Men Are Helpless, Part 380,146

A few questions:

If Dave and Mandy are going on vacation together, why would they be searching individually online for resorts, etc? Isn't this something couples generally do together?

Is the narrator telling us that Dave stayed up all night searching websites that he actually missed the flight, so Mandy went on vacation by herself? Does this really happen?

The narrator tells us that Dave "misses flights." That's plural. So Dave REGULARLY obsesses over travel websites all night, including the nights before they are scheduled to leave? This makes no sense- what is he looking for online if the tickets are booked already?

Or are we being told that Dave stayed up all night searching websites and was never told that his girlfriend had found the perfect vacation- so she went without him? Is that it?

Is the message of this commercial really that if you don't just assume that your girlfriend is 100 percent smarter than you are and should just be allowed to make all the travel arrangements, she's going to dump you for some local she meets while on vacation by herself, or while you are asleep back at the hotel?

The company being advertised is called Kayak.com. Why don't I see any kayaks in this ad?

I mean, what the hell?

If the guy in the car said "No, I'm actually getting bored of games, I'm reading a book," I think his friend's head would have exploded

It's not that these two pathetic losers are exchanging "no MY life is less meaningful than yours is" barbs while discussing their shared obsession with a video game. It's not that these two alleged GROWN-UPS seem determined to establish who the Alpha Male here is based on the number of two-dimensional images they've managed to "eliminate" from the comfort of their overstuffed couches while sitting on their overstuffed asses back at home.

It's not even the "funny" situation that unfolds during the sad verbal smackdown after the guy in the car admits that he actually drove to Wal Mart at midnight to make sure he got himself a copy of the lastest Have to Have Even Though You Haven't been a Teen-Ager in a Decade video game. (Someone, PLEASE, do an intervention with this guy. To say he and his friends need LIVES is the understatement of the year.)

It's the fact that we never do find out why this guy was pulled over on his way home from the store with his precious little toy. Which allows me to hypothesize that the poor fat choad, realizing while on line that he had left his VISA card at home, snapped and left a bloody mess where Debby the Drained of All Life cashier and Robert the 80-Year Old Greeter used to be. Having committed multiple homicides, Our Hero, all sense of right and wrong drained out of him by years of Grand Theft Auto and Halo marathons, casually sauntered out of the store and into his Special Edition Black Ops Jeep (separate post on this monstrosity coming later.)

And now the local police, backed up by the Feds, have nabbed the psycho, who will be headline news tomorrow. Once again he's beaten his nemesis on the other end of the phone, who never managed celebrity beyond a surprise appearance on To Catch A Predator. And really, showing up your "friends" is really all that matters in life, right?

What is it with you "Gamers," anyway? I played video games when I was a KID- back when I was in HIGH SCHOOL. Games like Atari Bowling and Space Invaders. At some point- around the time I went to college- I discovered girls, interesting classes, girls, running, girls, hiking, girls, swimming, and girls. I left sitting in my living room pretending to do something while my brain turned to play-dough back where it belonged- in my CHILDHOOD. Somewhere along the line, "Gaming" became a way of life for a rather large population of witless slackers, along with Fantasy Baseball and Fantasy Football, which primarily to serve the fantasy that those who engage in such activities have a life which is more than Fantasy (you know, kind of like having 8500 "Facebook Friends" but no one to ask to the movies next Saturday night.)

Sorry to disturb you though- please, get back to your virtual worlds, where there are virtual people to virtually kill. But when you find yourself in the parking lot at Wal Mart at midnight with a plastic bag containing the latest Kill Everything video game, take a moment for self-reflection. If you've got any ability to look within left, I don't think you'll like what you see.

(Why DID this guy get pulled over, anyway?)

I'd switch, but I hate that stupid lizard even more

Full Disclosure: State Farm is my insurance company, and I've never had any serious complaints about their service. Whenever I have invested fifteen minutes to check out Geico I've been offered very uncompetitive deals and passed. My premiums are very reasonable, and when I got hit by an uninsured drunk driver some years back, State Farm took care of me.

All that being sad, this is a disgustingly clueless, insulting pile of steaming crud disguised as an ad for renter's insurance. First, when a baseball comes through the window of this guy's apartment his first thought isn't to quickly look outside to see who did it- you know, like any normal, functioning human being would. He doesn't even make the first effort to clean up the broken glass. No, it's all about contacting State Farm, and quickly.

