In the end, we'll all be working here

First, let me express how impressed I am at the ability of this advertisement to capture the truly agonizing, painful, hopeless experience of having to work for the bloodless corporate giant that is Wal-Mart.

Confronted by a customer who has found a lower price on the cheap, Made in China item she's interested in purchasing because she hasn't received a raise in salary in eleven years and has long since given up hope of ever buying Quality again, we get roughly 200 Wal Mart drones bleating "Match It!" Each of these zombies seems to be enjoying their moment of delusion, as they pretend that they have some say in the policy they are promoting, or how it is enforced. Of course, in real life, none of these sad little worker ants has any authority whatsoever, and in fact are more likely to be chastised later by a manager who happened to see them on a security camera saying something other than "can I get that for you?," "you'll be wanting the extended warranty with that," or simply "Welcome to Wal-Mart" during business hours.

The "associate" who has been confronted with the lower price gives a mock "thank you" to her fellow Grateful to be Making Minimum Wage God I Once Had Such Aspirations How Did It Come To This apron wearers as she confirms that yes, Wal Mart's policy is to never, ever let any small business offer a lower price- after all, the principle goal of this environment-raping, community-pillaging, middle class-gutting behemoth is to push all such companies completely out of existence, leaving a world in which prices don't HAVE to be matched, because the only source of ALL consumables is your local Mall In A Box.

Enjoy the low prices for cheap crap while it lasts, America. Don't forget to stop by on the way home to grab a coffee at that new Starbucks which just opened at the site of the old hardware/furniture/grocery store you helped drive out of business because it couldn't match Wal-Mart. What a nation of selfish, penny-wise and pound-foolish idiots we are.

Here We Go, Again

Before I start trashing this nasty little bit of cross-promotion (light beer and cell phones in the same ad- wow, that's like winning the lottery. If the grand prize were a pile of elephant dung, that is) let me point out that there's a perfectly reasonable answer to the first idiot's "hey, we're out of Bud Lite" comment. That answer is "yeah? So? Drink something else" or "who's stopping you from going on a beer run?"

Instead, we get the Not At All Clever sight of the party's host (I guess) downloading some App which allows him to pour out an endless supply of light beer, causing his guests to burst into a massive orgasm of beer-consuming bliss (again, I guess- as in all beer commercials, we never actually see anyone drink this stuff.)

In no time at all, everyone at this rooftop extravaganza is dancing around and hooting with delight at the virtual waterfalls of beer (including a preposterous pyramid of excess normally reserved for champagne.) The lucky owner of the App is especially popular, as a beer-enamored blonde has latched on to him, attracted by his ability to conjure up watery yet still calorie-dense liquid. And then we get the punchline, as a Not Alpha Male guest stares discontentedly at his own cell phone and wishes he had one capable of downloading such a cool App.

So this ad is for Bud Lite- even if we didn't see any cans or bottles, we know this because of the trademarked "Here We Go," which can't be replaced as Bud's tagline soon enough for this blogger. But it's also for phones which have access to the App Store- after all, wouldn't it have been just as easy to have this guy take a photo of a bottle of beer, make it his wallpaper, and then magically pour it out for his friends? Instead, we get the worst of both worlds- annoying, loud, beer-swilling doofuses enabled in their asshattery by a super cool cell phone App. All that's left is for someone to get punched in the stomach as a Volkswagen filled with idiots eating Subway sandwiches drives by.

It's only a matter of time.

NoLife.com

Here are a few signs that maybe, just MAYBE, you've got an internet addiction problem:

5. You are watching an episode of a tv show on Hulu which you've already watched twice and is available On Demand from your cable company.

4. You've done a search to determine exactly how many 7-11s are within reasonable driving distance from your house.

3. You've looked at your parking lot on GoogleEarth for the fourth time this week.

2. You've "refreshed" your FaceBook page ten times in the last ten minutes, hoping for a Notification to pop up.

And the number one sign that you MAY have an internet addiction problem: You find yourself asking "gee, I wonder if anyone is attempting to stalk me on the internet?"

"Who is looking for me?" Ok, there are two possible answers, neither of which is very attractive. You either find out that someone from your past that you really don't care to see ever again is trying to find you and is still too stupid to just use Facebook or Google. Or, you get the perhaps even more depressing news that the reason why you don't have more "friends" is NOT because the swarm of eager would-be acquaintances can't find you. It's because they don't exist.

So, my advice to this lady- get up and exit your weirdly glowing, eerily clean little study. Go spend some time with real people, if you happen to know any. Live in the Here and Now- not some fantasy world where you are enormously sought-after, if only all those people who long to renew connections knew how to use Google or Facebook.

