Um...why would you serve this to "people you love?"

Time-saving tips from ABC Family, in partnership with Hamburger Helper in a nefarious plot to rot our brains AND our intestines with crappy television and even crappier food:

1.)  Install a massive whiteboard onto the wall in the kitchen.  Whiteboards have a million different uses- they allow kids to write stuff like I AM AT TIFFANYS NOT LIKE YOU CARE MOM and DAD CALLED HES PISSED AGAIN and FU I AM ON A DATE WITH TONY YOU DONT UNDERSTAND HM WE R IN LUV.   Or for parents to jot down loving notes like OUT AGAIN TONIGHT PIZZA ROLLS IN FRIDGE or DONT FORGET SET BURGLAR ALARM FEED CAT.

 (At the school where I teach, Whiteboards are used to congratulate female graduates when they do the only three things females do which are worthy of praise- when they get engaged, when they get married, and when they have kids.)

2.)  On the rare occasions when you DO get the entire family together, remind them exactly why it's ok that they are so rare by feeding them horrible, cheap slop like Hamburger Helper.  Nothing says "I see dinners with the family as a massive inconvenience considering my busy schedule" more than mixing up a big ol' frying pan full of this trash.  Well ok- maybe Manwiches.  But this is definitely a close second.

So since you are home, and it's dinnertime, well, it can't be avoided, so....here's six dollars and fifteen minutes worth of effort.  No need to thank me, just my way of showing exactly how much I love ya, honeys.

What, you are still here?  Well, let's all plop in front of the TV and see what ABC Family has for us then.  Get the message yet?  It's ok if you are never home.  If you are home, this is what you can expect.  Because Mommy and Daddy are awfully busy and jeesh, don't you have other kids you want to hang with?

Another "Problem Solved, and it was So Simple" insulting little nub of dumb from America's Natural Gas Companies

There are roughly 800 of these "Energy Voter" commercials currently polluting the airwaves- 17 second spots featuring a typical Useful Idiot expounding the benefits of drilling the hell out of the country, destroying the aquifer and basically sending life as we know it to the brink of extinction through the release of even more greenhouse gases for the sake of (possibly) slightly cheaper natural gas and petroleum.

In this episode of I'll Gladly Sell Out My Future And The Future of My Child For a Few Dollars and 17 Seconds of Face Time, "Felice" bounces around the screen with her oblivious daughter, explaining how awesome it will be when we finally get at all that wonderful natural gas just waiting for "us" to pull out of the ground underneath "our" feet, solving "our" energy issues in the wink of a Fascist-Corporatist's lizard eye.  Yay for Felice's daughter!  Middle East Wars, oil spills, ruinously high gas prices (do you know we pay almost 30% as much as Evil Socialist Europe does for a gallon of the stuff?) are soon to be a thing of the past.  All we have to do is Get to Work, Get the Environmentalist Al Gore-Loving, Polar Bear and Clean Water Worshiping Weirdos out of the damn way and Drill Baby Drill.

"I'm Felice, and I'm an Energy Voter."  Actually, you are what they call a Low Information Voter.  And that's being polite.  I could just call you a Pawn.  Or a Sellout.  Corporate Whore is a little rough, so I won't go there.  Sucker?  "Actress" doesn't seem to fit, because you aren't especially convincing.  Then again, isn't Katy Perry an "actress" these days?

Whatever you really are, Felice, please don't pass your rank stupidity on to that poor kid.  Let her grow up to be an unreasonable adult who selfishly wants stuff like non-flammable water and who thinks that maybe continued reliance on oil and gas isn't the best idea on a planet where China, India and Brazil's fuel needs are skyrocketing.  An unreasonable adult who thinks that maybe there are no Easy Answers, and who is intelligent enough to realize that all that oil and natural gas underneath "our" feet isn't really "ours" and will just go on the world market where we will compete to buy it, just like we always have.  An unreasonable adult who has overcome her upbringing to develop a social conscience and is about 100 times smarter than her mom.

Of course, she'll grow up drinking bottled water and wondering why her parents generation thought that frakking was such a great idea, too.  Can that one website you visited, which had all the answers, deal with that question, Felice?

Come to Times Square, and get your Range Rover molested by strangers

The "idiots with nothing better to do in their sad little lives staring lovingly at cars" theme has been popular in automobile commercials for several decades now.  You know the drill- a showroom-shiny car which Despite What the Narrator Is Telling Us Looks Exactly Like Pretty Much Every Other Car on the Road cruises slowly down the street, and all activity stops as people freeze and drool over it.  Recently, animals have gotten into the act, as we insult dogs and cats by pretending that they share the same shallow non-values as television people.

