Because Reading just cuts way too much into my surfing time

The YouTube description of this ad reads "a modern retelling (of the Herman Melville Classic "Moby Dick....")

You know, it's bad enough that cellphones are turning us into a nation of drooling illiterates. If you don't want to read, fine. If you want to burn your eyes out of your head staring at a screen, that's fine too. And if you want to spend every free moment of your day fiddling around pointlessly searching for images, videos, etc and sharing them with your equally stupid friends, go for it.

But don't do all that and pretend that you are are engaged in a "retelling" of an American Classic, ok? Unless you think that "Moby Dick" is a story about a ship that travels to the other side of the planet to kill a whale (to the accompaniment of Moby- yes, I get it- not especially clever- and insightful comments like "Ahoy there!" and "Take a picture!") and not about obsession and man's innate need to connect with and understand the universe he finds himself in, this is NOT a retelling of Moby Dick, any more than Disney's Pocahantas was a retelling of the story of Jamestown.

You can make yourself literate by putting in the time required to consume the classics. I'm not a Melville fan- I thought Billy Budd was torture- but I'm not going to stick a DVD of Moby Dick starring Gregory Peck into the player and a few hours later tell myself that I've experienced his signature work. And fucking around with your phone for a few minutes isn't going to make up for that AP Lit class you didn't take in High School, ok?

So make a decision. Be a clueless dumbass who can't walk and chew gum at the same time, but knows how to surf the web on his phone like nobody's business, or put the Short Cut to the Cartoon Version of Life away and pick up a book. See if those synapses are still firing, or have become atrophied with disuse. And don't worry- if it turns out that your brain can no longer absorb complex literary concepts, you can always just say "fuck it" and go back to playing Angry Birds.

eTrade's latest gift to the glue-sniffers who have no idea what stocks are

Let me see if I get this straight: The eTrade babies:

1. Take the Red Eye to and from Bachelor Parties

2. Own Laptops and I Phones with E-trade Apps.

3. Are interested in watching animals have sex (this one REALLY confuses me- so they are infants with the financial sense of adults, and the sexual curiosity of preteens?)

4. Have baby girlfriends ("milkaholics?" Seriously, eTrade? And you want me to trust you with my money?)

Actually, of course, there's only one thing to get straight here: The only thing eTrade is interested in is appealing to the crude lowest common denominator. I simply do not believe that the people who are actual potential customers for this "service" are the SAME people who find these ads even remotely amusing.

So what is happening here? My guess- the population of people out there who use "services" like eTrade smirk and nod at these incredibly stupid, insulting piles of steaming dreck, taking no message from the commercials other than "well, this is what you have to do these days to remind people that you're out there. Whatever."

Meanwhile, a larger population of people who don't have the slightest idea what these babies are talking about (when they are talking about trades) enjoy yukking it up over the OMIGOD SO FUNNY babies and the OMIGOD SO CLEVER things they are saying. That larger population is made up of exceptionally stupid people who really need to grow the hell up. Need to, but won't- because drifting in the warm Sea of Arrested Development is so much more pleasant, not to mention LOL CHECK OUT THAT NEW SHINY THING ROTFLMAO!!

I'll give eTrade this much: It's not often that a company is willing to spend money creating ads targeted at people who will never, ever seek out the service being advertised. But I still have to ask- why babies? Why not monkeys? They can be made to say HILARIOUS things, too. Why not penguins- they are really hot right now. Or geckos- oh wait, I forgot. They are already taken.

But I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now

Boy, was I stupid when I was a kid. I used to jump off of bridges into unfamiliar rivers, just because I saw some local kids doing it. I used to ride my bike down dirt roads and attempt jumps, and never ever wore a helmet. I used to ride my Honda 70 in circles through high fields of grass without a helmet, elbow pads, knee pads, etc.

Sometimes me and my friends would sneak into the Drive-In during a movie and scrounge for soda and beer cans for the five cent deposit. When we went to the theater, we'd always smuggle candy in. When I was sixteen I rolled my grandfather's Volkswagen because I was driving too fast.

I'm so glad those days are over, and now I'm a boring, old, gone-to-seed, obsessed-with-my-heart-health adult who gets his thrills staring at sunsets and riding my bike 2.5 MPH (while equipped with a helmet and knee and ankle pads, of course.) Nowadays I let my students take the risks- like the time I talked that girl into climbing on Jefferson's Rock at Harper's Ferry, strictly against park rules but the only way to get a really good view. I'm sure she deeply regrets taking that risk- or will later, when she's a boring old adult like me.

