I suspect that the wink is an "only kidding" disclaimer. Am I right, PC Matic?

There are about a dozen "different" ads for this BS PC "protection" program called "PCMatic."  I'm willing to bet good money that the product being sold is remarkably similar to CleanMyPC.com, FinallyFast.com, and all the other phony Anti Their Virus, Pro Our Virus downloads being offered on Cheap TV.

In this one, blithering moron daughter is clearly being paid a certain amount of money every time she manages to say "PCMatic.com."  Seriously, she jams it into pretty much every other sentence.  She knows everything there is to know about the product- how to get it, what it costs, and what it promises to do (except, she doesn't say it promises to do all this stuff, but that it DOES.)  Dad is equal parts clueless about his computer and unjustifiably angry at the "kid" at the "computer store" who loaded his actual, non-BS virus protection (more about this later.)

Dad's certainly a dunce here, and it's hard to get a handle on his level of computer efficacy.  He's dumb enough to be quickly talked into buying and installing a Fly by Night anti-virus program instead of just going back to "that kid" who probably sold him a warranty too.  But he's hip enough to have a Facebook page.  Then again, his Facebook name is "Gramps27."  So let's leave dad alone for now and get back to Idiot Daughter.

Slobbering, scary-eyed daughter chirps manically about this amazing "new" program that finds viruses which are not there and then installs new viruses sponsored by PCMatic.com.  Ok, she doesn't actually say any of that- that would be too honest.  Which makes us wonder what she's got against Dad.   Because while she's babbling away like a wind up toy she's also downloading a world of hurt on to poor Dad's laptop.  I'm sure he'll thank you later, honey- that is, if he decides to  blame all the PC issues you've just handed him on "that kid at the computer store."

The commercial ends with Dad rushing off to the "computer store," presumably to tear "that kid" a new one over his ridiculous insistence on installing Norton Anti-Virus protection instead of REAL security like PCMatic.com.   Which means that Dad is about to become the laughingstock of the "computer store"- that is, after "that kid" and his coworkers quietly explain that Daughter has just voided the warranty on Dad's PC.   And after they quietly offer to clean the mess PCMatic has just left all over Dad's computer- for a price.

And now I'll sit back and wait for some spokesperson from PCMatic.com to accuse me of exercising my First Amendment Rights.   They hate when that happens.

(BTW, Happy Father's Day to all the real dads out there.  Count the fact that this woman is not your daughter among your blessings.)

You used to try to imagine what kind of dope would buy something from the SkyMall magazine

First part of this commercial is distressingly familiar- upon announcement that the flight's departure will be delayed, everyone on the plane whips out their cell phones. 

Actually, let me take that back- this isn't familiar at all.  The plane is sitting on the ground.  The passengers have not been asked four times to turn off their phones.  Yet, not one of them were yakking or texting away when the announcement concerning the delay came over the intercom.  That's unfamiliar and weird- until we realize that all of the passengers on this particular flight are AARP members.

What the hell?  Why is everyone on the plane an old person?  Suddenly I'm deeply concerned- how many restrooms are on this plane?  Shouldn't they all be lining up now?  And shouldn't the stewardess immediately begin offering the free beverages?  Unless the flight is six hours long, she's not going to have time to get to all the seniors, who will each demand to hear the free drink menu four times before making a decision.

Anyway, they all open their quaint, No Bells or Whistles phones the moment they learn that the plane won't be taking off right away.  Which means they all learn at the same time that nobody has been trying to reach them.  The four of them who know how to text also learn that they have no unread messages.  The other thirty-three are trying to remember how to check, or don't know that "texting" is an option.

One of these little busybodies immediately reaches out to the person across the aisle and chirps "what did we do before cell phones?"  Hmm....maybe what my parents do now- read books and magazines, start up conversations (which have nothing to do with cell phones,) nap?  You know, stuff that's still not a bad idea even now that we HAVE cell phones.

"Two tin cans and a string" is the "comical" response from one curmudgeon.  Oh, really?  There was nothing between tin cans and a string and a cell phone for this guy?  So he was  in a coma from 1880 until the mid-1990s, huh?  But of course, he gets an appreciative chuckle.  I seriously can't wait to acquire my Old Person's Sense of Humor, so I can spend the day thinking every little bit of nonsense I hear that is not uttered by Dennis Miller is funny (Nobody lives to be THAT old.)

There's a few more seconds about how AARP helps dopey, blithering old people get access to cell phones so they can shout into them while sitting in planes, strolling through museums, blocking access to stuff I want at the grocery store, etc. etc. etc.  Making life so much better for everyone, don't you think?

Where IS this plane going, anyway? 

KFC invites us to pick our poison

As near as I can tell, this commercial features a grandfather and grandson who are perfectly willing to hurt each other in order to get the side dish they want to choke down alongside the Kentucky FRIED Chicken they expect to eat that night (I get the vibe that this is KFC Night for the family.  Which means eating fatty, life-shortening sludge is a regular event for these guys.)

