And what a great message- "Say No to Sharing." Inspiring!

Ok, so apparently the intensely ugly little knob of a commercial featuring the intensely ugly, nasty family of an intensely helpless dickwad dad was such a hit with some focus group which needs to burn in hell forever that it's been turned into a series.  Lucky us.

Now that we've gotten the pilot out of the way, we move to Zany Sitcom Situation Number Two- Dad, who has already proven totally incapable and even more totally uninterested in being an actual Parent, has hired a "Data Coach" to follow the people living in the same house with him ( I don't think that the word "family" really works here) and order them to stop using their phones foolishly.

Naturally, Data Coach proceeds to stalk the kids, barking at them to shut their fucking phones (which they do not pay for)  off.  He catches mom hiding in the car, trying to get off a quick text to her lover without Mean Husband and his Data Cost Obsession breathing down her neck.  And he interrupts absolutely nothing by walking into Husband and Wife's bedroom to yell at Hubby to put his phone away.

It's all supposed to be very funny, but comes off as really pointless and stupid and a sad commentary on this "family's"  total failure to show even the slightest modicum of respect or understanding for each other.  The Dad acknowledges that there is this problem with high data charges.  Mom is pissed that Dad keeps bringing it up instead of just taking an extra shift at work to pay for them.  Son and Daughter don't give a flying damn how much it costs to use these phones, because as I noted before, it's not their money and they would rather die than stop texting and tweeting and talking and downloading and streaming.  (I'd rather they die, too.)  So Dad's answer is to bring in a total stranger to act as Surrogate Enforcer, accomplishing nothing except making him appear even more the unreasonable heavy- and even more a clueless douchebag who exists to ruin everyone's lives with his penny pinching.

As I've noted before- I don't have kids, so maybe I'm just out of line commenting on these ads, but....is it really so impossible for parents to work together to establish simple ground rules when it comes to the family budget?  Is it really inconceivable that the answer to high phone bills might be something other than Unlimited Data Plans?  I can't even imagine enabling my kids to use their phones nonstop like this- hell, I can't even imagine buying my kids cell phones that could do anything but actually CALL people.  (Oh, and if this makes them show poorly for their friends, let me demonstrate my tiny violin-playing skills. And hand them the Want Ads.)

Anyway, I really hope that this series gets the axe now, because I don't want to see what Dad tries next, I really don't.  And I don't want to keep getting told that the "solution" is Unlimited Data, and not a badly-needed lesson in moderation and budgeting.  But I'm nothing if not a realist, and I'm smart enough to know that this is probably going to get even worse, and will continue the downward slide until the people in these ads are happily gazing at their phones 24/7 with glazed-over eyes and drool dripping down their chins.

Oh and by the way, if you live in an Apartment, you must want the terrorists to win

Along with the treacly National Association of Realtors commercials which show happy, well-adjusted kids who will succeed in life because Mommy and Daddy did their duty and signed up for 30 years of payments to the local Megabank downtown (which sold the mortgage before their signatures were dry, but never mind,) here's another Real Americans Own Suburban Palaces ad.  Yay.

The message is blindingly obvious:  If you care about your country, if you care about putting people back to work, and if you care about maintaining the veneer of Middle-Class happiness symbolized by leaf-littered lawns, giggling children, Big Wheels, Speed Bumps and Lawn Sales, you'll get your ass down to the credit union and sign half of your next 3000 paychecks away in exchange for four walls, a garage and lifetime membership to the Home Depot Herbicide of the Month Club.

After all, Home Ownership is what being an American is all about.  That, and feeling permanently locked into your cubicle because hey, those mortgage payments are just going to keep coming for what feels like forever.  And nobody promised you (in writing) that the biggest purchase of your life was going to increase in value, or even stay stable.  So when you don't get a raise for the third year in a row- just zip it, House Monkey.

Hey, at least the kids are happy, even though they don't know why.  And speaking of whom, better get yourself some term life insurance.  Because it never, ever ends, this Being a Good American thing.   I'll have to try it myself someday.

SelectQuote presents: The most boring family in America!

I've been looking for this commercial for a long time.  A few months ago I actually gave up trying to find it, and instead referred to it in a post featuring another SelectQuote Commercial.

But now, at last, here it is:  Jim and Diedre and their Three Great Kids, sitting on the grass, doing....something.

What ARE Jim and Diedre and their Three Great Kids doing?  Well, Jim is smiling appreciatively as one of his Great Kids tosses a plastic hoop on to a plastic peg, which MAY be as much as 18 inches away.  This is so much fun that when Jim removes the plastic hoops and gives them back to the kid, the kid doesn't grimace and turn away, but goes right back to tossing the hoops.

Wait, it gets better.  Jim's daughter, who actually appears to be OLDER than the little boy who seems to be enjoying this mind-numbingly dumb, incredibly age-inappropriate, non-stimulative dreck of an activity, actually wants to join in on the "fun."  She quickly gets her share of plastic hoops and proceeds to lean forward slightly so she can drop them on the plastic peg.

Good lord, Jim.  Maybe you and Diedre should reconsider feeding your Three Great Kids exclusively on paint chips.

And what is Diedre doing with the third of the Three Great Kids (the only kid who looks young enough to actually get something out of the "put the plastic rings on the plastic hoops game?)  She's tossing a ball with him/her (how many times do you expect me to watch this?)  That ball is being tossed roughly the same distance as the plastic hoops.  Somehow, this is delightful fun to Diedre and her kid.  Good lord, what is going on with these people?

