Identity Thief; stealing time from people who weren't using it anyway

Full disclosure: There are people very close to me who have said, in so many words, that they are wetting their pants in anticipation of this movie because OMIGOD IT LOOKS SO FUNNY ROTFLMAO LOL!!

In my defense, I'll add that if these people happen to be related to me, it is  BY MARRIAGE ONLY.  Maybe they share my last name but I'm NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR UTTER TASTELESSNESS, OK?

Anyway, I must say that I really do appreciate it when trailers scream Don't See This Movie Unless You Are a Glue-Sniffing, Knuckle-Dragging Inbred Who TiVo's  The Big Bang Theory and King of the Nerds and thought that the cartoon Archer was funny for more than fifteen minutes three years ago.  So a tip of the hat to the makers of this one; if I lay down ten bucks to see this ninety minutes of predictable, banal crud (not to mention, sitting in a freaking theater with people who would lay down ten bucks to watch this junk and LAUGH AT IT,) well, shame on me, because I can't claim I wasn't warned.

Because it's not like this doesn't let me know exactly what this movie requires:  total suspension of disbelief, including being willing to accept the notion that the way to combat the theft of one's identity is to hunt down the thief yourself.  It also requires the embrace of every hackneyed, beaten-to-death cliche concerning what is supposed to be "funny:"  Fat women.  Bug-eyed, perpetually perplexed white guys.  Clueless cops.  Explosions.  Car crashes.  And punches to the throat- lots and lots of punches to the throat.  As implied in the previous paragraph, the only thing I can imagine more unpleasant than watching this crap is spending 90 minutes in a dark room with people who are enjoying it.

Meanwhile, I'm sure this tub of warm pus will be a big hit.  I live in an amazingly stupid country after all, surrounded by people who think they are smart because they can read the Dollar Menu at McDonalds, personalize their iPhones with their "favorite Geico character," think Maxwell the Pig is hilarious and sent a Get Well Card to the AFLAC duck.  There's a huge market for Lowest Common Denominator sludge like Identity Thief, which is why we should brace ourselves for at least three sequels right now.

Well, at least the bottom-feeders will have something to laugh at until someone revives the Saw series.

Desperately Seeking Subtlety From Liquid Plumr. And Not Finding It

Wow, where to start?

First, where the hell does YouTube get off making us watch one commercial before seeing another commercial?  I mean, really.  What the hell?

Next, the sexual innuendo here barely fits into the parameters of what normally makes up "innuendo."  "Flush your Pipe?"  "Snake your Drain?"  A guy leering at this woman while balancing melons in his hands?

Why even bother?  Why not just show this woman being jumped by these guys?  And keep in mind- this isn't a woman having a fantasy about one guy.  It's a woman having multiple fantasies, about multiple guys.  She isn't experiencing amorous feelings about that stud she noticed in the fruit section of the grocery store.  She's dreaming of being nailed by a stud.  ANY stud.

This is so bizarre, so insulting, so downright STUPID that I can't even bring myself to point out what I thought would be my original punchline- that for 99 percent of clogs, that plastic snake thing would do the job.  Instead, in keeping with the spirit of this display of awfulness, I'll just say that this woman is clearly backed-up and needs a guy to use his snake to flush her pipes.  And now if you'll excuse me, I have to take a shower.

Hey, Honda? I drive your car, but EHHHHHHH I really hate you right now.

Can someone explain to me why

1.  Honda thinks that assaulting our ears with the most annoying jackass salesman ever will make us think highly of their product, or

2.  Why, if these people have just looked at the Bestest Car Ever over at Honda, they decided to come over to Whatever Not Honda Dealership This Is and bother the salesman with comparisons of that Bestest Car Ever with the Not As Good Car he is supposed to be trying to sell them?

I mean, come on.  If you were just shown a car that you really like, that has everything you want in a car, why didn't you just buy the damn thing?  Do you just enjoy looking at cars?  Wasting your time, and the time of the sales guy who, is after all, being paid to sell cars and not try to explain why the cars he's supposed to sell aren't quite up to the standard of that car YOU LIKE SO WHY DONT YOU JUST GO BUY IT MORONS?

If I were this guy, I'd respond to the second or third question with "EHHHHHHHH....sounds like you've made up your mind.  Stop bothering me, and get back over there before someone buys your dream car, idiots."  Except I wouldn't include EHHHHHHHH, because I'm not a freak.  And I wouldn't be talking to these jackasses anyway, because I could never be a car salesman.  Certainly not if these people resemble actual, real-life customers.

Dig this, Applebees

To answer the question Applebees presents in the first ten seconds of this mess:  No, probably not.

But here's a more obvious point:  Eating out is for special occasions.  I know that Applebees, McDonalds, Burger King, Dennys and Olive Garden would like us to forget that we have refrigerators and stoves and kitchens and just spend all our time and money at one of their feed bins, and therefore tries to pander to the people who are happy to do so by offering low calorie options, but the sane among us understand what eating out is for, and we ain't buying it.

And since we know that eating out IS supposed to be special, we aren't all that interested in tasteless junk served up at under 550 calories per plate.  You see, we eat sensibly 99 percent of the time.  Which is to say, we eat at home, food we prepare ourselves.  We don't live off the Dollar Menu, we don't think Wendy's is the place you spend every lunch hour (regardless of what the lunatic redhead in the commercials wants us to do)- heck, we don't even think that Kit Kats are a suitable mid-afternoon snack, EVERY MID-AFTERNOON.

So when we go out, we don't really worry about the calorie count.  We get big cheeseburgers and french fries or onion rings.  We eat pasta drowning in thick sauces.  We ask to see the dessert menu- and then we order dessert.  (If we are at Friendly's, we get hot fudge sundaes with broken candy bars on top.)

