As a Greek myself, I take special exception to Yoplait's newest puddle of Dumb

Even the children over at the YouTube What Is this Song I need this Song I love this Song what is this Song brigade recognize the witless idiocy of this particular ad for the impossibly overpriced milk product known as Yoplait.

These two women are sitting roughly eighteen inches apart.  The person eating the yogurt has the cup strategically turned toward the camera which, incidentally, means turned toward her friend sitting on the bench.  Which means that the yogurt-less friend can clearly see the label on the cup.  And yet...

These two alleged adults proceed to engage in a conversation you'd expect to hear from two five year olds.  It's one step up from "Dinosaur!"  "Ball!"  "Dinosaur!" "Ball!" or the average exchange of ideas from actors in a McDonald's commercial.   For the ad to work, we are asked by Wizards of Madison Avenue to believe that

A)  Idiot blond woman thinks "Yogurt" and "Greek" must absolutely be two different things, AND

B)  Idiot blond woman simply cannot fathom the possibility that Yoplait, a company which makes Yogurt, now makes Greek-style Yogurt, AND

C)  Idiot blond woman either can't read, or is so incredibly nearsighted that it's a wonder she managed to find her way to that bench.  Maybe she thinks she's talking to someone else, about something else?

Just a thought.  Which is exactly one more thought that went into making this ad.

And now from Verizon: The Hard Sell

Wow, Verizon is really done fooling around now, isn't it?

There's no subtlety at all here.  We get a lot of stupid graphics thrown at us which, I guess, show us all the SuperAmazingAwesome things that are just waiting for us in the Verizon Hive Mind if we would just drop our pointless "considering" and "thinking" and above all "budgeting" and just went along with the flow like Everyone Else Who Is Cool And With It.  See all this cool stuff?  Well, if you can't, watch it on YouTube, where you can actually pause now and then, because if you only see this ad on tv you are clearly not supposed to be actually examining the toys spinning in the circle- you are just supposed to be dazzled and overwhelmed with the Need to Possess All This Stuff. 

You are also supposed to be dazzled and overwhelmed by the music- "What Are You Waiting For?"  As in "what the hell is the matter with you losers, we are offering you Eternal Happiness Through Sharing Everything, And You are Still Just Sitting There?  Did we mention Connectivity?  Did we mention Sharing Among Up To Ten Devices?  Can't You Hear the Song?"

I almost think it's a sly joke that the song also includes the lyrics "Here We Go Again."  Yes, indeed.  Here we go again- another commercial for another All Talking All Texting All Sharing All The Time package designed to get you to buy into the notion that if you aren't using something which includes a glowing screen and a keyboard 24/7, Man are you pathetic and lame and you might as well be your parents.  No, make that your grandparents.  The ones who use Jitterbugs.  That kind of lame.  You don't want THAT, do you?

Anyway, this minute-plus pile of crap is the television equivalent of a full-body mugging-- it's what Verizon settles for until technology actually allows the company to reach out of the television and grab us by the throat and give us a good throttling for failing to buy Every Single Thing They Offer The Moment They Offer It.  This is what we get for not being on line at the Verizon store 18 hours before their latest toy hit the shelves- Slightly Less than Two Minutes of Hate which is supposed to have us on the phone with Verizon before it's over, but leaves Luddites like me just shaking my head in despair.

Hey, Verizon: My wallet is still in my pocket, and I'm still getting by with my one laptop which never, ever attempts to communicate with my one little Nokia phone which can't even stream video.  Better crank up the volume.

"Well Ok, you CAN have it back, but not until next year....

...when this SuperAmazing technology is outdated and lame!  Then I'll not only gladly trade it in for the Next Big Thing, but I'll probably toss it to the sidewalk rather than risk being seen with it!"

I'd like to say that the women in this ad are seriously damaged, sad people, but they are downright normal compared to the Australian guy who calls the phone "Sexy."