Anywhere, here's another Check Out Our SameMobile attracting the inappropriate attention of a mob of total losers in Times Square.  See the losers take photos of the SameMobile.  See them lust over it.  See them stroke it (does anyone ever do this, ever?  Why? Please don't try to convince me that certain cars have a different "feel" from the OUTSIDE.  Do these clueless weirdos think that they'll somehow develop an emotional bond with the car if they engage in physical contact with it?  Do they think the car will follow them home?  Do they believe that by touching it, they achieve a kind of spiritual connectivity with the SameMobile?  What the hell?)

This ad is about as silly as all the other auto commercials featuring labs and wind tunnels and electronic blueprints which try to convince us that we are about to be introduced to something Brand New- but the "Brand New" always means a new bell or whistle which isn't obvious from the outside, so what's with the constant staring and open-mouthed astonishment?  And why is it that no matter how cool the "concept car" looks, once it hits the market it's just another SameMobile?

Maybe people really don't want to buy a car that total strangers will paw with their greasy mitts?  Just a thought.

Only Samsung's new phone matches my excitement level concerning the upcoming Summer Games

The 2012 Olympics haven't even started yet, but the commercials have me wishing that they were already a fading memory.  Each one seems more Over The Top, Why Aren't You Worshiping Us For Making Your Life Worth Living than the previous.  By the time America realizes that it forgot to watch the Olympics again because it was too busy working, playing outside, texting and updating it's Facebook page, Samsung will probably be taking credit for the freaking sunrise (which we also forgot to watch again.)

As usual, this cellphone ad is a montage of images which are supposed to be inspiring but are in fact just confusing and bordering on infuriating in their pomposity.  I could spend several paragraphs going through each one- the scruffy dick who opens the ad by bleating "Yep" into his Best Friend and then gazing wistfully (cluelessly?) into the distance, the creepy kid with the ping pong ball who looks like he's about to use it to kill someone, the Please Suffer a Spinal Injury Right Now yuppie pond scum who take electronic directions to incredibly stupid, dangerous things with their bikes.  But it's summer, and like most of America, I have things to do.

So instead, I'll just snark on one moment in this monstrosity which ticked me off more than any other- the moment where the woman runs up to another person in what seems to be an airport.  She doesn't hug that other person.  She doesn't kiss that other person.  No, she touches cell phones with that other person.  Maybe I missed the memo, and this is the 2012 version of physical contact.  But I found the image so darned vile, it actually managed to stand out amidst the rest of this giant pile of commercial crud. 

And that's really saying something, because this 30 seconds or so of manipulative, self-satisfied junk which screams "We Hold Society Together!" (no to mention the equally absurd "We All Care About the Summer Olympics!")  would be quite ugly and cringe-worthy even if we WEREN'T treated to a "beautiful moment" featuring cell phones kissing.  Or sharing.  Or whatever the hell that was.  I don't know.  I don't care.  And I don't want to.  And for maybe the fifth time in a row, I won't be watching the Summer Olympics.  Because it's Summer, and like I said before, I have stuff to do that doesn't involve gazing at a screen.  Missing more ads like this- just another good reason not to watch.

We respectfully request that you do not cry out "I Have Made Fire!" when switching on your "Olde Brooklyn Lantern"

There is so much to love in this advertisement for a product which may or may not be from the people who brought us the Amazing Electric Quaker Heaters Not Actually Made By Quakers.

There is the look of utter astonishment on the old people when the lights suddenly go out- they act like a tribe of superstitious savages experiencing a total eclipse for the first time.  "Light Gone! Where Go Sun?" 

Consider that this couple appears to be of the generation which grew up during the Great Depression, survived World War II, and raised children under the shadow of the Evil Commies during the Cold War.   All those trials and tribulations suddenly pale in comparison to the power suddenly going out.  Now what do we do?  Look astonished.  Run in circles.  Duck and Cover?

The old people- troopers that they are- attempt to go through Life As Usual despite the frightening lack of light.  The scene with the woman attempting to hold a flashlight against her neck with her chin just might be my favorite in the history of commercials.  Um, grandma?  The food is right there on the plate, in front of you.  It's not moving.  Once you've got that concept down, I'm not sure why you actually have to have a beam of light glaring into it.  Considering the junk people put into their bodies at mealtimes these days, I'm not sure you want to have a real good look at it anyway.

Sidebar:  the fact that this couple has managed to cook dinner despite the lack of power has created a bit of controversy over on YouTube, stimulating an argument which seems to be between people aware of the existence of gas-powered stoves and a presumably younger crowd which apparently believes that the only appliances capable of heating food are microwaves and Popeil Rotisseries.  I didn't join in- I was too busy being astonished that posters at YouTube are capable of carrying out a conversation which does not include "What is that Song Where Can I get that Song I need that Song" or nonstop cursing.

