Oh yeah- you can still use it to read, if you are into that kind of thing

Three years ago, I read a Boston Globe article praising the Kindle as the device which just might lead to a Renaissance of Reading. For an entire generation of children, it made reading fun again- being able to carry around a personal library in the palm of your hand made you cool and the object of envy- which meant it made READING cool, too. Kids were downloading the Harry Potter series and Goosebumps and whatever it is kids read these days, and a glimmer of light broke through the clouds. Briefly.

So much for the Renaissance. First, the Kindle introduced a touch screen. No big deal- it's what the kids like these days. Then the color screen was introduced, and for me, this was the first warning bell. Why do books need color? Good books create the color in the mind of the reader. I don't need to go through this step by awful step, do I? Let's skip to what is currently the basement, because that's where Kindle has taken us with it's beautiful little idea.

Look what the kids are doing with their Kindles now- they are playing brainless, pointless race car games. They are watching cartoons. They are downloading movies. In short- it's not a book anymore. It's a fucking television. I thought the idea was to get kids AWAY from this mindless junk. I mean, we've already got cell phones and laptops and tablets for this crap. As it turns out, Amazon didn't have as much faith in the intelligence of the public as we might have been lead to believe, three years ago. Turns out, downloading books was just the hook to reign in the Luddites who were thinking that no technology was immune from debasement. "Hey look, here's the Kindle!" Amazon shouted from the mountaintop. "It encourages literacy! You'll love it! And your kids will love it- which means they'll love reading, and they'll grow up to have functioning, active, inquisitive brains, unlike those kids who play video games and watch tv! Get a Kindle- do it for your kids!"

Now, my Second Generation Kindle, with it's buttons and virtual ink on grey background and its icky books sure looks retrograde compared to the pretty colors and images and awesome sound of the Kindle Fire (or the Kindle Fire HG- I think that's what the latest one is. Can you use it to update your Facebook page, call and text friends, or get directions to the concert? Do I really want to know?) If you listen very closely, I think the word "reading" is actually mentioned in this commercial, but it's hardly central to the advertising campaign for the new Kindle. Amazon is done selling good-tasting veggies (and teaching kids that veggies CAN taste good.) Here's a big bag of colorful candy, children. Never mind exercising your brain- here's another way to keep yourself glued to trash.

Yep, the Boys on the Board of Amazon decided somewhere down the road that while it was nice being praised as part of the solution for a while, the real money is in being part of the problem.

Criticizing this garbage? It's a snap!

Ok, let me see if I get this straight- The owner of this phone has decided that the best place to do her banking, and the best time to do it, is in the middle of her living room, while her demon spawn jumps up and down screaming their ungodly, obviously Satan-infused lungs out, the adorable little tikes. She rubs her finger around a screen for a while, taking a picture of a check, taking a picture of her children (does she, in some unguarded moments, secretly wish she could deposit them, too?), sending the picture of the check along to the bank, getting a confirmation that it's been deposited, Mission Accomplished.

 Then, she....ummm....hands the phone to Thing One who, having finally won Mom's attention, proceeds to....ummm...pick up the phone and play with it. So...all this time, Mommy's Little Miracle was actually just clamoring for his turn to play with the phone? Even if this is the case- is it really a good idea to let a kid play with a phone which we were just shown can be used to do rather sensitive stuff like banking? I can just see this kid playfully pushing a few buttons and transferring Mommy's 401(k) to that nice guy who is trying to get out of Nigeria with his suitcase full of gold coins. While we're at it, can someone explain to me why this thing is shot in some odd, ugly negative theme? Never mind- I mean, it's not as if any of the rest of this makes any sense.

Samsung's rather lame effort at self-parody. I think.

Ok, this is pretty funny. Samsung is really tearing those iPhone 5 losers a new one here, aren't they? I mean, listen to how they talk- they are babbling, glassy-eyed zombies who know they are online to buy something, know that it's a new cell phone, but are only vaguely aware (through rumors and hearsay) of the reasons why it's slightly better than the practically-new phone they already own. Haha what a bunch of losers- I bet half of them are drowning in student debt, and here they are anxiously awaiting the moment they can get their hands on this year's Shiny Status Symbol You Hold In Your Hand.