Because it's TV, these idiots naturally live in a massive suburban palace, with 20-foot ceilings, which looks like it's regularly maintained by a six-person cleaning crew.  There's something Beverly Hillbilly-ish about seeing these tasteless jerks wrestle in the living room of a gleaming multi-million dollar castle, don't you think?  I get the feeling that if the commercial had continued another ten seconds, we would have seen this family using pool cues to pass pots of possum gravy around the billiard table.

All this "funny" angst is over whether the Free Side included with the overflowing bucket of chicken parts (which is Magic, in that the number of pieces in the bucket never goes down, no matter how many people we see eating this junk.)  Kid wants Mac' n Cheese.  Grampa wants mashed potatoes and gravy.  Billy Bob Thornton wants french fried potatoes with mustard-- oh, sorry, I'm thinking of something else.  Thornton doesn't actually make an appearance in this ad.  Good for him.

The "punchline" is that Stupid Kid and Fat Slob Grampa both get exactly what they want, because when you buy a bucket of KFC Dismembered Chicken, you get two free sides.  That's a good thing, because obviously the family living in this mansion can't possibly afford to spring for an extra side dish.  Whatever.

Here's what I really don't get- in the final scene, we see a bowl of green beans on the table.  Two quick questions-

1.  Since you get two free sides, and potatoes and mac 'n cheese are the two that were chosen, did the Mom and Dad who picked up the...err...."food" always include green beans with their order?  So they get a huge bucket of chicken, a side order of green beans- and then let either their male kid or Grampa pick the other side?  What kind of weird Control Issues do mom and dad have, anyway?

2.  Do people really order green beans with their bucket of oil-infused bird parts?  If so, isn't this kind of like ordering a Diet Pepsi to wash down your Buy One Get One Free Double-Down Sandwiches?   I mean, what's the point?  Who the hell do you think you are kidding, people?  Like the fat in the chicken isn't going to take one look at the limp nutritional value of the beans and laugh itself- and you- to death.

Three simple requests, Ms Lopez

1.  Leave your sound system, with it's wall-and-windows shattering "realistic" sound, in your luxurious penthouse apartment.  Don't let anyone install it in their SUVs or trucks so they can come by my house at 3 AM blasting bass-centered "music" at a volume loud enough to set off earthquakes along unstable fault lines.

2.  Enjoy your sound system.  Crank it up.  Let the sound engulf you and drown out everything else- especially your cell phone.  So you don't get that call from your agent asking you to fulfill your contract obligation for that sequel to Gigli.

3.  Give one of these sound systems to Ben Affleck.  Why?  See No. 2.*

*"Gigli" and "No. 2" in the same post.  Just makes sense somehow, doesn't it?

The Freedom to be Stupid, and then Dead

I was listening to Tom Sullivan the other day for some reason I can't quite explain, even to myself.  Tom Sullivan is one of those bags of rocks who have nationally syndicated talk radio shows.   There are about 1500 of them, by my own rough count.

Anyway Tom- who is not very bright, even when compared to his fellow right wing yakkers, decided to go on a little rant about how he always buckles his seat belts, and thinks it's stupid that some people don't buckle their seat belts.  Because Sullivan must interject a level of Libertarianism into every show, he went on to argue that there should not be any LAWS concerning the buckling of seat belts- "if people don't want to buckle up, they shouldn't have to- if they get hurt, they have only themselves to blame," blah blah blah.

Of course, if you buckle up and you hit a car carrying someone who ISN'T buckled up, maybe that other guy suffers massive injuries which could have been avoided but will now cost an insurance company millions- the bill for which will be passed on to that company's other customers.   And if wearing a seat belt is NOT the law, every insurance company in the country will jack up the rates in preparation for the inflated medical bills incurred by the morons who insist on refusing to wear them.  Same goes with driving a motorcycle with a helmet.   Which Tom Sullivan is also against requiring by law.

All the anti-seat belts, anti-helmet, anti-nutrition labels, anti-High Fructose Corn Syrup hyper-masculine wannabees always come back to something they call the "Nanny State."  They think that whenever the government requires us to do things wear helmets, buckle up, stop at red lights, drive less than 95 on the turnpike, etc.  it's treating us like an overprotective, tax-sucking parent, depriving us of our God-given right to die in our choice of many, many stupid ways.   Same goes for Evil Overbearing Regulations which prevent the Most Productive from creating jobs by requiring Union-Mandated Luxuries like fire escapes,  minimum wages, and machines NOT made entirely out of whirling razor blades.  Damn Unions.

All this being sad, I think the world would be better off- and quite a bit smarter- if we just let dopey gasbags like Tom Sullivan drive as fast as they want to with no seat belts, while holding a beer in one hand and texting with the other.  If we could just be assured that they would only smash into each other, I'd sign on to that deal in a heartbeat.