Yep, thank G-d that those days of taking stupid risks are over. Nothing but skinless chicken, fat-free yogurt, and driving 40 MPH in the center lane for me, from now on. And since life without risks is So Worth Living, I'm going to trust my heart to Lipitor.

Because when every day is risk-free and predictable, you want the days to keep coming. Right?

It's the end of the world as we know it

I was on the Red Line yesterday, finishing up a very nice day spent walking into Washington DC from the Maryland suburbs and then visiting the museum of American Art and the American History Museum. Because it was a day ending in the letter "y," the trains were running painfully slowly, sharing tracks, etc. etc. ETC.

So after almost 15 minutes of waiting on a cold platform, the train shows up. It's crowded, but I've seen worse. I get aboard and I find a place to stand (I never sit on the train, ever. Maybe it's a phobia. Maybe it's because I think I'll fall asleep and miss my stop. Maybe I just like to burn calories when I can.)

A guy standing five feet from me is listening to an I-Pod, using those stupid earbuds which I think were created to make it easier for the people around you to detect your taste in music, and to enjoy it (or not) along with you. He might as well have been using no headphones at all. I walked to the other end of the car to get away from the "music," and instead spent the rest of the 12-minute ride listening to a 13-year old kid carry on a conversation with someone on his cell phone and trying to stuff the term "motherfucker" into each sentence as many times as possible. (Children are our future, but there are some glaringly obvious exceptions to the rule.)

Where am I going with all this? Oh yeah- this commercial. Please tell me what kind of OBNOXIOUS, SELFISH ASSHAT needs a phone with SURROUND SOUND?? Hey AT&T- despite your best efforts, some of us are STILL TRYING TO LIVE IN A SOCIETY HERE!!! I know that in all these "connectivity" commercials, headphones are a no-no, as you and your ilk attempt to create a world in which wall-to-wall noise is the norm (along with the complete banishing of the concept of privacy and personal space) but a CELL PHONE WITH SURROUND SOUND??

Why do you hate us so much, AT&T? Is this about that government-ordered breakup forty years ago? Because believe me, if it were possible, there are some of us who would gladly go back in time and warn the government to keep it's hands off of Ma Bell. After all, back in the evil days of the Phone Monopoly, all we had to deal with was huge, heavy, clunky, ugly phones and overpriced, poor service. These pale in comparison to the evils inflicted upon us by the Pandora's Box of Competition- video cameras, internet connectivity, and the creation of a generation of brain-dead half-wits who simply cannot function without their electronic best friends. But at least until now, the dwindling number of us people who are Just Trying To Have a Society Here could just shake our heads and ignore these dim bulbs (at least, when they weren't cutting us off in traffic or carrying on conversations everywhere and anywhere, "Ruling the Air," as it were.)

It's only a matter of time now before we have people and their competing Personal Stereo Systems blasting us out of trains, libraries, bookstores, parks, theaters, etc thanks to this amazing new breakthrough in Surround Sound Technology. Thanks a lot, AT&T, for making me nostalgic for the days of Annoying Ring Tones.

PS- you're going to burn in hell for this, you know. Hope the memory of having lots of money during that eyeblink you were on Earth makes the eternity of pain and suffering worth it.

An Open Letter to the Miller Brewing Company

I know you want to sell beer. I know that you beer companies ran out of fresh ideas on HOW to sell bear roughly thirty years ago. And I know that times are tough, and no doubt your CEOs have passed down the word that actual "writers" are not to be hired when creating scripts for your ads.

And yes, I realize that these ads don't include beer-crazed lunatics who live in houses made entirely of full cans. I realize that they don't involve guys bungee-jumping to steal beer, assholes asking questions of long-retired NFL coaches, or guys disdaining sex in favor of appreciating beer cases with "windows" and color-changing cans.

But still- the Hot Bartender with Zero Social Skills bit has gotten really, really old. First, bartenders simply don't ask questions like "do you want a beer that tastes great or like shit?" Second, last time I checked, bartenders didn't pimp one brand exclusively while angrily dismissing all others. Third, I don't care HOW hot the bartender is- these people work almost exclusively on tips, and it's kind of hard to get tips from people you've openly mocked for the hideous crime of not knowing what brand of light beer they want.

I mean, come on. It's one thing for the bartender to helpfully suggest a Miller Lite when the customer doesn't have a clue. It's another thing ENTIRELY for the bartender to openly question the customer's manhood, style of dress, or relationship with his mother. Yes, I am sure that there are a lot of people out there who think these bartenders are being funny. Those people are called morons, and they have my contempt, and they richly deserve it. (And if they think this situation would be funny in real life, they are used to being the object of contempt.)

