Bringing back mostly bittersweet memories

I lived in Buffalo for four years back in the early-90s (yes, during the great Bills Win Everything Except the Super Bowl Dynasty) and I know a little about what Buffalo Wings are supposed to taste like. I first ate REAL Buffalo Wings at the Anchor Bar downtown, where the things were (allegedly) invented. I've eaten at Buffalo Wild Wings. Not terrible- but not Buffalo Wings. However, this isn't a food review column, so let's move on to the commercial....

When I was a "guest" at BWW, I watched a game while consuming my food and beer, and when the game was over, I left. I mean, I was there to eat food and watch the game on a big screen tv. Not to live, and not because I was trying to avoid anyone at home.

It never occurred to me that if I didn't leave on my own volition when the game was over, I'd be kicked out. I never heard anyone call "closing time" or "last call." My assumption upon leaving was that I was making a personal choice that enough was enough, fun is fun but I had papers to grade at home, or something else to do before the weekend came to a close.

But the people in this commercial seem truly anxious that if the game they are watching is allowed to end, they'll have to leave, and they "aren't ready to go yet." (They are obviously also not fans of either of the teams they are watching.) So they encourage the eager-to-please ref to fuck over one of the teams and make an atrocious, Overtime-inducing (and hopefully investigation-launching) call. Everyone in the restaurant cheers. Yay, bring another pitcher of Miller Lite and a platter of Not Buffalo Wings, and don't skimp on the celery!

This is all very stupid- and it gets even worse later, when the ref trips a player, preventing a game-ending touchdown- but it does kind of help explain some of the truly crappy calls I've seen in the NFL this season. And why the Steelers are still in contention for a playoff spot. Buffalo Wild Wings must be really popular in Western PA. Which is strange, because the people who live there could be eating REAL Buffalo Wings if they'd just take a quick drive to the shores of Lake Erie.

I'm guessing they aren't on their way to the MENSA meeting

Once again demonstrating why a cell phone with ultra-fast downloading capability has become a necessity, this commercial features four brain-dead choads carpooling to...work? Daycare? Therapy? The latest Jackass movie? They aren't talking (who talks anymore? Talking just distracts you from checking your phone, after all) which suggests to me that they are together by necessity, not by choice. Or, they've adopted the social skills of your average preteen who has also been handed a cell phone by their clueless, "please let's be Facebook friends" parents.

Anyway, three of them are interrupted by an incoming message, no doubt sent by someone who managed to talk the passengers into subscribing to his Twitter Account. Oddly enough, the driver is not interrupted- is there some special order you can attach to "Tweets" (God I hate this century) that will magically prevent them from creating distractions for people operating automobiles? If there is, I can only say that considering how many times I've seen people driving around with phones perched on their steering wheels, thumbs flying, giving an occasional glance at the world in between messages, the function isn't very popular.

The guy with the Superior Phone- hell, we might as well label him the Alpha Male in this day and age- releases the kind of high-pitched breathless laugh that Stephanie Miller would be proud of. We are left to use our imaginations to picture what absolute hi-LARIOUS joke or video was sent to this guy's wonderfully fast phone. Whatever, it's universally funny- because each of the other passengers laugh hysterically in turn as the joke/video finally arrives in their Not As Good phones.

So the message here is--- what, exactly? Yes, one guy got the joke a few seconds before the others. But all of the others DID ultimately get the joke. Was the first guy's life enhanced significantly because he got Squirrel Water Skiing OMIGOD This Is So Funy from YouTube a few moments before the others? Really?

I hate to say it, but I think the message is more like "there's a lot of worthless shit out there. And because you have a cell phone and lack the brain capacity to discriminate who you give the number to, you're going to be exposed to most of it. Might as well get it fast, and move on with your life as quickly as possible."

Or maybe it's "your phone doesn't distract you often enough. Here's another reason to do nothing but look at your phone. Don't think for a moment that you'll never get these seconds back. There will be plenty of time to think about that when you are on your death bed."

Either way, it's just another sad phone commercial. There's a lot of this going around. All we can do is take comfort in those cell phone radiation articles. I mean, there's got to be some redemption out there, somewhere, right?

A Dark Cloud hangs over this house- now all we need is a little lightning

There is so much hate in this commercial, and just in time for Christmas!

