The vicious, depressing, and painfully familiar cycle of life, brought to you by Ameritrade

Jeff and Karen don't know it yet, but their lives as individual human beings are about to come to an end.

You see, Jeff and Karen are about to meet.  They'll be physically attracted to each other, they'll go out to dinner and have long, involved talks and gradually realize that they really, really like being together and don't even notice when hours have gone by.  They'll go to movies and take long walks in the park and when they aren't together, they'll think about each other a lot.

But then, because there's this thing called Society which has Expectations, they'll fuck it all up by getting married.  Then they'll get a house with a mortgage which they'll spend extra hours at work laboring to pay off.   Sex won't be fun anymore- it will be a chore and a duty and naturally Karen will start popping out children, because yes those Societal Expectations again.  Jeff will get crow's feet around his eyes staring at his laptop screen maneuvering money here and there, because he Must plan for being dead someday and leaving the fruits of his labor to that girl he used to really enjoy sleeping with and those kids.

Jeff and Karen won't be running off to the beach at a moment's notice- no more grabbing a bottle of wine out of the fridge and slipping into a park for a little slightly illegal but ever so much fun naughtiness, because there are those kids and, again, those Societal Expectations.  It's all so By the Book for Jeff and Karen, but that's ok because this is the way it's Supposed to Be.

Jeff and Karen have long since been rendered cold, and in the all-too-near future they will be rendered dead as well.  That's ok, though- they've had the required boy and girl who will grow up to have a few brief years of fun before becoming square pegs in square holes.  Buying houses.  Having kids.  Getting old.  Worrying about money.  And pretending that somehow this is all worthwhile, because after all, Society approves.

Congratulations, Jeff and Karen.  You represent all that is suffocating and noxious in a life rendered lifeless all too quickly.  Here's society's reward for you- a pat on the head, and another little nudge toward the abyss.

"Express Train." I'm still laughing at that part.

So, to sum up:

This kid gets an IM from his mom which reads "we need to talk."  This guy is so attached to his mom, he quickly types back the equivalent of a "wtf-ever, mom" brush-off.  Ok, this happens- sometimes my mother contacts me and I'm halfway out the door or in the middle of something very important, and I have to put her off for a bit.  But I've never put my mom on the back burner so I can play some dumb-ass video game.  Jerk.

Mom eventually gets his attention- by sending a photo of the kid's dog with the note "Boomer's not doing that well."  Ten seconds later this kid is heading to the airport so he can be at his dog's side.  Kind of sweet, except that it's been made very clear that if it were MOM who was "not doing that well," chances are this kid would still be playing his brain-dead Really You Need To Grow Out of This I Mean You Are On Your Own And Everything game while quietly cursing out Mom for continually interrupting him.

Because Boomer is vastly more important than Mom, we next see the kid waiting for the bus to take him to the airport so he can dash home and be with his dog.  He learns that his flight has been cancelled, so he does what anyone would do if he were an Inexplicably Independent Moron with the means to jump on planes and fly off to distant places at a moment's notice- he whips out his phone and asks the Magic Google "how do I get home?"

At this point, my suspension of disbelief has gone right off the cliff.  The credibility of this commercial has been stretched so far that it's snapped and left a welt on my face.  For a moment, I actually think that Google has responded with a matter-of-fact, "here's your route it's only 500 miles have fun" response- but no, it's informed him that there's an express train that can get him down the East Coast in no time.  Which instantly tells me that wherever this commercial is taking place, it sure as hell isn't the United States.  Unless "Train" translates to "Amtrak" and "Express" means "inside of 14 hours, unless it's raining."

I'm going to assume that this butthead gets back to his mother's home to comfort his dog, and mom reacts with "what the hell are you doing here? Jesus, you can't get home for Thanksgiving or Christmas or Mother's Day or my birthday, but I tell you that your dog is sick and you act like someone lit a fire under your ass?"

"I hope your electronic best friend got you hotel reservations, because I turned your room into a library.  And take your sick dog with you."

