My New Years' Resolution, for Hollywood. Free of Charge.

Hey movie industry- don't take offense at this, ok?  This is not coming from a place of anger.  It's coming from the heart.  And you really need to hear this.  Consider it an intervention.

Please, for the love of G-d, make this pledge to yourselves, and to us, for 2013:

No more movies centered on the Pain and Suffering of Turning 40.

No more Seven Year Itch films.  You know the ones I'm talking about: The "I love you, but you aren't as young as you used to be, this isn't as fun as it used to be" themes featuring actors in their mid-30s who look like they could still get work as underwear models.

No more Biological Clock films.  I don't know anyone out there who enjoys watching women mope out discussing their changing biology in graphic terms on large screens.  Hell, I don't know anyone who wants to hear this crap in real life.  And while we are at it- PLEASE, no Women in Stirrups scenes.  I know you've always thought the Crying/Screaming/Sarcastic/Possessed Heavily Pregnant Woman Struggling to Give Birth bit was comedy gold, but (again, as a friend) I really feel like I need to let you know- it's not.  Never has been.  Never will be.

If you must have little children in these films, stop trying to convince us that they are blessings who burp, vomit and scream for no reason at all.  Because when they do that, they aren't blessings.  And no, we aren't interested in seeing children give their parents headaches and then be Loved More Than Ever For No Reason at the end.  Been there, DONE THAT.

And if you insist on giving us another year of this crap, at least do this for me:  Have the whiny, pathetic, treacly-sweet family live in something other than a majestic suburban estate or Manhattan Apartment.  Have them live in a trailer, or a crowded tenement in a crime-ridden neighborhood.  Oh, and have them get hit by a bus in the final scene.

Come on.  Give me SOMETHING for my efforts to help you out.  Oh, and Happy New Year.

Samsung continues to encourage us to Share the Fun Pain this Holiday Season

I'll give the makers of the latest horror from Samsung this much:  At least they didn't go the usual route of sprinkling a few Black/Hispanic/Asian faces among the partiers here.  Nope- this is a white family, enjoying what I guess is supposed to be a cute moment with their white friends and their white kids.  Not especially PC, and certainly not common these days- but I have to give them points for creating an ad that is more realistic than 99 percent of the commercials out there.

But that's about it with the praise.  Because the rest of the ad just adopts and endorses the Friends Is Just Another Word For Assholes theme we generally see in commercials for Cell Phones, Tablets, and all the other "Connectivity" garbage.  I don't know- maybe it's just me, but if I saw a guy trying to entertain my kids fall off the stairs, land on the hardwood floor, and lay there motionless, my first impulse wouldn't be to keep filming.  Because my first thought wouldn't be "OMIGOD LOL THIS IS GOING VIRAL UNDER THE TITLE 'SANTA FAIL!""  My first thought would be "Oh My G-d, are you hurt?"

But that's because I live in some weird alternate universe where people still give a damn, I guess.  Where "walk if off, Santa" wouldn't even occur to me.  And where capturing someone getting hurt on film is still accidental and regrettable, not an LOL EPIC bonus that will really improve my rating on YouTube.

I can remember a show called "America's Funniest Home Videos."  Pretty much every clip I ever (accidentally) saw on that show featured someone getting hurt (often badly) to the sound of people roaring with laughter.  That show had a pretty solid audience, but it was small, so I wasn't all that disturbed by the concept of a program which invited people to film each other suffering and then "share" it with the world.  But in the year 2012, capturing everything on--err, "film"--just seems to come naturally for a lot of people, and when a "friend" gets injured, that's just gravy.  It doesn't even matter if the friend was dressed up like Santa to spread a little joy to your kids.  It's just so great that he hurt himself, you can't wait to let the world know how funny it was.  Sick.

Samsung channels Orwell- "He Who Controls the Present, controls the Future."

Ugh, what a mess.

Here's a ridiculously large "family" (it would be more accurate to describe these idiots as "people who are accidentally related to each other") gathered together to "Share the Holidays" (it would be more accurate to describe this situation as "bear to be with each other instead of their friends and electronic devices for a day.")  If you look carefully enough you'll see that there's the prerequisite balance of males and females, a grandma, and a dog, as well as the usual racial ambiguity which the advertising world thinks it must be careful to include so that it doesn't tick off the obscenely easily annoyed among us.