 Except, wait- oops, turns out that while Samsung is poking fun at Apple Devotees, they have NO problem with their own tech-addled clientele. The people Not On Line Because They Already Have Samsungs are having a grand old time explaining to the Apple Drones that hey, here's the phone, it doesn't have a picture of an piece of fruit on it but it's got all this stuff you claim you want from the phone you are waiting on line for. This makes the Samsung owners somehow superior to the current and future Apple owners (you know all these people on line have iPhones already, right?) how, exactly? Oh, right, because they aren't on line.

 Here's what this commercial is missing- a third group of people, who stop the We Are So Much Better Than You Pathetic Dweebs Samsung owners in their pompous blather to show them their wallets, which are fuller because they didn't respond "how high?" when Samsung called out "Jump, new product here!" Maybe that third group could also tell the Cell Phones Are Our Friends crowd how they have these great conversations with each other, how they took their kids to the park the other day and actually watched them play (and played with them) instead of obsessing with some stupid electronic device. Maybe they could talk about how liberated they feel whenever they leave the house, because they know they are out of touch, totally untraceable and unreachable, truly free to be alone or with the people they are with, and not handcuffed to the phony Connectivity provided by "This is the Future of Awesome" buzzing, beeping and glowing things. I imagine that this would create a moment of communality between the Apple and Samsung tribes against the weird, unassimilated Luddites who dare suggest that there may be Life Beyond Phones. I'd also imagine that this would result in a lot of jumping up and down and chest-thumping and hooting in rage and confusion, except that I doubt that these phone dweebs could manage anything that so closely resembled exercise. My guess is that they would all just whip out their phones, take photos, and post them on Facebook under the title "check out these weirdos they don't get how SuperAwesome my Best Friend is!"

So- what are they selling here? Remote controls with giant Mute buttons?

Ok, I may have jumped the gun on crowning my Most Annoying Commercial of 2012. But you can't blame me- I had no idea that the makers of the HitlerMobile were going to treat us to twenty seconds of ugly idiots laughing their asses off at....well, none of our business, I guess. What ARE these people laughing about? Is the ancient old duffer looking at the Volkswagen and remembering when we made REAL cars made out of heavy steel instead of fiberglass? Is the guy about to lose a lung in his kitchen recalling the time he was reading the details of the lease agreement and the salesman said "this is a really good deal?" Are the rest of the idiots (except the baby) in this ad just celebrating an announcement that "Punch Dub Days" will not be returning to airwaves ever, ever again? Are all of them (except the baby) just drunk out of their minds? What? (As for the baby- it's just gas. And that kid has no idea he's being used in a commercial for a crummy car commercial which makes ugly German cars. So it's got an excuse. Which is more than you can say for the rest of these people.) (Come to think of it, this would make a great commercial for "The Hopper," that device which allows you to skip ads when you watch prerecorded shows- at least I think it still does that, once you get through all of the conditions and disclaimers. "Look, you could be skipping through this obnoxious, awful wall of noise if you had The Hopper!" Well worth the price, and I don't care what it is.)

The car to drive when you really shouldn't be driving

Honda knows you. Honda knows you push yourself too hard. You drive when you are half-asleep. You drive distracted, pushing buttons, blathering away on your BlueTooth, adjusting the seat temperature every few seconds, and barking orders at your sound system in between checking the GPS for updated directions to places you've been to a thousand times and could find blindfolded.* So here's a car which gives you permission to drive when you are running on no sleep, have had a bit too much to drink, or are such an incredibly self-absorbed asshat that you really don't give a flying damn that you share the road with other people who also have lives they would like to extend beyond today despite your willingness to be a danger to yourself and everyone else out there. Sucks to be them, I guess- or maybe you think they should be grateful that hey, sure you drive impaired on a regular basis, but at least you've got this car which beeps and lights up just before you are about to kill someone with it.

 Last Friday I said goodbye to my AP history class, jumped into the car, and started the 540-mile drive to my boyhood home in Vermont to spend fall break with my family. At 9PM I was approaching Albany, with about 180 miles to go, and it was dark and drizzly and I was hitting the wall in terms of energy. I suppose that if I had one of these tripped-out Hondas, I would have ignored the warning signs and just kept going, assuming that my Car Knows Best and would let me know before I ran over someone or something important. But because I drive a 2003 Civic with nothing more advanced than a Garmin GPS and a CD player, I decided to pull into a Best Western and play it safe.** Maybe Honda should use me in an ad- "see, John could have driven another three hours and made it home that night safe and sound, if only he had the 2013 Honda. What a loser." Something like that.