Our narrator is thoroughly frustrated at her inability to curse her friends, relatives and acquaintances with a "normal" family portrait of her disgusting jackass family. Daughter is texting (can't do anything about that now, can we?) while a brother ("Hunter"- don't get me started) is attempting to jam a Transformer (product placement inside a commercial for an unrelated item!) into the ear of his brother ("Cody"- again...)-- so this family is either off it's ADD meds, or it's made up entirely of insufferable jerks. Take your pick.

Well, discipline is out in this family (if, in fact, it was ever in) so instead of trying to get her worthless lump of a husband (this guy is bad even compared to other tv dads) and spoiled rotten shithead kids to behave just long enough to snap a photo which is designed to convince the world that this is an actual functioning family unit, Narrator Mom is going to use modern technology to photo shop all that ugly, nasty reality away. Cell phone surgically attached to worthless teen removed. Toy/Weapon blanked out. Smiles pasted on.

Ah, that's better- it's got nothing to do with this woman's actual family, but it's presentable, and that's the whole point. Stable. Happy. Normal. Keeping up appearances, THAT'S what's important.

And here's the truly hideous punchline- "Windows gave me the family nature never could." She doesn't just tell us- she says it loud enough for the family to hear, and they bend their heads in shame (at least, most of them do. Daughter is just back to her texting.)

Most commercials just leave me bemused and a little bewildered. This one just makes me angry. Are there really families out there like this? Why the hell would anyone want to see a photo of these people? How many Facebook friends does this loathsome pile of excrement have?

Hell, I could have spend this entire rant on that fucking daughter- you can't get her to stop texting for a family photo? Really? Who's paying the monthly bill, mom?

Instead, I'll end with my favorite line of the whole ad- "Finally, a photo I can show without ridicule." First, who the hell asked you for a photo? Second, are you such a sad, dim bulb that you don't realize how PATHETIC it is that you have to perform electronic surgery on a FAMILY PHOTO? Third, how did you ever manage to get pictures of these people smiling at all- where they drugged?

And finally- you really think that there's nothing to ridicule in this photo? What about the matching plaid shirts and white pants?

Awesome attire for when you watch two other teams in the Superbowl this year, Saints fans!

1. "There's nobody else like you"- um, unless you insist on joining the crowd and dressing like everyone else. Then there are a lot of people just like you- mindless, witless followers.

2. The song "Personality" sure as hell doesn't fit in this ad. If you think that wearing a shirt "personalized" to read "Summer Brees," "Daddy Brees," "Cool Brees" (I've seen at least half a dozen of those in the last year, and I don't live anywhere NEAR New Orleans), etc. shows off your "personality," well, I feel really sorry for you. All it does is show the world your level of wittiness. And it's not a pretty sight.

3. Anyone else play on that team? Oh sure, but they don't have this awesome last name that allows the "clever" puns to write themselves!

4. Congratulations, Nfl.com shop. You've made it fashionable to root against the Saints with this ad. Or at least, to root against Saints fans.

A Little Less Hype, and a lot fewer ad buys, would be nice

This is a cute little machine, isn't it? And a cute little commercial, too. Nice effort- after all, it's not easy to find a new angle to sell a very expensive machine ($100-$200, based on a quick glance at online stores) that, let's be honest, does exactly one thing- heats water.

But isn't it going just a shade too far to depict a hot water heater with glowing eyes and the qualities of a Transformer, even sitting up on it's metal haunches, asking "what can I get for you?" and offering you your hot beverage of choice with a metal hand? Because, dammit, in reality this machine does none of those things (if it did, I'd probably buy one, even if it was STILL just a hot water heater.) It heats hot water. Period.

So this "smart little bot" (so smart it "obeys your commands," which means nothing more than when you press a button, it does what the label on the button says it will do- you know, like your microwave, which you'd never refer to as smart) is worth the price- why, again? Not because it has glowing eyes and will hand you your hot drink. Because it doesn't, and it won't. What the hell?

Was this post repetitive? Not as repetitive as this damned commercial, which plays roughly 500 times an hour on MSNBC in the morning. And all to sell us a hot water heater. "What Can I Get For You?" How about a rest from beating me over the head with this?

When is Norelco going to try to sell me an electric razor by depicting Santa Claus using it as a sleigh? I miss that ad. Just thinking out loud.

I Should have gone to Hollywood University!

Sigh.