It's all supposed to be very cute and sweet, I suppose- people who share common genetic code pushed into one side of a room so that the Patriarch can take a photo and prove to future generations that yes, these people existed and could tolerate one another on holidays.  Except- future generations are going to be conned into thinking this, and future grandparents are going to have very fuzzy, warped memories about what happened on this particular holiday.

Because thanks to Samsung (and The Cloud, and PhotoShop, and all of the other reality-bending technology that make our lives worth living these days) that messy thing called Real Life can be scrubbed, erased, and altered into Life As We Would Like It To Be But Aren't Willing To Put Any Effort Into Making Reality.  Kids won't stop fighting?  No problem- we can "swap in some smiles" (that's from an old Cloud commercial.)  Daughter won't stop texting (it's always Daughter who won't stop texting?)  Again, no problem- we'll erase the Real, and replace it with the Fantasy.

Snap.  Here's the photo.  Let's slap it on Facebook, stick it in a frame, use it to create a holiday card with Shutterfly.   In a few years (hell, with our rapidly decaying attention span, more like "in a few hours") it will represent what really happened.  And it was so easy- nobody had to behave like reasonable people who understood that Mom and Dad wanted a decent photo for a few seconds.  Kids didn't have to stop punching each other, and (Thank G-d) Daughter didn't have to stop texting.  Because that would have been tragic.

I wish Mom had finished this commercial by asking Dad "Can you make them disappear now?"  The answer certainly would have been "yes."  Brother-in-Law you really didn't want to invite can be erased from the photo.  Tree can be made more green, tinsel can be made more shiny, clothes can be made brighter.  Everyone can be made to look more happy, more content.  Reality?  That isn't perfect.  Toss it down the memory hole.

It's only Weird if he doesn't buy it

Let's see- I come home from work an hour early, looking forward to surprising my beautiful wife before settling down to watch the Monday Night Football Game.

When I walk into the kitchen, my wife is arranging beers, and there's this strange guy sitting on my couch, drinking a beer of his own.

I ask, "um, who is that?"  My wife responds "He used to live here- and he says he was sitting right there the last time the 49ers won the Superbowl."

If I want to be charitable, I quietly point out that the last time the 49ers won the Superbowl was in 1994.  That's 18 years ago.  Which means that if this guy is telling the truth, he's remembering something that happened when had his own apartment at the age of, what, TEN?

I'm not especially charitable, so instead I respond "Seriously?  You get caught with another guy in the house- and THAT'S the story you come up with?  It's bad enough that you are cheating on me- do you have to humiliate me, and YOURSELF, with the absolute worst alibi EVER?"

Of course, I'm not a TV guy, so it doesn't go that way.  I could never be a TV guy- I shave every morning, I try to dress neatly, I don't think it's funny when my friends get hurt, I don't live to laugh at my friends, and I'm not a beer, sex-and-cell phone-obsessed doofus.*  This woman's hubby IS a TV guy, so he buys the spectacularly unbelievable "this strange man is sitting in our living room because when he was a little boy the 49ers won the Super Bowl" yarn.

I'd say this woman is a real jerk, but I can't because if she's married to a TV guy, she must be a TV girl, which means she's smart and sensible and knows what she's doing at all times.  So I officially don't know what to make of this, except to think that it's probably not a good idea to try this at home, ladies.  Unless you are married to a TV guy- in which case, why not respond to "who's that?" by telling him to STFU and get to work on that damn lawn.

*I can't be.   Beer and cell phones are expensive.

If a fan massacres science at a football game, and nobody responds, does it make a sound?

I was going to go through the "labels out" choad's explanation to his fellow doofus pudding-brained loser moron friends how holding their not-beer bottles in a certain way would somehow contribute to their team's scoring the winning field goal.  I was going to- but after listening to it two or three times, I realized that I was getting nauseous, I'm not getting paid for this, and so-- to hell with it.

So instead, I'll just comment on that look the Unbeliever has when the field goal kicker- who is in the National Football League, is a Pro, and whose only job is to kick Field Goals- actually manages to...kick a Field Goal.  See for yourself- it's a look which says "Wow, it worked."