 I'm frankly getting a little tired of these "don't worry about the actual 'driving' part of driving, your car's computer will do that for you" commercials, because I really don't want my life in the hands of a fricking chip embedded into the dashboard of a Japanese import. And I'd really appreciate it if Honda, Acura, Lexus etc. would stop sending the message that if you buy their upscale vehicles, you can act like a passenger instead of the manipulator of heavy, fast-moving machinery. If you are tired, take a break. If you can't drive without becoming distracted, DON'T DRIVE. Because "I thought a light was supposed to go off before I plowed into you" isn't going to sound very comforting as they are scraping me off your grille, believe it or not.

 *Honda's 2014 models will compensate for people who really like to drive blindfolded. Only kidding- but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it turned out to be true.

 **"Playing it Safe" at Best Western means avoiding the Make Your Own Waffle option at the continental breakfast. In fact, the safest move is to avoid the breakfast, period. The coffee is ok, though.

Actually, you are more You than usual when you're hungry

I know this ad is supposed to be funny- watching Joe Pesci get verbally abusive because a chip on his shoulder the size of Noah's Ark has been wobbled by a cute girl who isn't giving him 100 percent of her attention 100 percent of the time- I mean, what could be funnier than that?

 Well, here's my take- "He isn't himself when he's hungry" is right up there with "you should see him when he isn't drunk" in the Encyclopedia of Excuses for Abusive Jerks. If the character in this ad is a touchy prick who throws a temper tantrum because a girl he just met at a party glances away from him while he's speaking, well, ladies...if you really like the guy, you can chalk it up to He Was Just Hungry He's Usually Really Nice You Just Have To Get To Know Him. But please don't come whining to me when it turns out that wow, what do you know, he's kind of a controlling, obsessive ass even when he HAS a Snickers bar.

Because people ARE themselves when they are hungry, drunk, tired, under stress, worried about That Promotion, On Edge Because It's the Playoffs, etc. etc. ETC. They are their TRUE selves. When they are sober, full, calm, satisfied? That's when the mask is securely fashioned. It's EASY to be a rational, polite, thoughtful human being when everything is just perfect. Thing is, in real life, there's never actually a time when everything is just perfect. Or anything. So, Pretty girl at the party? Consider yourself fortunate- because for some reason the host decided to invite people to her house and then not put any food out, and as a result, you got a good look at this guy at his honest worst. Based on his attitude concerning your unwillingness to lock your eyes to his as he's speaking, I'd say you dodged a bullet. But if you want to ignore the fire alarms going off around you, I suggest you keep your handbag well-stocked with candy bars. And what passes as your brain equally stocked with "he only hits me when I provoke him" excuses. Good luck with that.

AT&T sticks another knife into the heart of basic decency

Totally forgotten in this ad is the predictable yet stunning stupidity of a man trying to reason with a Mountain Goat, carefully explaining that the sandwich the goat has found in his bag isn't the goat's property. Seriously, the fat scruffy doofus is one step away from attempting to explain the philosophy of Capitalism the clueless, dumb animal. No, not the asshole with the phone. The goat. Yet, we easily forget Mr. Brilliant's attempt to negotiate the return of his sandwich, because of what comes next.

Check out how this phone is sold to us: It's a really cool device to own for those times when your "friends" do something stupid, because not only can you take video of them being humiliated, but you can take a picture from that video and "share" it with all your friends, and all his friends, making a minor, embarrassing and maybe even funny moment in the guy's life into an opportunity to make him a laughing stock for the entire planet. Because in the age of Shareable Data, this is what sells phones: The easier it makes it to take a moment of Fail and use it to mock the victim, the better. In the old days: "We went on a hike, and it was really cool because this mountain goat stole a sandwich out of Tim's bag. But then it kicked his bag and it fell down the mountain, so Tim had to climb down and get it, and it turned out that some stuff got broken. But he got back his wallet and his keys so it worked out ok." Nowaday: "LOL check out this video, Tim loses his bag ROTFLMAO can you believe it and he had to climb down the rocks to get his bag back check out this video he keeps scraping his hands on the rocks and ends up all bloody LOL!!!" Gone Viral. Liked. Shared.

Tim? Mocked by thousands of people he doesn't even know. Because he made the poor decision of hiking partners. Whatever. One day, being a rude prick with no sense of empathy and a total willingness to invade a "friends" privacy and hold him up to ridicule in front of everyone became both funny and normal. I must have been in a coma. Anyone have any ideas on how I can get myself back there?