Once upon a time, there was this magical land called America In The 1980s. Everything was fun back then- we had this amiable actor in the White House, the United States was the Terror and the Hope of the World, gasoline was a dollar a gallon, phones were starting to lose their cords and your Personal Computer from Radio Shack was really cool with it's monochrome screen and floppy disks.

All throughout this magical land, kids graduated from High School and went off to college, which was basically a kind of Earth-bound Paradise, to spend four years swilling beer, playing music by The Cars, Blondie, U2 and Michael Jackson and having lots and lots of sex with stunningly beautiful young women. There were also things called classes, which were supervised by fat, dull and dimwitted versions of your parents. Classes were important to go to because it was the place to find out where the next kegger was and to meet stunningly beautiful women while they were still clothed.

I didn't live in America in the 1980s. The place I lived in had colleges, but they were nothing like the ones I've been seeing on TV and in movies for the past thirty years. Catholic University back then didn't bear much resemblance to the movie version of Revenge of the Nerds, or the TV version for that matter. Maybe Dear Old CUA was just an outlier- except that my High School didn't look a whole lot like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, either. And it sure as hell didn't look anything like "Glory Daze," the television's most recent attempt to feed on the apparently all-but-unanimous theory that college is just a four-year orgy of booze and sex. It's as if screenwriters watched Back to School and figured it was a documentary on campus life in the 1980s.

Hollywood tells me I came of age in the right decade; maybe I just grew up in the wrong country? If that's so, damn you, Mom and Dad!! Look how much fun I could have had if you had just emigrated to America before I hit my teens!! All these college kids I see on the silver screen have more fun in one night than I had in four years!

Look, I'm not complaining all that much. I got a good education in college, spent Fridays at The Dubliner with my girlfriend and my dad's American Express Card, and the Homecoming dances were pretty cool. But if I'm ever reincarnated, I'm rejecting the scholarship and going to Hollywood University. I'm joining one of these frat houses with big impressive Greek letters on the doors. And then I'm spending four years in a dazed stupor, drinking gallons of booze between one-night stands and screaming "PAR-TY!" at the top of my lungs whenever I'm at a party, or just think that it's time to start one.

Next time, I'm doing it right. And I'm doing it to the strains of Crowded House and The Boss. Thank you, Hollywood, for showing me the error of my ways. I only wish Rodney Dangerfield was still with us to provide extra guidance.

A Delightfully Adult-Free Breakfast

There's plenty to hate on here. Check out dad, who at first glance seems perfectly happy to be eating his Honey Nut Cheerios all by himself in his raggedly Old Man Robe- except that he's got a perpetual scowl on his face, insists on angrily jamming his spoon into the cereal (looks to me as if he's bitter that it's not bacon and eggs) and basically acts like a man who is being forced to take his medicine.

Check out son, who for once in these commercials is actually justified in his clear disdain for Dear Old Dad, who in all honesty is acting like a lame drama queen here. Son is not amused by dad's whiny "this is for my heart!" or his "your mom will be crying over my arteries" (what does that even mean, anyway? It sure doesn't sound like Cheerios takes the heart-healthy attributes of it's cereal very seriously.) The "nice speech, dad" is a bit over the top for me- I can't imagine saying such a thing to my dad- but as I implied, this guy almost deserves it.

When the kid finally exits the stage, Dad goes right back to applying Cheerios to his mouth (seriously- it doesn't even look like he's EATING the stuff- just trying to put it away as quickly as possible, so he doesn't have to actually taste it.) The stupid cartoon bee shows up- why? The message of this ad, I think, was that Cheerios is a heart-healthy cereal. Which suggests that it was designed to appeal to adults. Even if the adults it's aimed at are as childish and weird as this guy, do they really need the added come-on of a cartoon bee?

Maybe. Considering that Cheerios makes a practically sugar-free version of it's product (it's called Original Cheerios) and that there are a LOT of cereals out there more "heart-healthy) than this Honey Nut crap, this guy might just need extra incentive to eat a cereal with slightly less sugar than Cap'n Crunch for the sake of his poor arteries. Maybe Honey Nut Cheerios is step three of his five step Heart Health Program- first eggs without bacon, then Cap'n Crunch, then Honey Nut Cheerios, then regular Cheerios, then Grape Nuts?

I'd hate to think of the look on this guy's face when he gets to the Grape Nuts. At least he won't have to worry about having to share it with anyone.