So please, enough. What these bartenders are doing to their customers is stupid, and demeaning, and insulting to my intelligence (not insulting to the intelligence of YouTube bottom-feeders, because it's hard to insult what simply isn't there.) I want to see more Bartender Makes Customer Look Stupid Because He Answered Question Incorrectly ads about as much as I want to see a return of Punch Dub Days.

But all is forgiven if this horrid ad campaign raps up with a Superbowl Commercial featuring an insulted customer who snaps and torches the bar, leaving the offending bartender to go back to her old job pole-dancing. That might even be worth an LOL on YouTube's comment thread.

Come on, Miller. I dare you. Man Up!!

(BTW, please note that for the hil-ARIOUS punchline to be set up, the guy in the "skinny jeans" has to ask "is the score still 30-32?" Nobody talks like that- unless, of course, he's required to to set up a stupid closing "joke." Another fail, Miller Lite.)

It's a long fall from electing Presidents to chastizing annonymous viewers, isn't it?

Full disclosure: I am not a Mason. Technically, as a baptized Roman Catholic, I'm not supposed to join a lodge or participate in any of its functions. In fact, I have friends who are Masons, my ex-brother in law is a Mason, and I attended a "get to know us" dinner at the local lodge last year. I have absolutely nothing negative to say about Freemasons; every single one I've met has impressed me as being a fine, upstanding human being.

Full disclosure, part II: I've always been kind of interested in the political arm of Freemasonry. My Master's Thesis, which sucked two years away from my life some twenty years ago (it was researched without the help of the as-yet-uninvented internet, and typed on a computer with a very limited word processing program) was entitled The Anti-Masonic Party in Massachusetts, 1826-1835. Yes, it was a real page-turner, thanks for asking.

All this being said, this commercial inspires in me more sadness than anything else. I mean, isn't this the organization which once elected Presidents, appointed judges, manipulated the world currencies and carried out the occasional assassination? How do you go from giving Queen Elizabeth, Czar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilhelm their marching orders to hiring a bad Ben Franklin impersonator to beg for recruits? Come on- aren't these the same guys who embedded the Secrets of the Universe in Benjamin Bannaker's blueprint for Washington, DC (you don't think that the Washington Monument is 555 ft high by ACCIDENT, do you?) So what the heck?

Back to the ad- I wish this guy had just been out front with what is obviously the subliminal message- "are you man enough to help us regain control of the planet, manipulating everything from the price of gas to the winner of the next American Idol competition along the way?" Because if he had-- Catholic Church or no Catholic Church, sign me up!!

On second thought, don't sign me up- based on that episode of The Simpsons back in the 90s, I think I'd rather join the Stonecutters. Maybe they don't control the UN or the Federal Reserve, but they've done a great job keeping the Metric System down and the martians under wraps.

The sound of empty calories (except, not really)

1. From a distance of 100 yards, you know what is being sold out of this vending machine. What an eyesore. At least when you are surrounded by Kit Kats while on the Chocolate Ride at Hersheypark, you are distracted by the singing cows.

2. Are Kit Kats popular, or are they just the only thing the employees of this company can buy without going off-site? I mean, there are no other candies in the whole freaking machine. I guess if you need a quick empty calorie sugar fix, Kit Kats are ok. And I guess that in this building, they are going to have to be.

3. Kit Kats don't make this much noise. In fact, when you break them or bite into them, they make almost no noise at all. Eating popcorn is louder. Kit Kats are slightly noisier than Snickers bars. Why would being noisy be a selling point anyway? This reminds me of the old Pringles commercials, where we saw people jugging the empty cans- what does this have to do with the quality of the chocolate, people??

4. If Kit Kats WERE this noisy, they'd probably be banned in the workplace. After all, how can I listen to fantasy football updates on my cell phone over this kind of racket?

5. Kit Kats don't taste all that good. Like most mass-manufactured chocolates, the texture is chalky, and the wafers are bland and rather flavorless. Which might explain why one guy seems intent on jamming the stuff down his pie hole as quickly as possible.

5. Has anyone over the age of six ever made the choice of a candy bar based on a commercial?

What is it about this commercial that would encourage anyone to buy a Kit Kat Bar? There are no boxes of Kit Kats on moving belts, no chocolate-churning machines, no narration concerning the Amazing Cocoa Bean. Not even a singing cow.

Not even ONE.