Now, I could be charitable here and assume that since it's the end of the game (it's implied that this isn't just any field goal kick, it's the deciding field goal kick) this is not the first Bud Lite Dimwitted, Easily-Duped Dunce has consumed over the past three hours.  I'll also assume that he's rather sensitive to alcohol, and is actually capable of getting buzzed by drinking Lite Beer.  But that's as far as my charity is willing to carry me with this guy.

That look makes it very clear that he honestly believes that because four guys in a crowd of 50,000 turned their beers,  it somehow influenced the trajectory of a football being kicked on a field eighty yards distant.  He doesn't smile appreciatively at the weird superstition of his friends.  He looks for all the world like he buys the gibberish he was fed by the Not-Physics Professor sitting two to his right.  That's not funny.  It's not charming.  It's really, really stupid.

Not as stupid, however, as the line "It's Only Weird if it Doesn't Work."  It doesn't work.  It's just the fans believing that somehow they can be something other than mere spectators, when in fact the only way they can have any impact on the game is by being really loud when their team is on Defense.  Even then, five idiots drinking Lite Beer in the cheap seats aren't going to pull it off.  But I can deal with multicolored socks, face painting, prayers, voodoo dolls, or any other Not At All Effective But Hell You Bought Your Ticket So Go For It idiocy.  But spare me the bullshit "science," ok, Bud Lite?  After all, if you guys knew anything about chemistry, maybe you'd be able to come up with a light beer worth drinking, instead of specializing in bad commercials not worth watching.

Use Shutterfly to help decorate my trash can

Here's another opportunity for disgustingly perfect, white suburban families to make sickly-sweet, treacly little reminders that they exist and that Their Lives Are Better Than Yours.  It's called Shutterfly, and as near as I can tell, it was created to stick another salt-encrusted knife into the stomachs of people like me who aren't married to beautiful women, don't live in suburban estates, and don't even have ONE offspring.  Not even ONE.  Man, am I NOT in the need for Shutterfly!

But if you have the standard white skin, pretty little palace, pretty little wife and pretty little kids who are apparently manufactured and shipped out of some factory in Utah but are only available to certain people, here's another way to show how Awesome you have it without buying a new SUV.  Just get your kids to pose for a few seconds, pick out some garish background like Santa's sleigh or a Christmas tree or a Snowman or something else so fucking cute that we just won't be able to stand it.  Your friends will be delighted to know things are still going great for you; they might even hold on to the card longer than they used to hold on those God-Awful annual updates people used to send out every year before they finally figured out that nobody gave a damn (or realized they could save postage by starting a blog nobody in their right mind would ever visit.)

You thought wedding invitations that included photos of the Lovely Couple were bad?  Wait till Shutterfly becomes all the rage among your Happily Married And Don't You Ever Forget It friends!  Man, I hate this time of year.

KFC's pitch: Silence is Golden. And Fat.

Here's a terrific holiday message from Kentucky FRIED Chicken:  When you find yourself between two obnoxious little monsters who simply will not stop playing their horrid "I'm not touching you" game, buy yourself some peace and quiet by simply poisoning them.

You might ask- why doesn't this slob just get up and walk away from these two spawns of Satan?  Well, just look at the guy- he doesn't look like Getting Up and Walking Away are activities that hold a whole lot of appeal to him.  However, he's probably on a first name basis with the girl behind the register at KFC.  Too bad, because this sure looks like a situation where a good, strong pair of legs would be a real life saver.

You might also ask- are these actual children, or well-trained dogs?  I mean, there is a bucket of chicken and a plate of cookies just sitting there.  But the kids are completely oblivious to their presence until their "Uncle" hands each of them a cookie.  First- I've never seen a kid shut up completely just because they have a cookie. These kids act as if they've never experienced one before, and are engrossed in the experience.  Second- that bucket is full of chicken.  So-- the kids didn't eat any chicken, but are skipping right to the desert?  Normally, I'd consider that to be rather poor modeling behavior for someone who is clearly supposed to be watching his nephews.  But then I remember this is KFC, and think that it's probably just as well the kids don't want to eat any of that stuff in the bucket.

And while I generally consider handing kids "food" like the grease-infused dead bird parts they serve up at KFC to be obvious child abuse, I can't say as I blame this guy for shutting these future heart valve donor seekers up by shoveling out the garbage.   I mean, just listen to them.  If this guy's waistline and asthma issues won't allow him to escape, he's got to do SOMETHING.