You Make The Call

What's the most obnoxious, pointless thing about this commercial?

That this guy tells us he got this credit card and "immediately began earning points?" "Earning points," of course, means "spending money." Earning= Spending. Horatio Alger must be rolling in his grave.

That this guy TOLD his friends that he bought the weather balloon with his points? "You bought a weather balloon with points!?" "Yes, I did." I can only hope that the next line, carefully edited out, was "jesus, what selfish dumbass you are - where you not aware that you could have donated them to charity instead of buying this stupid little toy?"

That the conclusion of this commercial is rife with the All-Too-Predictable shouts of joy and the most fake laughs I've ever heard from this guy and his equally-unshaven idiot friends?

That what should have been the REAL conclusion was cut out- the "Ok, Now What?" that at least ONE of these guys should have uttered after watching the video from the weather balloon's attached camera? I mean, seriously- where do these guys go from here? Hey, I've got an idea- head down to the nearest bar and order a round of Miller Lites. Put them on the card- gotta start building those "thank you points" back up, after all.

Actually, I'll offer this- the repeated "what is this song I love this song I need help what is this song I need this song" posts from the YouTube glue-sniffers. Which continue even after one of these drooling idiots posts the name of the song. Hey YouTube zombies- Literate Much?

No, it's not PC. The word I'd use is "gross." Maybe "sad."

What's almost heartbreaking about this commercial is it's utter believability. This is a scene I've come pretty close to witnessing almost every time I take a long walk- "adult" glued to a screen which can now (unfortunately for the kids who, finding themselves mysteriously existing, haven't figured out that the large person who feeds and clothes them considered his/her job completed the moment they became zygotes) be brought along for "quality time" with the spawn. Hey kids- mom and/or dad are in the vicinity, shouldn't that be good enough?

Anyway, this guy wants to go out for the evening with the person he chose to fertilize eggs with. Fine, nothing wrong with that. Looks like they've got themselves a babysitter. But the barnacle babies aren't all that willing to let zombie dad go just yet- gee, maybe they are just tired of being treated like unwelcome virus germs who have no business interfering with this guy's life? Rather than just assure the adorable little ones that Mommy and Daddy just want some Us Time and will almost certainly be back when they wake up in the morning, Daddy sets up the next generation to treat technology like a pain-killing drug. No Daddy? No problem- here's Sponge Bob, on a convenient, transportable flat screen. A few short years ago, I guess, the hilarious solution would have been Daddy sticking a DVD into the machine- and I can't for the life of me understand why this is better, especially when you consider that kids are a lot less likely to accidentally download pornography from a DVD player....

This commercial reminds me of the one I did a few years back featuring Owen Wilson's brother, where he provides instant electronic entertainment in the form of a downloadable cartoon for the benefit of a harried dad who must (horrors!) entertain his kid for a few seconds while Mommy's in the restroom. Both are absolutely despicable in suggesting that the best way to deal with children is to hypnotize them with the newest version of the Idiot Box. Because hey, it works for the "adults" just fine.

Come to think of it, I wonder why these people even got a Babysitter. Or why, if they think that a Babysitter is so important, they don't bring her along when they take their kids to the park. After all, those annoying brats aren't going to be trained to do nothing but watch TV without some serious effort- and until that blessed day arrives, SOMEONE should be watching them while they do things like, I don't know, RUN AND PLAY.

Come to think of it, maybe they just LOOK like models compared to the other people in the barn

I guess the message of this commercial is that if you want to meet good-looking, handsome guys or beautiful, available young women, the place to do it is at an all-you-can-eat-for-$3.99 feed bin.

Sure, this makes sense. We all know that the really attractive, smart, successful people love to hang out at places which encourage them to gorge on carbs until they slip into comas. You might not be able to spot them, as they use the massive, sweaty, middle-aged, poorly-educated and Stupid With The Little Money They Do Have slobs also there as camouflage.

In this particular ad, we have the hot girls (one white, one black- this is television, after all) checking out the Zoosk-level guys making stupid decisions designed to rob them of their looks in record time. I have to admit that I had to watch this idiotic nub of an ad three times before I could figure out what Bianca was saying (I only understand English) but I finally got that she's brought her White Friend to Cicis to "find her a guy." (Yes, because hot blondes have to really struggle to meet guys.)

Ok, let's stop right there. Cicis is the place to find a guy if you are a hot woman in your early 20s? I had no idea. I thought Cicis was the place to find a guy if you were a middle-aged, fat welfare mom looking for a lonely, heart-disease afflicted middle-aged man with equally empty pockets.