Because seriously, if you think it's good news that people from your past are "looking for you," that's just really sad. If you insist on staying online, I suggest that it would be healthier for you to check the status of your parking lot on Google Earth again, or make sure a new 7-11 hasn't opened a bit closer to your house.

Or just stay a really sad, lonely, deluded weirdo. Either way. It's your life, if we can really call it that.

More Nastiness from Kraft

An adorable girl is sitting at a vast dinner table, with her back to a wall seemingly made completely out of glass, holding her frighteningly large head in her hand, complaining about the quality of the dinner her Valium-addled mommy has provided her with THIS time.

Judging from her stick arms, it's easy to believe that this girl is being absolutely sincere in her complaint that mommy pretty much never serves Kraft Mac 'n Cheese at this dinner table. After all, if the little girl were able to live her fantasy and shove "Kraft mac 'n cheese down my pie hole," I suspect that she'd be a lot--umm, more filled out, to put it delicately. Instead, she's "forced" to "push her food around to make it look like she's eating it," because that food is so very NOT orange pasta, cheese and salt product.

Judging from mom's reaction to the food-pushing, uncommunicative, bizarrely sitting-on-the-same-side-of-the-table-as-mommy daughter's lack of appetite, Conversation is not a regular part of the dinner experience. Mommy sees no issue with Daughter's staring blankly with a look of mild despair on her face; the food on her plate has been re-arranged, which means she must be enjoying it, so here's some more food for her to push around.

Taken as a whole, this nasty little slice of life is pretty typical of the offerings from Kraft Mac 'n Cheese these days, with a slight difference. Instead of the usual nasty little brat being indulged with forkful after forkful of the featured junk, this time we've got at least one sensible, responsible person showing a bit of concern over teaching proper, healthy eating habits to their offspring. Naturally that person is the clueless bad guy, standing in the way of Daughter's calorie-rich, nutrient-poor fantasy dinner.

Like cell phone commercials which seem to celebrate social detachment and outright rudeness, the message of this ad- that attempting to actually COOK food for your kids is a stupid waste of time which will only lead them to mock you- just makes me wonder why the makers of these spots hate society so much. Are they still trying to get over that childhood which seemed dominated by spinach and beet greens, and which featured way too few trips to the McDonald's Drive Thru window?

If so, can I suggest therapy? Or a final, cathartic confrontation with Mom and Dad? Is it too much to ask you guys to keep the scars of your upbringing out of your commercials, and stop trying to convince us Kids Know Best when it comes to proper nutrition?

And seriously, what IS it with this kid's head, anyway? Is that an allergic reaction to whatever mom put on her plate, or what?

The Biggest Losers

I really don't want to trash Weight Watchers here- I understand a lot of people struggle with their weight, and if you can make money convincing people that you have the answer to their problems, well, good for you.

No, I don't want to trash Weight Watchers, or Jenny Craig, or any of those other Weight Loss organizations which have probably helped thousands of people who simply cannot lose the excess pounds without the (largely imaginary) assistance of a giant corporation.

Still, I don't get how an obsession with "points" which extends to choosing light beer over dark (better tip: stop drinking beer) and grilling (better tip: cut out meat- it's better for you, the environment, and the animals) really teaches anyone to embrace a healthy lifestyle (as opposed to simply dumping a lot of weight momentarily.)

I also don't get why losing weight is still being treated like rocket science by so many people. Well, ok, actually I do: because treating weight loss as if it's some kind of mystery which can only be solved through an expensive, complicated program keeps a lot of people confused, bewildered, and willing to part with their hard-earned cash in search of the magic bullet.

I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one online. But there's nothing mysterious about what we need to do to stop being the most disgustingly obese nation on the planet. We need to stop eating so much damn meat- it's unnecessary, it's fatty, and it's cruel. We need to eat more green plants and fruit. We need to eat a LOT more whole grains and a LOT less bread. We need to stop consuming dairy products as if we're afraid that we'll hurt the feelings of the cows we have imprisoned on corporate "farms" (it would be more accurate to call them concentration camps for bovines.) We need to drink a LOT more water. And we need to stop Gaming and Texting and Tweeting and just plain SITTING and start MOVING AROUND MORE.

Sorry if this sounded preachy, but watching these idiots on tv crow about their "success" at emptying their pockets into the vast bank accounts over at Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, etc. etc. ETC. is really irritating, because all those companies do is sell a product which is free to people with a little common sense.

Oh, and here's a message to the guy who is so proud that he's no longer a sweaty, greasy slob: Maybe you look better than your friends. But I look better than you. No, I didnt' lose 160 pounds. But that's because I never had to.

