AMC should hold an online "Choose a New Name for this Network" contest. My suggestion: Your Place for Brain-dead Junk

I'm pretty sure that if KFC stopped serving chicken and instead switched to pizzas and burgers, they wouldn't keep the name "KFC."

I'm quite certain that if USAirways stopped charging bags almost as much as people to fly from one part of the country to another and started marketing Miracle Sunglasses instead, they wouldn't keep operating under the name "USAirways."

I think it's a pretty good guess that if Rent A Center stopped preying off of the population of people with lousy credit by leasing junk furniture and computers at high-end prices and instead opened a series of soup kitchens, they'd stop using "Rent A Center."

So can someone explain to me why a channel which puts most of it's budget into bottom-feeder television like Immortalized, Freak Show, Comic Book Men  and The Walking Dead (not to mention endless showings of explicitly Not-Classic films like Predator 2, The Transporter and Shanghai Noon) when not treating it's audience to CSI: Miami marathons continues to call itself American Movie Classics?  Talk about Exhibit A in the Case for Truth in Advertising Laws.

(Exhibit B: The "History" Channel, which features shows about as closely related to history as.....AMC's shows are related to classic films.)

Amazon's "might as well buy two, you are going to break one very quickly" ad campaign

I've posted before on Amazon's annoying series of "People being really stupid with their Kindles" commercials, but this one deserves it's own blog entry.

I got my Kindle almost three years ago.  I take it with me everywhere.  Usually it's in a protective faux-leather case which will prevent the screen from getting scratched and will offer some protection if it's broken, but won't save it if it falls into a puddle (let alone a pool, or an ocean.)  When I take it to the beach, it's in a special hard plastic shell case with rubber stoppers protecting the on/off button and power port.*

Ads like this actually make me cringe.  Anyone dumb enough to just stroll around a beach, sit in a pool, etc. holding a Kindle is either too stupid to be trusted with electronics, or wealthy enough to simply not care if they drop it and it's instantly ruined.  And yet, I can see people bringing their Kindles to the beach or the pool based on these ads, having an accident, and then getting a "sorry, that damage is not covered" lecture from the helpful person on the other end of the phone when Amazon is called.  When the distraught customer complains that ads like this strongly imply that Kindles and Water mix just fine, perhaps the operator replies with something like "you were really supposed to be enjoying the hot blonde in the bikini,** not imagining that these are safe places to use the Kindle.  I mean, they are thin, fragile ELECTRONIC DEVICES, stupid!"

I must say, I have very little sympathy for anyone who does get their Kindle scratched by sand or waterlogged (or sat on when you forget it's in your back pocket, moron) because they treated it like this way.  Such people just can't have nice things.

*More often than not, when I take it to the beach, it stays back at the beach house.  Because hard shell case or no, I really can't afford to be replacing my Kindle because a rogue wave (or can of soda) decided to take it out.  But that's just me.

**She IS quite easy on the eyes (does she really think that guys keep "accidentally" hitting her with beach balls and bumping into her?) and at least she isn't doing what 99 percent of girls I see walking on the beach are always doing- squinting at her cell phone.  I saw one of those idiots drop her phone in the surf once.  Made my whole summer.

This guy ever finds a fly in his soup, he'll be spraying us with ammo from the nearest clock tower

My plan to deal with the first 400 times I was subjected to this commercial while innocently trying to relax and enjoy G4's 21 Nights of Bond was to just plain ignore it.  After all, it's just another really stupid ad for another really stupid, time-and-life-sucking video game* marketed to pathetic Not Quite Ready To Be Adult Males.**  Nothing we haven't all seen before.

But the 401st time this junk popped up on my screen, I finally decided I had enough of watching this moron deal with his really severe anger issues by taking out what seems to be 'roid rage on what I'm sure he's convinced himself are his actual "enemies" on tv.  I mean, just look at this deranged weirdo- he cuts himself shaving.  He breaks a shoelace.  Result? He really really really needs to spend the next several hours pretending to chop up aliens or terrorists or whatever in his basement.  Otherwise, he may have to kill someone for real, because, hey- he cut himself shaving and broke a shoelace! Who WOULDN'T snap?

(BTW, am I the only person out there who half-expected this guy to do a Bill Bixby and turn into the Incredible Hulk?  No, buddy, I probably wouldn't like you when you are angry.  I don't even like you during the 2 seconds of this commercial you are semi-sane.)