Seriously.  "Sexy."  A phone.  Because it's slim, I guess.  Anyone else think this guy is just parroting the salesman who talked him into trading in his perfectly good, six-month old SmarterThanItsOwner phone for this thing?  "It's sexy, and it will make YOU look sexy, not to mention totally with it.  Take this thing out at a party, and you'll have people asking you about it in about thirty seconds.  You can pretend they are interested in you.  Let's face it, it'll be pretty much the only thing you've got going for you."

As the guy left with his "sexy" new phone, he didn't hear the salesman mutter "see you in six months, sucker."

Do I desperately need to make friends? Yes, yes you do.

"Does Speed Dating Really Work?"  Um, that kind of depends on your definition of "work," doesn't it?

Does it get you out of the house for a few hours?  Sure.  If that's your goal, it works.  Does it allow you to engage in a truly desperate, humiliating experience with equally desperate, sad, lonely people who can't figure out how to meet each other through traditional means?  Yep.  If that's your goal, it works.

Does Ask.com work?  Sure, it does.  It's a nice way to get answers to all those burning questions you have but are too humiliated, or friend-deficient, to bring up to an actual human being.  Questions like "Why is Water Blue?" (Seriously, that's a question in one of these Ask.com commercials.  No kidding.)  And does it encourage you to remain socially isolated, seeking solace from crippling loneliness through electronics (as if people who can't bring themselves to ask an actual acquaintance if Speed Dating works would ever work up the nerve to engage in Speed Dating.  Please.  The next question- after SpeedDating.com, a proud sponsor of Ask.com, lets you know that Yes, In Fact, Speed Dating leads to Meaningful Relationships- is "Can I do Speed Dating by texting, or do I actually have to show up in person?")

I have a question.  What kind of emotionally crippled losers are so bereft of people in their lives (not to mention, an apparent inability to spend ten minutes of research on the web) that they have to direct their queries to strangers working for Ask.com?

Let's see. Who can I ask?

Because this is not a decision you want to leave to your "Loved Ones"

I don't know, maybe it's just me- but the guy talking about what his family is going to do with his dead body as he turns raw pieces of meat on the grill is a pretty sketchy way to start this ad, don't you think?

A lot of Life Insurance ads focus on the "rising funeral expenses" which, I guess, could actually cripple a family's economic stability unless handled through the purchase of bigger and bigger insurance policies.  Seriously?  I don't get this AT ALL. Why do funerals "have" to be such a terrific financial burden?  What does this asshole at the grill want, a fricking pyramid?  A Viking funeral complete with oak casket entombed in a burning, 40-foot replica of a Nordic exploration vessel?

Hey, Earth to Survivors:  Your loved one is dead.  Stick him in a pine box, drop him into the ground, and decorate the plot of land above his rotting corpse with a simple granite slab.  Better yet, go the cremation route- we take up more than enough space while Among the Living, the least we could do is vanish completely once we go on to our Great Reward (Oblivion without Cell Phone Service, is my guess.)

Mr. Grillmaster apparently has crappy Life Insurance, or he's afraid that his dependents won't think a lavish send-off is worth dipping into the pot, so he's gone the extra step of handing another company even more money for Funeral Only Insurance.   This strikes me as an Almost Awesome way to give the Finger to your family when you die- oh to be there when the attorney explains to them that you left Wife and Two Wonderful Kids $300,000 to replace your income- but you also purchased a $10 million funeral, with music provided by the London Symphony Orchestra and two virgins who will play-act being sealed up with your now-worthless body  in the marble tomb which can be seen from space.  Oh, they'll be weeping all right, and wondering how much the 200 Extras paid to stand around crying and touching handkerchiefs to their faces cost.

You know, maybe I'll make a few calls tomorrow and make some changes to my own insurance plans.  To hell with beneficiaries- I want every penny I leave spent on the biggest, showiest, most traffic-stopping sendoff I can afford.  To hell with having my ashes scattered into the ocean or on the hill behind my boyhood home- I want them encased in lead and attached to a high-orbit satellite named after me, where they can look down on my Loved Ones.  Serves them right for outliving me, the selfish bastards.

Despite this warning from Radio Shack, we never really saw it coming, did we?