We can do all this because (do I really have to repeat this?) eating out is for SPECIAL OCCASIONS.  And only a total idiot is going to spend high-calorie money on low-calorie garbage.  We who rarely let ourselves go like to go out to dinner- to let ourselves go.  We can start repairing the damage tomorrow because, unlike the people you want us to be, we aren't hitting another restaurant for our next meal a few hours later.

So please, stop showing us guys getting all hyper-excited because they aren't overindulging in garbage, but are instead eating "sensibly" a meal which will leave them hungry before they get back home.  Fortunately for them, there's a McDonalds drive-thru on the way.  Me?  I'll leave with a full stomach.  Thanks anyway.

Volkswagen thinks Racism is funny and a good argument for purchasing its product

Having (finally, thank G-d) abandoned the idea of trying to convince us to buy one of their ugly cars by showing people hitting themselves or being mocked by automobiles with German accents- not to mention a hundred or more other intensely insulting ad concepts- Volkswagen has decided to wrap up it's product in the always-delightful, always-winning package of bigotry and ignorance.

Because hitting your grandfather in the groin isn't fun for everybody, but no one can resist a blatantly Racist message, right?

Here's the deal:  Buy a Volkswagen, and before you know it you'll be just like those hilariously simple-minded Island people we all developed such affection for during the 1988 Olympics (or at least during that awful movie which Kind of But Not Really told the story of the Jamaican bobsled team,  Cool Runnings.)  You know, the Don't Worry Be Happy tribe that lives on the beach and smokes dope when it isn't serving fruity alcoholic drinks to white people.  We all love that quaint, backward little race of humans who don't take anything in life seriously and are always spitting out little snippets of Savage Wisdom (I'd call it "homespun," but it's not like These People would ever do anything as taxing as "Spinning.")*  I'm a little disappointed that Dan Akroyd doesn't make an appearance in the disguise he wore in Trading Places, but we can't have everything, can we?

I just hope that this is the start of a long series of culturally sensitive ads by Volkswagen.  Next time, let's see the white guy walking around the office shucking and jiving, encouraging his befuddled fellow workers (who are trying to run a successful business and don't know how to relax, being WHITE and all) to take a casual attitude toward their labor.  When that one goes over well, Volkswagen can move on to EPIC portrayals of Hispanics, Asians....the possibilities are endless.

And when our favorite German Car Company is done slandering anyone who is not a WASP, some of us will be very sad because we miss those awesome ads so very much.  Some of us will have sore fingers from constantly typing "Oh Lighten Up, I'm Black/Hispanic/Asian/Jewish and I thought they were HYSTERICAL!"

Me?  I'll regret ever criticizing Punch Dub Days.  Because that was so much less offensive than THIS crap.

*"Sticky Bun come soon." "What this room needs is a smile."   Ugh.

Oh yes, I feel much safer now. Thanks, GripGo!

Naturally if your cell phone goes off when your driving, your immediate instinct is to look around for it, because to hell with safety- if it's ringing, it means someone is desperate to get in touch with you and it's a matter of life and death.  You are so important, you are.

So I suppose GripGo is better than fumbling around for a phone near your feet, or between the seats, or in your pocket, or whatever.  But hey, here's an even better idea- LET THE F--ING THING RING.  You've got Voice Mail.  If it's important, they'll leave a message.  Nobody worth your time will be offended if you don't answer your phone while trying to operate two tons of heavy machinery through traffic.  And let's face it- 99 percent of the time, the "important" call you are risking your life (and mine) to answer will consist of nothing more than "hey whassup?"

(And if you are like 99 percent of the My G-d Given Right To Blather On My Cell Phone Is More Important Than Your Safety douchenozzles who make our highways death traps these days, that kind of conversation is well worth fumbling around and making other drivers swerve out of the way for.)

I will add however that I fail to see how mounting this thing on the dashboard so that it's right in front of your face as you talk is a really big improvement.  And besides, isn't that where your laptop, DVD player or makeup kit is supposed to go?

Not to mention- it's "fully adjustable."  Ok- so you aren't holding your phone with one hand while driving with the other anymore.  Now you are obsessively adjusting your GripGo to get just the right screen angle while (hopefully) driving with the other....hey, why do you need to adjust the screen anyway?  So you can watch the screen during the call?  So much for contributing to safer driving...

The really sad thing about this commercial is that incredibly clueless, disconnected, distracted and obtuse morons will probably be convinced that if they buy and install this thing, that somehow transforms them into Responsible Citizens.  Hey, I'm being safe- sure I'm not giving more than 10 percent of my attention to the road, but at least I'm not actually HOLDING my phone!

And hey- they don't offer an extra GripGo (just pay separate shipping and handling?)  That's got to be a first in the history of ads like this.  And what terrible timing- what am I going to do with that DVD player while I'm changing lanes at 70 MPH while blabbing away on my phone?  I have to use my hands after all?  Oh well, good thing I have two of them.  And being a typical, cell phone-addled genius, I'll have no problem dividing my attention between the screen, the conversation, and the road (in that order) either.

The University of Phoenix: It's not what you know, it's who you know.

Or maybe the title should be "All The Right Friends in All the Right Places?"

So....the University of Phoenix is proudly out there as a blatant promoter of Cronyism?  Or am I missing something?  Because it sure seems to me that the message of this ad is nothing more complicated than "get your degree from the University of Phoenix, and get yourself hired by a fellow University of Phoenix grad, because we all stick together."

That, and the University of Phoenix is some kind of weird cult whose members wear bright socks in order to identify each other.  So they can hand each other jobs.  I guess.

Again-- am I missing something here?  Because...I can't be right about this, can I?