Apparently, this commercial is about baseball caps

I have a few questions for the guy with the sad mustache and the sadder devotion to a perennially bad baseball team- better questions than the ones he's being asked by his boyfriend errrrr....I mean, Former Close Friend Who Has Become an Insufferable A-Hole Since His Team Broke It's Own Curse. *

1.  Would you give up sitting in a dusty, dank bar in the middle of a day nursing a beer while your team was playing on a television set you aren't even watching?  I mean, check out the bright windows- clearly the Cubs are playing one of their traditional day games (and suffering one of their even more traditional losses) as these guys mutter at each other.

2.  Would you experiment with showing emotion- any emotion at all- while talking about the team you care about so much?  The deadpan responses the Cubs fan gives are, I believe, supposed to be funny.  I think they are pretty darned close to depressing.

3.  Would you stop pretending that THIS- sitting in a dank bar, exchanging "pleasantries" with an idiot whose team you are supposed to despise- is somehow a productive, reasonable way for an adult to spend a sunny afternoon?

4.  If the Cubs won the World Series, would you spend the rest of your life rubbing it in my face, reminding me of all the afternoons I wasted sticking knives into your soul, reminding you of all the things you promised to do if The Unimaginable finally happened?  Or are you willing to admit that the following summer would find you right back here, in your favorite wooden chair, nursing a beer with a morose, lost look on your face, as you realize that the Cubbies winning the Whole Thing didn't make your life any more worth living than it was when they sucked (which was pretty much every other year, except 2003.)

*Full disclosure: I'm a life-long Red Sox fan.   I never promised God or anyone else that I would exchange my fingers for sausages or shave my mustache (never had any) or any of the other stupid things the stoned White Sox fan comes up with in this ad.   And I never thought that my life would Suddenly Become Amazing if my beloved Boston could just once have an October that did not end in heartache.  I just thought I'd be very, very happy for a short while, and then everything would go back to normal.  And that's what exactly what did happen.   Because I'm a realistic adult whose life does not rise and fall on the fortunes of nine millionaires playing a game.

2007 was very cool, too.

Another It's Amazing You Are Still Alive late night tv ad

I have to admit, this is a tough commercial to snark on.  You see, I have lost many, many friends to tragic Looking for Soap accidents.  Whenever I get a chance, I warn people to please, PLEASE make sure they've got plenty of soap (four or five bars, just to play it safe) before stepping into the shower.  And if they forget and realize that they don't have any soap, please DON'T be a hero-- just chalk it up to bad luck, turn off the water, dry the entire shower floor carefully, and take your time (10-15 minutes ought to do it) stepping out of the shower.  There will be other opportunities to wash yourself in the future, and take it from me- those things are death traps.

In fact, my long, heartbreaking experience with Lack of Soap incidents (why, oh WHY don't they look?  It haunts me) has made me kind of an evangelist on the issue, constantly reminding people that sponge baths are a perfectly acceptable alternative to traditional, death-inviting showering.   And if they MUST risk everything by doing it the old fashioned way, at least invite a friend over and keep the bathroom door unlocked, so they can come in and perform a rescue when the inevitable accident takes place.  I tell them they'll thank me, but like most people who refuse to see danger until it's too late, they just look at me strange and stop inviting me to their parties.  Or answering the phone when I call. 

This device, at least, gives me a little hope that I won't be spending more than a few days in the next year attending the funerals of old friends who simply could not remember to check for that damn bar of soap before turning on the water.  This wonderful gadget, which ought to be listed right up there with the smallpox vaccine as inventions which dramatically increase life spans of people smart enough to use them, holds up to SEVEN bars of soap and comes in two colors.  And it's so easy to use- even people too dumb to remember that soap does not last forever can probably manage to install and operate one of these things.   I'm going to get all my friends one, and stock them with the maximum seven bars before handing them over.   That should be worth at least a couple of months of peace of mind- and what a relief it will be to finally get a decent night's sleep, not worrying that one of my close acquaintances isn't moments away from falling to her death in the bathroom because she didn't check the soap dish first.*

Here's the odd thing, though- no Special Offer attached to this particular item.  No second SoapAway Absolutely Free of Charge Just Pay Extra Shipping and Handling.  Kind of odd, because it breaks the Late Night TV Commercial rule.  Shows you how seriously the manufacturer takes the product, clearly.  This is something you MUST have, and should NOT be equated in any way to Eagle Eyes Sunglasses or Magic Diamond Non-Stick Frying Pans.  SoapAway, after all, is the only thing standing between you and a slow, agonizing death on your bathroom floor.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take a shower- and since I don't have one of these things yet, that means I have to start calling my friends to see if anyone is willing to come over and sit in my living room listening for a thump and a scream.  Wish me luck.

*Yeah, I have male friends, but I don't think of them in the shower, thanks anyway.