And I didn't give Weight Watchers a dime.

Eat that.

People Suck. Technology Rocks. Message Received and Understood.

Moral of pretty much every advertisement featuring I-Pads, Smart Phones, Laptops and Blackberries: People are boring, and will suck the life right out of you with their insistence on attempting to make conversation unless you are armed with an electronic device strong enough to ward them off.

Now, of course, pretty much everyone has a cell phone these days which provides some level of protection from this annoying but thankfully dying societal expectation that when someone attempts to start a conversation with you, you are at least polite about it, even if you don't want to--oh, I don't know- take the opportunity to perhaps make a friend, or at least show some interest in the lives of the other sapiens who share the planet with you. Now you can stare at the little screen as you update your Facebook page, download videos (if you have surround sound, you get to share that video with everyone in the room, you choad) and otherwise pretend to be by yourself.

But HBO Now takes your determination to build a cocoon around yourself to a new level. Now you can whip out your I-Pad and watch violent movies, sex-driven series, and expletive-dominated comedy shows while sitting in your doctor's office, on the train, in the park, or anywhere else you were once in danger of coming into contact with (ewww) other people.

And it's a very good thing. Because later this evening, when the woman with the I Pad is asked by her significant other (assuming they concede the necessity of a conversation now and then) "how did the day go?", she can grunt something about being able to watch her favorite HBO programming while waiting for her appointment, not about this nice, though rather shy and socially awkward, woman she met and ended up reaching out to. Maybe she'll even express relief that she had HBO Go because OMIGOD THIS OTHER WOMAN THERE WAS SO BORING AND SHE KEPT TRYING TO TALK TO ME.

So thank you, HBO and Apple, for making that wall just a little bit higher, and that cocoon a little bit stronger. Now please, just once, show someone using ear buds while using one of your society-dissolving products. Consider it an early Christmas present.

The Death of Shame

I really thought I had seen it all when, twenty years ago, I saw Desert Storm Commemorative Plates being hawked on late night tv. Then, about ten years later, I again thought the bottom had been reached with the "layered in 24 carat gold" coin featuring the majestic image of the lost Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, "majestically rising from the surface of the coin with the press of the thumb."

Repulsive, but with a silver lining- it couldn't get any worse, right?

Wrong.

Here's "the New England Mint" with it's contribution to our current orgy of fist-pumping, back-slapping and hooting, brought on by the extra-legal execution of a foreign national by a hit team which took place in a sovereign nation-- a sovereign nation which was allegedly our ally, at that. The narrator is apparently reading off the latest version of the hit (I wonder how many times the script had to be changed before the New England Mint decided to go ahead with this one, figuring that anyone who would buy this crap couldn't care less anyway.) There's the usual flag-waving jingoistic "we killed the suspect, so Justice Has Been Done because Might makes Right when it's being yielded by the USA or it's allies" pablum leading up to the Awesome Opportunity to own a piece of tin "layered" in gold (snigger-seriously, what kind of idiot thinks that there's more than a grain of gold on this thing? Oh yeah- the kind of idiot who would want to own garbage like this.)

Anyway, if you aren't sold on the idea of adding this "piece of history" to your growing pile of dust-collecting trinkets, there are these cool extras designed to draw you in-- check out the "Wanted" poster, created especially for this commercial, in mint condition (because- were you listening?- it was printed up JUST for this commercial.) And if you are STILL hesitating, here's the standard Certificate of Authenticity. This never fails to crack me up- what is being "authenticated" here? That the coin you receive is actually the coin being advertised? Wow, awesome. Because the only thing more worthless than this stupid Not Even Heavy Enough to Be a Decent Paperweight late-night tv offering is an "unauthentic" knock off, I guess.

I'm sure the New England mint has a built-in customer base for this stuff, and have a good idea of exactly how many they'll be selling. These guys aren't stupid- I bet they never end up with a warehouse of plates, posters, Civil War chess sets or coins.

I would throw one little caveat into the mix, however. This coin features the face of the current president of the United States on one side. I'm not absolutely positive, but I suspect that the people in the market for this junk are not big fans of his. I wonder if Obama's face on one side might depress sales a bit. If I were working for the New England Mint, I think I'd offer a cheap frame to go with it, and remind my potential customers that they get to choose which side to display.

I don't know why, but I suspect that in homes featuring this coin, the Majestic Image of the Seal Team Six logo, not that of the President, is prominently displayed- right next to the Stormin' Norman commemorative plates and the War on Terror deck of cards made out of cheap tin- layered in gold, of course.