The utter astonishment and delight the old people experience when they switch on their Old Brooklyn Flashlights---errr, Lanterns---is a lot of fun too.  Wow, look, light emitting from a metal device, with just the turn of a dial! Astonishing!  What will they come up with next- an appliance for toasting bread?  Once again, the 21st century is proven to be a Second Renaissance!

And then we get to see all the Amazing Things we can accomplish with Light---err, Olde Brooklyn Lanterns (the superfluous "e" in "Olde" is worth at least another five bucks added to the price, don't you think?)  You can play board games.  You can carry on conversations and actually see the people you are talking to (people still do this in the age of cell phones?)  Most of all, you can sit on couches and stare appreciatively at the Olde Brooklyn Lantern.

Of course, you can get an additional lantern absolutely free, just Pay Additional Shipping and Handling.  Simply can NOT get through a commercial for one of these SuperAmazing Devices without throwing that in.

I'll let the makers of Olde Brooklyn Lanterns have the final word- one YouTuber asks "what does it run on?"  A friendly spokesperson for Olde Brooklyn Lantern helpfully responds "It operates on 2 D Batteries."  So- it's a flashlight.  A flashlight which goes through batteries much faster than your standard, Not Lantern Type flashlights, since it emits more light (the "100,000 HOURS" claim, I presume, refers to the life of the BULB, not the BATTERIES.  If it doesn't, I expect that the Friendly Spokesperson will be somewhat Less Friendly when she responds to this post.  BTW, anyone here ever have a bulb from a typical flashlight die on you?)

Anyway- thanks, makers of Olde Brooklyn Lantern, for bringing us this delightfully cheesy commercial, and especially for bringing us into the lives of these very funny old folks and their lack-of-electricity issues.  If I had remained in the Washington DC area over the summer, I would have liked to have a good stockpile of these--ummm, "lanterns" to gaze at as I sat in my hot, humid apartment, drowning in my own perspiration, with no electricity for two weeks.  I escaped, but I'm sure that I left behind many potential customers, who may actually get to see your ad, someday, assuming that f----ing Pepco ever gets it's f---ing act together and gets the f---ing power turned back on.

Of course, the real danger lies in drinking this junk

A while back, I snarked on a McDonald's commercial which attempted to explain why that restaurant offered Egg McMuffins, pancakes and coffee.  The ad showed a variety of people attempting to make breakfast at home and failing miserably, and the message was "we make breakfast because you are too intensely stupid to pull it off without doing serious damage to yourself and your house."

I think the makers of International Coffee Creamers (I think that's the sponsor) are using basically the same tactic here.  Apparently you have two choices if you want a cup of fat-laden cream flavored with coffee- you can either risk life and limb buying it at your favorite coffee shop, or you can safely and easily purchase it at the Safeway while picking up your weekly supply of frozen pizza and Doritos. 

And just in case you didn't buy the notion that there is some danger in purchasing your coffee at Starbucks (other than snapping and killing the people in front of you who have amazingly complicated drink orders,) here are some episodes of Let's Laugh at the Stupid People Getting Hurt theater.  I have the strong sense that this is just a bone tossed to the YouTube crowd, which can't get enough of watching Stupid People Getting Hurt no matter what the background situation.

I'm not sure why most of the stuff we see happening to these idiots can't happen in the kitchen after pouring a great big class of cream- maybe it's just that it's less likely to be caught on a cellphone and YouTube'd?  And maybe not even so much less likely- it's not like anyone puts their cellphones away, ever, anymore.

Ok, FIOS! I won't kill myself now!

Here's another "we've just made your life worth living, worship us" ad from FIOS.  And it works because everyone in the commercial is a drooling, electronics-obsessed dweeb whose life revolves around whatever happens to be on their glowing box at that moment.

So we see that, thanks to FIOS, we can all be amazed by faster download speeds.  Never mind that for 99 percent of us, download speeds were already just fine, thank you- no, FIOS knows we were suffering through those 12 second lags before we could watch our most recent Netflix choice, so they've pulled off another "revolution" which will make us more than happy to pay premium prices.

One woman is, for some reason, perched on the ledge of some skyscraper (is she stalking Batman?) when the Holy Grail of Faster Connect Times hits her device.  And here's a kid parked under the sheets on his bed, suddenly realizing that he can watch two or three times more porn on a nightly basis thanks to FIOS (with an assist from his over-indulgent "parents," of course.)

Anyway, all of these idiot choads are just amazed at what Fios Hath Wrought.  My guess is that they are also amazed that anyone ever saw anything revolutionary in what happened on July 4, 1776-- really, internet speeds were RIDICULOUSLY slow back then.  I think they were using Prodigy or something.