Anyone else think this looks a lot more like "keep smiling for a few more seconds, the photographer from White Christian Family Today Magazine will be done in a moment and then you can do whatever you want" than an actual family having an actual picnic?  Do the people at SelectQuote really know families that it any way resemble these chuckleheads?

Anyway,  Jim decided one day that all this was worth insuring.  Diedre the fertile idiot and their three pathetically uninteresting children.  Yes, we must make sure that if something happens to Jim, All This gets preserved.

After all, someone has to catch that ball, and someone has to take the plastic hoops off the ring so the game can start all.....over.....again.  Zzzzzzzz.

My kid with crappy eating habits can beat up your kid with crappy eating habits

A lot of YouTube posters watched this ad and thought the same thing I did- "why isn't this pompous, smug idiot's kid playing soccer wearing a Pediasure costume?"

I mean, if "you are what you eat," and if that fact turns her kid's fellow soccer players into french fries and donuts, why isn't her daughter a jug of milk, water, and sand?

That being a question that is not going to be answered by the good people at Pediasure, I'll ask this one instead- why isn't Pediasure Princess getting her ass handed to her by another little girl who started her day with oatmeal or whole grain cereal and a glass of orange juice?  Because in real life, that Pediasure would leave the spawn of My Child Doesn't Need Fiber gasping for breath by halftime.

You lost me at "Hello"

It all started in that high school football game when you accidentally avoided a tackle and some choad with a video phone caught it and responded by bleating "Hello," which I guess is the modern American version of "Wow."  I liked "Wow" better.

Then the moron decided to post your stunt on to YouTube- no doubt under the Uber-Clever title of "Hello," and it, umm, "went viral."  To speakers of the English language, that means it was shared all over the world.  In modern parlance, it "got a lot of hits."  I really hate the century I'm living in, but now is not the time for that particular rant, so I'll just go on.

Eventually, a scout for some Big Ten school caught your act on YouTube, and sent a recruiter to meet with you after a game (maybe the same game.  Why not? I think the idea is that AT&T makes these things happen really quickly.

And  before you knew it, you had agreed to accept a scholarship to come to the recruiter's college, pretend to take a few classes now and then, and play a lot of football.  When you accepted the scholarship, you agreed that it could be cancelled after the first year, the second year, or the third year, so you'd better have a few more "Hello" moves left in you.  You also agreed to that the school now owned your name, which it would plaster on everything from $5 sports drink bottles to $175 jerseys in the gift shop.  You also agreed that the NCAA now owned your image, which it would use in video games for the next several years without handing over one dime in residuals to you.  By the way, if you accept a free movie ticket or a discounted ride home for the holidays from a booster, you'll find yourself stripped of that scholarship and ineligible for the pro  draft- must protect the sanctity of the scholar-athlete ideal, you know.

When it's all over, if you've been very careful and allowed the NCAA and your---umm,  "school" to make big bucks off your sweat until both decided you were disposable, you have a roughly 1 percent chance of landing with an NFL team.  Which means you have a 99 percent chance of being on the unemployment line until an assistant coaching job at the local high school opens up.  Then you get to say Hello to life on a $19,000 annual salary.

But hey, awesome move in that game.  You can check it out on YouTube.

Quick Tips about Buying Trucks! And Pardon the Exclamation Points!

1.  If you find yourself chattering excitedly with the salesperson about the truck you just took on a test drive, try to remind yourself that only one of you is being asked to commit to shelling out $30,000 or more over the next four years to pay for it!!

2.  In the same vein- try to remember that the guy you are getting all giddy with over the stupid truck will be making a commission if he can translate your childish excitement over buying a showy ManMobile into your actual purchase of said machine!!

3.  Meanwhile, try to remember that if you actually took this truck on a Test Drive through a shallow stream, kicking up enough rocks and dirt to cover it with 1/8th inch of mud, that mud is hiding scratches and maybe even a few dents!  And since in your heart of hearts you know you'll never actually being doing this with a truck again, maybe you'd like to demand a brand-new, unscuffed truck instead of the one you just damaged!!

Or maybe you are just so determined to prove yourself another Alpha Male to the Total Stranger Salesguy You Will Probably Never See Again that you'll slather mud all over your hand before you use it to shake on the deal, and you'll insist that the mud stays on the truck until you drive it off the lot, already worth at least a grand less than what you paid for it!!!  In which case, you probably won't pay the slightest attention to the tips I've listed above!!  Ok, I tried!!

No matter how you look at it, nobody condescends and panders like Verizon

This commercial shows nothing more effectively than the willingness of camera-hungry idiots to subject themselves to pandering crap in order to score a few moments of screen time.  The Verizon spokeschoad here does everything but use hand puppets to make his blindingly obvious point- that according to Verizon, no phone company offers more coverage than Verizon.

He starts off with a graph and asks the eager focus group if they are capable of reading it.  Somewhat surprisingly, they all are.  Or at least, they all do a pretty good job faking it.  Then he shows basically the same chart, presenting the same material from a different angle.  Not only do they get it, but they are starting to get the joke, too- they are being spoon-fed Verizon-approved data in a pedantic, ponderous and painfully self-serving package which would make Rachel Maddow proud.

Anyway, this insulting mess ends with one of the participants actually speaking up and giving us the closest we are going to get to "ok, we get it, shut up now."  "It doesn't matter how you present the figures...." well, quite right.  And the fact that Verizon thinks it does shows us that

A)  Verizon thinks we are really, really stupid and doesn't mind letting us know that it thinks this way, or

B)  Verizon thinks that it's superiority is so obvious to anyone with the IQ of a dung beetle, it's a little pissed that it even had to make this ad.