I can remember seeing this commercial, more than 20 years ago, and just snickering at the concept of a company best known for selling cheap batteries trying to convince the average consumer that they could ever get enough use out of a portable phone to justify it's bulk and cost.

Well, shows what I know.  Sure, the bulk went away- from four pounds to a couple of ounces- and so did the cost (I think this thing, which looks like it could have been used on the beaches at Normandy, retailed for around $3000.)  Maybe that had something to do with it.  But in twenty years cellular phones went from being a rather clunky, heavy, stupid, expensive luxury to a tiny, light, stupid, expensive luxury--errr, I mean, Absolute Necessity.

And of course, since just talking on a phone wasn't enough (it was for 100 years, remember) we got texting, video cameras, televisions, projection screens, and the internet thrown in.  Because Radio Shack, and all of the other drug peddlers who got us hooked on these things, simply cannot bear the thought that we might ever put them down.  So every year, they add something to give us an excuse to never do that.  These days, the tag line is "Share Everything."  Uh huh.  Because suddenly, thanks to your cell phone, everything is worth sharing.  Sure it is.

Anyway, the age of suitcase-sized briefcases and beepers didn't last very long, did it?  I mean, I never even saw one of these things in real life.   I do remember phones without cameras.  I also remember sane people who didn't brag about the technology they held in their hands as if A)  it's expensive, B)  it's exclusive, C) it takes some special skill not shared with everyone over the age of six to use,  and D)  they built it.   In other words, I'm old enough to remember the days before these things turned people into zombie assholes.

I heard a radio personality the other day suggest that life would suddenly become much more bearable if "all the satellites fell out of the sky."  I can't say I disagree, though it would deprive me of this blog.  But if I was to wake up one day and find that I had no more material for This Commercial Sucks, no one would be happier than I.   Believe me, I'd find something else to do.

Concerning a Birthday, and an Anniversary

For most of my life, I have not been a fan of my own birthday.  For almost as long as I can remember, its approach has coincided with the end of vacation and the resumption of work.  When I was a kid, it meant that summer was over and school was about to begin again- the bikes, the GI Joe Action Figures, the ThingMakers I unwrapped after blowing out the candles would be enjoyed for roughly one week before spending most of each day sitting around waiting for me to get back from sitting in classrooms.  (My sister's birthday is May 31, and I was always jealous of that- what an awesome time to have a party with gifts, just before the start of summer vacation!)

When I went to college, August 24 was usually a day of travel, from Vermont to Washington, DC, if I had not departed from the family homestead to resume studies already.   Birthday greetings came over the phone and through the mail.

For the past 18 years, I have "celebrated" my birthday mainly through Back to School meetings- assembling class lists, covering bulletin boards, and moving books from dusty storage rooms on to shelves.  The hiking shorts, T-shirts and sneakers are set aside for suits, ties and uncomfortable shoes.  I get emails and texts congratulating me on moving one step closer to The Abyss.   We had cake at a staff meeting once.    But it's not a fun day.  It hasn't been one for most of my life, and it sure doesn't look like this one will be any different.

August 24, 2012 is also an anniversary for me.  One year ago, I gave myself the gift of addition through subtraction:  I gave up Facebook.

I know people who have given up Facebook because they felt that they were "addicted" to the site- they were spending too much time talking to virtual friends and losing contact with actual living, breathing ones.  I didn't have that problem.  My mistake was in accepting one friend request too many on the innocent theory that faded feelings, like colors, stay faded, and can't be revived through electronic communication- or even face-to-face contact.

I can't say it doesn't still hurt, but I can't say I really miss Facebook, either.  I hear family and friends talk about it, check it on their phones, and occasionally ask me why the heck they need to call or text me when it would be Much More Convenient if I had just kept my account open.   I just tell them I have no plans to go back- I re-opened an old wound once already, why go through that again?- and for the most part, they seem to think that's ok.

Anyway, it's August 24 again, which means that in a few days I'll be back at school, getting paid to spend time with some of the most amazing people on the planet.   Maybe that's my birthday present.  And my Anniversary present, too.   Not bad.