there's bowling, there's hockey, there's drinking, there's......ice fishing. Drinking. Bowling. Did I mention drinking?"

There's also watching the Travel Channel, and pretending you live somewhere, anywhere else....

And then we get to Jason's "passion," Curling, and the point of this overlong ad. Jason tells us that he's suffered from heartburn in the past, which prevented him from "concentrating" on "the task at hand"- at this point, forgive me for mistaking this commercial for an Onion News Parody the first time I saw it. "The Task At Hand?" It involves doing something on a slab of ice. Just like everything else one does in Fairbanks, Alaska, I suppose, including ice fishing, drinking, hockey, drinking....

It's Day Seven of Jason's new life on Prilosec OTC. Unfortunately for him, it's Day God Knows How Many But It Feels Like Eternity of Jason's old life in Fairbanks, Alaska, a place one does not go unless one wants to be outside, for obvious reasons I don't feel the need to repeat here.

One more point I'd like to make about this ad- I'm always impressed at the ability of agencies to convince clients to spend money traveling to out of the way places to film a commercial which could just as easily been thrown together using people living right down the street from the studio. How did these guys sell Prilosec on the idea of flying a camera crew to Fairbanks, Alaska? That being asked, why Fairbanks, Alaska? Is there something about the cold and dark that aggravates heart burn symptoms?

If not, why didn't the agency scour the letters for a heartburn sufferer from Jamaica, or Paris, or Australia, or some other cool place that one might spend a few days? You know, someplace not populated by bored out of their minds overweight dopes who are trying to convince themselves that they like the cold and dark and that Curling is a "task" that needs to be performed well, or is worth performing at all?