Time out. We know this is an apartment in a rather substantial building, because "the girl from 4G" is about to be summoned (more about this later.) Would this guy's insurance company really be responsible for replacing the broken pane of glass? Even if the apartment management office didn't automatically take responsibility, how freaking low is this guy's deductible, that he's thinking State Farm is going to pay for this damage?

Ok, back to the commercial, because here's where it gets really really bad..

One of the renter's friends tries out the jingle by asking for a sandwich, which magically appears. Inspired, the renter requests that "the girl from 4G" is whisked away from her private surroundings to decorate his hovel. She appears, and seems not the least bit concerned that she's now apparently at the mercy of this doofus and his equally weird and worthless friends. Then, in what is (not surprisingly) a Howl Out Loud LOL moment to the knuckle-dragging glue-sniffers over at YouTube, one guy yells "And can I get me a Hot Tub?!" Of course, that magically appears too (creating more damage for the State Farm Agent to deal with.)

Assuming that this guy hasn't been harboring fantasies of getting his male friends into a hot tub, I think it's safe to infer that the tub is part of the "girl from 4G" plot point. Nice for her- not only is she transported against her will to an apartment full of half-witted, power-crazed jackasses who don't know what her name is, but the guys she finds herself with are now taking it for granted that she'll happily strip and climb into a tub with them. Not a lot of respect for female customers over there at State Farm, is there?

I'm not going to dump State Farm over this ad, not only because I get the best deal from them but also because EVERY substantial insurance company seems to be spending a lot of their customer's premiums to produce mind-numbingly stupid commercials. But I am more than a little irritated that my money played even a small role in the creation of this junk.

A little bit of everything except respect for our intelligence

1. Washed-Up Character Actor from the 1980s- Check.

2. Crowd of twentysomething jackanapes so ungrateful at having a job in an era of near-10 percent unemployment (adjusted to 17% when factoring in the people who have just given up) that they are willing to steal their employer's money by slacking off shamelessly- Check.

3. Sexist imagery (in this case, pompoms appearing from nowhere to be waved by the female coworkers)- Check.

4. Stern, grey-haired MALE boss asserting his position as Bull of the Herd by barking "JOHNSON!" (has anyone out there ever worked at an office in which the boss refers to you by your last name, with no prefix? Anyone?) -- Check.

5. Stern, grey-haired MALE boss congratulating Chief Slacker for coming up with a way to rob the business of productive work from it's employees, who are presumably being paid to work Sundays- Check.

6. Mindless cheering at male boss's stunningly predictable response to seeing his entire staff blowing off work for The Big Game (why do they "have" to work Sunday, anyway? If the work was so important, why is this slacking off even possible? I mean, what the heck?) --Check.

What kind of fantasy world is this, anyway? Why does the office have to be open on Sunday? What kind of coworker would risk his job setting up a projector to watch a football game when he's supposed to be working? What kind of coworker would practically GUARANTEE his dismissal by bringing beer into the office during working hours? What kind of boss would buy into this for a BUD LITE??

Most importantly (if the word "important" could ever really be used to describe anything that appears on this blog,) how can this ad sit well with the mass of unemployed or underemployed citizens previously mentioned? Here's a crowd of gainfully employed, good looking young people perfectly willing to risk dismissal rather than put in a few hours on a Sunday- and getting away with it. Great message, Budweiser. I'll remember it this Sunday, when I'm picking up a few extra dollars reading an SAT to a student instead of watching football.

But no, I won't be smuggling a television or a six-pack into the school to make the task more pleasant. Go figure.

Quick, Let's Avoid Talking!!

Terrified at the thought of having to sit with This Woman He Seems to be Married To for anywhere from fifteen minutes to three hours during a delay at the airport, Our Hero gets the bright idea of connecting to "The Cloud," which in his case means accessing their home pc and bringing up recorded television shows.

His unkempt wife is on board, as long as it's "Celebrity Probation- the Premiere." Is this a real show? It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. Nor does the closing scene, which features these two sadly distant airheads happily watching television ("Yay Cloud!" sighs this truly pathetic, witless, sad woman as she stares at people who seem to be having a pillow fight on a couch. Not exactly PBS..) complete with sound, without the use of earphones.

In fact, there are several of these "Cloud" commercials which show clueless antisocial choads happily consuming brain-sucking television in public and using their laptop's speakers, oblivious to the possibility that the people around them just MIGHT want to be left to enjoy conversations, books, or their own God Don't Leave Me Alone With My Thoughts or My Life Partner Distraction Tool without being forced to listen to (gag) "Celebrity Probation." Just more examples of the "F-U, I'm having fun, if you don't like it, wear headphones yourself" culture we find ourselves living in.