"This isn't the first time I've been to the endless pizza buffet" assures Bianca. Well, that may be so, but I'm willing to bet you don't spend a lot of time actually eating there. The White Girl is super-impressed that the Black Girl can figure out what kind of pizza the guy they are staring at is going to take, using nothing but the fact that the guy has already stopped in front of that pizza. Wow, she should get a job at the Psychic Hotline. Well, this is a lot healthier than actually eating, so I can't snark on their little hobby all that much.

They speculate on whether the last guy is "taken" moments before he asks if the chair at their table is "taken." Naturally the guy is going to sit down and enjoy his pizza and pasta and cinnamon buns and all the other garbage Cicis has to offer in front of these ogling idiots. So he's figured out that Cicis is the place to find hot girls, too- hot girls who like hot guys who like to eat lukewarm crap. And are cheap. Wonderful.

And we can speculate that this guy will now offer to buy these girls a drink at the All You Can Guzzle Serve Yourself soda fountain. How sweet and romantic.

BTW, I don't care what this commercial is trying to imply- I'm pretty damned sure we won't be finding America's Next Top Model at Cicis. America's next Biggest Loser, perhaps.

Because there's nothing more annoying than steady work!

I can SO relate to this ad, and I'm sure most of my audience can relate to it as well. Who among us hasn't experienced the hassle that comes with being hired for a gig which ends up taking much longer than you thought it would?

And all the headaches that such a situation creates- bigger paycheck, longer time away from the unemployment line, time that could have been spent sitting on the couch watching tv wondering where the rent money was going to come from....I think we can all agree, days and days of work with it's attached salary is a royal pain.

And the unexpectedly extended bouts of non-unemployment always involve jobs like the one this woman has- on some glamorous, exotic foreign site, surrounded by actors doing really cool things. This is SO like every extra job I've ever picked up- well, except that my extra jobs always involve afternoons spent tutoring or proctoring an untimed SAT, but other than the lack of cool locations and interesting people and ships blowing up, it really looks just exactly like this.

Ok, enough snark. I really don't want to hear any more pathetic "oh thank goodness I have this credit card which won't penalize me if I can't arrange a monthly payment because I'm being paid to be on some tropical island longer than I anticipated" whining from this woman. Hey lady, almost ten percent of the freaking country is UNEMPLOYED, and even many who have jobs are having a hard time wrestling with their credit card balances. I'm guessing that your "problem" isn't really connecting with a lot of us, or generating a lot of sympathy. I think we'd rather hear you say something like "I am so grateful that what I thought would be a three day job turned into three weeks, this will really help my bank account!" Or at least "It's so cool that what I do for a living gives me a chance to visit such interesting locales and meet with such fascinating people!"

And if you can't manage that, I'd advise you to just STFU. I'd tell you where you can put your Chase "Simplicity" (groan) card, but I'm way too polite to go there.

If your fingers are stained with Cheetos rather than blood and dirt....

Are actual predator drones being used to kill innocent civilians, with the occasional actual terrorist victim thrown in?

If the people on the screen get their heads blown off, do they reappear later without a scratch? Are they serving their third, fourth, fifth or sixth tour of duty?

Do the people on the screen have families back home living on food stamps and other government assistance?

Are VA hospitals being filled with amputees who, if they ever are released back into the real world, will find it extremely difficult to find jobs in a nation with 9% unemployment run by two parties determined to out-do each other in cutting benefits while spending billions on pointless wars?

Are those same hospitals- facing cuts themselves, of course- becoming overwhelmed with trauma and depression cases?

Does the result of the violence you see on the screen lead to grieving spouses, boyfriends and girlfriends? Does it create a population of orphans on two continents?

Is the action on the screen destroying the economies of at least two nations? Does it require that at least one of those nations make deep rends in the social safety net, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in order to keep it going? In short, does what we are viewing require that one nation empty it's treasury into a bottomless pit, while another nation is returned to the stone age?

If you answered "no, of course not" to all of the above, then the answer is quite simple: This is not Real.

I swear, if one-tenth of you Gamer losers would drop your fucking joysticks and head down to the nearest recruitment center, we could conquer the world.

The Kindle, Reconsidered. Reinvented. Ruined.

I've long sung the praises of the Kindle over at Amazon.com and on this blog site. I think it's an amazing invention, and it's reinvigorated a love of reading for an entire generation. My father got one in the spring of 2010, and by the end of that year I had one, as did both of my brothers and a niece. I have never heard anyone who owns a Kindle say anything remotely negative about it. To date I have downloaded more than 150 books, and receive The Nation on my Kindle every week.

This summer, I read a heartwarming article concerning the impact of e-books on middle school students. The gist of the article was how the e-book phenomenon was igniting a real love of reading in kids aged 11-14; these kids were excited about reading because they could download books themselves and carry their libraries around with them. It was so gratifying to read about kids in love with a device which actually helped them develop and expand their vocabularies, not to mention their imaginations.