Maybe this latest piece of electronic crud is being marketed as Do it Yourself therapy.  I'd certainly rather see this jackass playing video games than beating on his girlfriend or going on a shooting spree because he cut himself shaving and broke a shoelace.  But wouldn't it be even better if a sinkhole just took out this guy's house, ridding the planet of absolutely nobody who will be missed by anybody?

*"Revengeance?"  Really?

**"Rated M for Mature?"  Where's the "maturity" here?

25 years? I give Leo two more, tops, with this idiot for a mom

Um....so exactly how long is Leo's "time out" going to last, anyway?  Until he's consumed all the drain cleaner under the sink?  Until he's sliced himself to pieces with every sharp object in Mommy's $10,000 kitchen?  Until he's mastered the gas stove and learned to heat up his own canned ravioli?  Until he's been noticed by a passing neighbor and has been rescued by Child Protective Services?

Or just until Mom's lover's lunch break is over and he has to get back to the office?  Seriously, who the hell wrote this ad?  This woman makes Elly Patterson look like Attentive Mother of the Year, for Christ's sake.  I think we all know who needed "time out" here.  Quick hint:  It wasn't Leo.  Just one more question: Where exactly did Mom go out TO?

Space Babies? SPACE BABIES??

"Yes, well that's because Jake's parents aren't frightened, pathetically juvenile morons with severe arrested development issues who think that sex is a scary mystery better kept under wraps until you are engaged to some nice Baptist girl your parents picked out for you, son."

Seriously, this is so disturbing and demented, I don't think I have enough room here to deal with it adequately.  This really is more of a job for The Editor at Pointless Planet.  I mean, I can deal with McDonalds, Cell Phones, and MOST car commercials, but this....this Celebration of Stupid is so horrid and lame, it really needs to be dissected by someone willing to deal with it frame by frame.  And that ain't me.

I'll just leave it with this observation: Chances are excellent that when The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round is over and Spawn of Nitwits has been dropped off at Sunday School, the parents of this poor kid will resolve to remove the evil secular influence of Jake and his Awful Going To Hell Any Moment Now Caregivers who have the gall to talk about Actual Non-Make Believe Biology within earshot of their precious Intentionally Ignorant About Dirty Things Like This Until Out of the House son.  These two alleged adults clearly have sticks so firmly shoved up their nether regions, it's hard to imagine how they ever managed to figure out the sex act in the first place.

Or maybe Dad actually believes his pathetically brain-numbing Space Babies story, because it helps him deal with the fact that his wife one day had a child, despite the fact that he has never, ever seen her naked.

Is Progressive Insurance it's own Alternate Universe, or what?

To sum up:

The way to show the world that you are your own person who makes his own decisions and doesn't "always do what you're told to do" is to attach a device to your automobile which allows Progressive Insurance to monitor your driving habits.

Makes sense to someone, somewhere, I guess.

Yes, you can commit a murder-suicide right here in the showroom. Thanks for asking, Jan!

Quick Quiz: Which of the two people who make up this thirty-second little nub of an ad is more repulsive?  Is it

A)  Jan, the Way Too Happy In Her Dead-End, Mind-Numbingly Dull Job to really be allowed to live another minute Toyota spokeschoad?  This woman is so pumped up with SOMETHING illegal that she not only doesn't mind that the idiot douchebag customer (more about her in a moment) won't even pay her the common courtesy of eye contact, but that hey, she's reached thirty and all she's got to show for that college degree is a job as a chirping little salesmonkey for Toyota, or

B)  This techno-addled dweeb who is actually pathetic enough to believe that because she's managed to hound and cross-reference 4700 people into clicking "Accept" on Facebook, this somehow means that she has 4700 friends?  My guess is that the only way this dribbling idiot managed to find her way to the showroom was with the turn-by-turn directions provided by her phone, and that she'll need to download some more directions to get her pathetic worthless ass from the Help Desk to whatever model of Toyota Jan, or her phone, picks out for her.

I have to go with "B," for the simple reason that it's pretty obvious Stupid Useless Phone Addict is going to keep her eyes glued to that screen when she's supposed to be doing other things- like watching the damn road while driving her new Toyota, for example.  Jan is annoying as hell, but she isn't going to sideswipe me or run over someone like the chirpy idiot will the next time she feels the need to update her Facebook status while changing lanes on I-95.