It started with transistor radios. Then it was the Walkman, and then the cell phone with the loud, obnoxious ringtone which actually encouraged people to delay answering. Now we've moved on to portable television, which we are urged to enjoy any place, any time, without headphones. Awesome.

It's getting stupid out there. Stupid, and very, very rude.

This commercial has a camera in my head!

The disconnect here is AT&T's apparent misconception that when people are "using" their cell phones to text, surf the net, etc. they are actually USING them, and not just filling empty space in their equally empty lives. The misconception is that people who stare at cell phone screens are actually seeking information and not just trying to drown out the dull echo of nothingness that inhabits their skull. That they are trying to accomplish something, not just avoiding eye contact. That they are trying to get a question answered, not actively avoiding their children, spouses, and other fellow life forms.

Please, who are they trying to kid here? People who spend huge chunks of time staring at their phones are not victims of spotty service or slow connections. If they really are looking for specific info and find it a few seconds faster with this new phone, they'll just move on to some other brainless "activity" more quickly than they planned to previously (if the word "plan" has any application here.) I guarantee you that a phone which provides instantaneous, lightning-fast web access will cause people to cut back on their vapid, antisocial phone staring about as much as McDonald's Dollar Menu cut back on the consumption of cheeseburgers.

I do get what AT&T is trying to do here, though- people don't want to believe that they spend so much time staring at phones because their lives are so pathetically devoid of meaning and actual human friends. People don't want to believe that, left without their shiny toys, they'd be driven insane by their inability to form coherent thoughts about anything more deep than "I wonder what's for dinner?" I'm quite sure that nobody wants to admit that 99 percent of the time they spend on their phones is about as fulfilling and useful as a mouthful of cotton candy. And I'm also quite sure that there's a large audience of delusional morons out there who are capable of conning themselves into believing that if ONLY I could surf a LITTLE FASTER, I'd be able to get off my phone and have an actual conversation with an actual human being who is actually in the same room as I am. Just look at the vacant half-smiles on these zombies- they aren't doing work. They are just so devoid of personality and meaning and purpose that they can only find satisfaction and belonging with their phones.

The question is, what happens to these people when they purchase this phone-- and nothing changes? It would be nice to think that the hot girl in the teddy tells the asshole to take his phone and get the hell out. It's pleasant to imagine the little kid telling his dad to just stay the hell home and skip the ball game altogether next time, you useless prick. (The frustrated "here's a baseball to the head because you value your pointless surfing more than watching your son play baseball" is a good start.) It would only be justice if these worthless jackasses were just cut loose from society and left to waste their lives in sad isolation with their real loved ones, so we could stop pretending that what they really want is to put them away.

Meanwhile, back here in the real world, I'm not buying the "save us from our phones" line. For way too many people, it's an offer to "save us" from our security blankets or cloak of invisibility. I don't know anybody who honestly WANTS to be saved, because it's way too comfortable in that electronic womb.

Really.

Chevron's just like Santa Claus, if Santa were an environment-murdering self-congratulatory psychopath

"Chevron makes a lot of money. A LOT of money. I mean, you have no idea. Raping the environment has never been more profitable, and despite the rising cost of Congressmen, Senators, a President and the Media, we here at Chevron get to keep a whole lot of that money, thanks for asking.

We make SO MUCH money, in fact, that we have absolutely no problem dropping $21 billion dollars into 'local small businesses,' whatever the hell that means. Of course, plenty of those small businesses are Chevron gas stations, but isn't that beside the point? Those stations hire a lot of minimum-wage workers. Those are jobs that are important in this economy. Really. Just trust us on this one.

Yes, that's $21 Billion to local businesses, which did I mention creates jobs? That's a pretty impressive number for a company assessed at $166 billion, don't you think? Of course, I'm not going to tell you how long it took us to spend that $21 billion- considering that our last quarter's profit was "only" $3.7 billion, you can bet it's not a yearly amount, but if you want to believe it is, that would be fine.

Every penny of profits went into equipment, exploration, all that expensive stuff, which means that either I don't know what the word 'profit' means, or I'm actually trying to con you into believing that Chevron doesn't actually make a profit at all, but just rolls all of it's revenue right back into production costs. I'm just reading a script here, ok?

The bottom line is that we'd sure like you to shut the hell up now with your Greedy Oil Company Whining, and remind you that gasoline hit a national average of $4 not all that far back, and can again, if you don't show a little more appreciation. Now if you'll excuse me, we've got to get to work on discrediting the latest electric car. Driving a Leaf means you're gay, you know."