However, the article ended on a bit of a sour note- it included a mention of coming "innovations" in e-book technology, including the inclusion of media, including streaming video. Suddenly a red flag came up, and I thought "Uh oh, here we go again....a useful piece of technology is about to go the way of the radio and the television and the telephone and pretty much every other invention which seems so promising and beneficial at first, and become dumbed down and more of a toy than a learning tool...."

A few months later, my worst fears have come to pass. Introducing the Kindle Fire, which yes, still offers downloadable e-books. But look, now it's in color. And now there's video to look at- because why should Kindles be just for people who like to read? In fact, it's hard to see how this new device is distinguishable from the I Pad or the hand-held television or a modern cell phone. Don't like to read? Well, no problem- watch shows and movies! Look at pretty pictures! The New Kindle- Because Kindles aren't just for the literate anymore!

Clearly, the owners of the Kindle brand were sick of being locked out of the massive dullard market which catered to Americans who simply will not be convinced that reading can be fun, and will only buy electronics that cater to their mouth-breathing, cotton-candy-for-brains need to have stimulation poured into their eyes and ears, no individual effort required. I guess I should have seen this coming when my students, after asking to look at my Kindle, kept attempting to turn pages by rubbing the screen, and then responded with contempt at the news that no, there are these buttons on the side you have to use. What? I can't do anything by just touching the screen? I have to push a BUTTON? Ugh, when is this thing going to get into the 21st century?

Well, now the Kindle IS in the 21st century. I suspect that in a few months, when I see people with Kindles at the gym and riding the subway, they'll be WATCHING, not reading. And kids who wanted a Kindle so that they could download books will now sneer at the old models and demand one with color graphics, a touchable screen, and video streaming capability. Oh, and it lets you download books, too? Um, that's nice. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to playing "Angry Birds."

We ALWAYS do this. The Film Industry once relied on charm and grace and good scripts to sell movies- now it just culls the archives of Marvel Comics or produces sequels, the ruder and more crass the better. Television was once bland and inoffensive at worst- today you are better off letting your kids play in traffic than be exposed to what passes as "entertainment" during what was once called the "family hour." E-books were once a way to access....well, books. Now they are just another example of electronic popcorn, with no nutritional value. Or will be, very soon.

Ah well, it was nice while it lasted. At least by this time next year, I won't have kids bugging me to look at my lame, no-graphics, no-color Kindle. I can't find it in my heart to thank you, though, Kindle. Because your product really didn't need improvement- and this is NOT an improvement.

The word "man" being used very loosely here...

Can someone PLEASE just kill these two fat losers? I mean, really- they are actually challenging each other's "manliness," using their willingness to construct their "lives" around playing a stupid, utterly pointless video game as the measuring stick.

Fat Slob No. 1 is in Wal Mart's parking lot at the moment that this new, brain-numbing, Pretend To Be Somehow Connected To Actual Soldiers offering by the soulless cretins who somehow managed to pick up the baton dropped by the last generation of game developers, who gave us silly, fun nonsense like Donkey Kong and Frogger. Fat Slob # 1 is convinced that because he picked up Battlefield 3 as soon as it was available (does anyone admit to doing this in real life?) he is more of a Man than Fat Slob # 2.

Ah, but wait one moment- Fat Slob # 2 has driven his mobile home, furnished with several large HD TVs, to the Wal Mart, saving himself that painful ride that most of us have to take back to our residences before we can play with our brand new toys. Fat Slob # 2 calls the mobile home his "Man Cave." Fat Slob # 1 and Fat Slob # 2 now engage in a dick-measuring contest, except that it's all about video games. Considering the importance these "men" place in video games, not to mention the double chins and expanding waistlines that no doubt come with the "Gamer" lifestyle, I'm not especially surprised that their view of what a "Man" is has nothing to do with Women.

(As a quick aside, let's update what "manliness" means in tv commercials these days: To be a man, one must a) treat women like crap, b) wear wrinkled shirts that are never tucked in, c) shave no more often than every fourth day, d) drink Miller Lite, and e) buy the latest "Look Mom I'm a Soldier" video game the moment it becomes available at Wal Mart. Glad I could help.)

Anyway, back to these disgusting, fat, loathsome wastes of skin. I am really looking forward to the day when the games that make up the center of their existence are available through quick downloads, so they never have to leave their "man caves" and blight the lives of us non-"Gamers" with their pasty, sweaty, Refuse to Shower Until I've Reached Level Four presence in the real world. And you know what? I bet they are, too.