Worst Cross-Promotion EVER

Coming next:  "When Katniss isn't hunting squirrels to sell in the District 13 meat market or inexplicably finding herself attracted to a whiny, pasty, manipulative stalker when she's already got a handsome, rugged and self-assured soul mate, she really loves digging into a Sriracha Chicken Sandwich available for a limited time at Subway!"

Or how about "Subway salutes the release of the second film of The Hunger Games Trilogy by reminding you that when YOU'RE hungry, you don't have to put your name into a horrifyingly futuristic (yet hackneyed) lottery- just head down to YOUR district's closest Subway Restaurant!"

"And don't forget to see Catching Fire, the deeply inferior sequel to the already-overrated Hunger Games!  But don't go hungry- drop by Subway first!"

Sick.

I need to stop it with these all-nighters

I saw these commercials back to back in the wee hours of the morning while entering my fifth straight hour of writing notes, and while on my seventh or eighth can of Diet Coke.  Not once, not twice, but about nine times.

Around the sixth time, they became indistinguishable.  They were no longer two separate ads, but one long one, featuring a member of the Hitler Youth joining with the Pillsbury Dough Boy to barbecue hamburgers and corn on the cob while lacing cheap pastry with sugary icing.   I think Tony Shaloub might have been involved too.  Or maybe I had a Monk marathon on.

I'm here 'cause my phone told me to

So this woman just woke up one morning and totally forgot that she had a trip to take?  It sure looks that way- her phone tells her that she has to get to the airport ( for a few moments, I thought maybe we'd find out that she just had to pick someone up there, but no....) and she dashes off, showing us how much a hurry she's in by frantically pressing the elevator button, etc...

Naturally she never takes her eyes off her phone, which tells her what gate to go to and which baggage claim to use, and never mind that both pieces of information are readily available even to us losers who don't have tripped-out phones.  I get the idea that after she picks up her bags, the phone will let her know where she is, why she is there, and how long she's going to remain.

Jeesh- might as well open the windows!

I'm not even going to do the usual anti-"connectivity" rant that comes so naturally to mind when I see an ad celebrating the ability of privileged first-class douchenozzles to stare at their glowing screens for five hours during an international flight.  Or how little I care that the dick at the center of all this can keep track of "The Market' while he's resting his pampered ass on his oversized, comfy business-size seat.

I'm too busy being horrified at the idea that this plane appears to be traveling 500 miles an hour at an altitude of 80 feet above the freaking ocean.  How the hell can these people keep the water from flying out of their ostentatious wine glasses?  The turbulence must be unbelievable!

At least "Storm Chasers" had SOMETHING to do with the freaking WEATHER

This show is produced and presented by The Weather Channel.

Seriously.  No kidding.  The Weather Channel.

Grizzled loser "prospectors" wearing dirty clothes and sporting frayed beards if they are male, dirty revealing clothes and someone less facial hair if they are female.  Rock slides.  No doubt an explosion now and then.  Lots of mountain-climbing truck action.  And yelling.  A LOT of yelling.

I suppose that at least once an episode, someone will complain about the heat or the rain.  You know, to wedge the topic of weather in there.

Otherwise, what the HELL is this?  Why is it that none of the Specific-Content Channels seem capable of sticking to their original themes anymore?  I thought that the point of HAVING such channels was to make it easier for the average couch potato to quickly locate what he was in the mood for.  Now you really NEVER know what you are going to find no matter WHERE you turn.  Though you can make some pretty intelligent guesses:

MTV: Vapid, Stupid, Lazy, Spoiled Idiots sitting around luxury homes yelling at each other.

AMC: Zombies, Mad Men, movies released 10-20 years ago that nobody not collecting a paycheck from AMC would call "classic."

The History Channel:  Ice Road Truckers, Pawn Stars, Hillbillies and Crocodiles, Ancient Aliens

National Geographic:  Doomsday Preppers (or Let's Pretend There's Something Cool about Thoroughly Creepy Nazi/White Supremacist Survivalists.)

TBS: Family Guy, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, and God-Awful "Original" programming followed by "Family Guy."

And now The Weather Channel, which used to be very carefully targeted to the demographic which includes over-70 shut-ins and People Stuck In Their Homes During Blizzards, which I guess is going to be expanding to include Shows Rejected By The History Channel.  And my question remains- WHY?