In the end, I guess I just hate everyone in this Kay Jewelers commercial. Nothing new about that.

I swear this commercial showed up no less than 1200 times during two NFL games last Sunday.  And it just got more cloying and banal and just plain dumb and pointless with each airing.  By halftime of the second game, I had it memorized, and had gone from wanting the Judgmental Seriously Who Asked Your Opinion Old Man to just waddle outside and die in a snowbank to actually being on his side and reminding The Boyfriend that he's a guest in someone's home and not on his own couch in his own apartment.

I mean, come on.  Come up for air, people  Lady? It's a freaking watch.  Get over it.

At the same time- Stupid Old Man?  Your ass isn't nailed to that chair, is it?  How about stretching your legs for a bit?  Better yet- instead of bitching about toys that need batteries (how old is this guy?  Most of the toys I got when I was a kid needed batteries, and I bet his did, too. Jesus is he going to start waving his cane around and shaking his fist at clouds next?) how about playing with your grandkids?  Trust me, the young couple that is just trying to share a moment won't miss you and your running commentary one damned bit.

Oh, and "looks like we got a man here?"  Um, why- because he didn't get your (daughter? Granddaughter?) a toy or cell phone or computer for Christmas? What exactly is superior about a piece of jewelry?  What the hell is the matter with you?

Oh wait, I forgot.  No more running commentary, please.  I believe there's still a snowbank out there with your name on it.

Ugh. This Again?

Dear Chevy,

This wasn't funny last year.  Why do you insist on acting like a six year old in possession of one joke that he insists on telling his parent's friends over and over again?

When I see a very fat guy with a white beard, I might think "hmm, he looks like Santa Claus."  I don't think he IS Santa Claus, and there's absolutely nothing he could do to convince me that he IS Santa Claus.  Because I'm an adult, and all that.

Actually, if I walked into a Chevy Dealership ( what are the odds? Not good) and saw this guy selling cars, the first thing I'd think would be "I can't believe that Chevy believes that if they hire guys who look like Santa Claus to push their crap, people will be more likely to buy.  Adults are NOT that stupid."

Then again, check out this woman, who for the sake of a really bad pun calls a salesman a "Saint" for....offering to help her pick out a car and earn him a commission.  They don't make Saints the way they used to, I guess- last time I checked, helping a customer pick out a car was kind of expected from car  salesmen and didn't require a huge heart (or stomach, or beard.)

Or just play the Quiet Game. That would work, too.

1.  Passengers can't tell if a car "handles nicely."  So shut up, stupid passenger with nothing intelligent to say.  Why are you even talking at all?  Shouldn't you be staring at your phone?  That's what I see every passenger on the road doing, all the time, anyway (and way too many drivers, too.)

2.  This guy put an entire pool together and had it filled with 17,000 gallons of water- but didn't use any nuts?  And it held water for any length of time?

3.  Wouldn't it be funny if the kid in the pool got seriously hurt because his dad is a moron?  No? Then why did you think it was at all funny when the pool collapsed?  Because in real life, that probably means the kid gets hurt, you hypocrite.

4.  Once again, how do the two people in the car manage to come up with exactly the same mental image?

5.  When the driver says "that would be like using nuts OR bolts" shouldn't the passenger reply "ok, forget it, I was just trying to make small talk.  Doesn't this thing have a fricking stereo system?"

We can all relate to this Audi ad, can't we?

One rich douchenozzle after another gets a glance at a new Audi, thinks about it for roughly three seconds, and then drops the keys to what we KNOW is a perfectly good (and almost certainly luxury) car into the Salvation Army donation bucket.

Look, I know this is just a commercial.  But is this disturbingly sick or what?  We are supposed to believe that not only are these jagoffs so rich that they can make a snap decision to buy an Audi, but that they don't even need the freaking trade-in value on their current car to get one.

Oh, and weird Elf Donation Girl?  You and me both.  I am seriously going to need a bigger bucket.

God, I hate this time of year.

If you thought "Chocolate Diamonds" were dumb, check THIS out!

What if you could take rare, expensive diamonds and make them look like the plastic costume jewelry you can get out of a gumball machine?

Personally?  If I were a guy willing to spend a thousand dollars or more on a rock for some girl, and that girl said she wanted that diamond to be bright pink or blue or green, I'd be more than a little irritated.  I'm pretty sure my first thought would be "um, if you are going to wear something that looks like Junk, then why don't I just BUY junk and save a lot of money?  Hey, I'm just asking, honey!"

What's next?  This is like putting Golden Arches on a high-scale restaurant- "sure, it LOOKS cheap, but wait 'till you see how much the entrees cost!"  Or maybe Lexus will offer a model with built-in dents and scratches, with no reduction in cost.  Hey, check out this $2 mil condo- it's in a great neighborhood and comes with real hardwood floors and a gorgeous spiral staircase-- the washing machines are in the basement, and take quarters.

Seriously, this is just nuts.  I can just see people wearing these cheap-looking things and spending all their time "casually" mentioning to passer-bys that "sure, they LOOK like something an eight-year old would find in a Cracker Jack Box,  but they are real and cost big bucks!  I swear!"

The Release of Pompeii- I guess they were just waiting for the CGI to catch up?

Back in 1972, a little movie called The Poseidon Adventure launched the first Disaster Film Era.  Over the rest of the decade, Hollywood dished out a seemingly endless series of mostly-bad films depicting B-actors finding themselves in Really Terrible Predicaments featuring tidal waves, volcanoes, meteors, fire, killer insects and amphibians- I was pretty sure that by the time the whole thing wound down around 1980 they hadn't left a single possible disaster scenario unexplored.  Some of them had big budgets- there were the four Airport films.  The Towering Inferno (that one had Paul Newman AND O.J. Simpson.)  Meteor (which bankrupted a studio and almost ended Sean Connery's career.)  Then there were the Direct-To-The-Drive-In low-budget Let's Make Ed Wood Proud features like The Killer Bees and The Frogs (I actually saw that one- the only scenes I remember were the ones with the guy being eaten by leeches and the end with the frogs riding on the record player.  That was fun.)

According to my friend over at the Haphazardstuff.com  blog, the release of the original (and by far the best) spoof film, Airplane! in 1980 pretty much nailed the coffin on an idea which had been worn threadbare anyway, and the first Disaster Film Era came to an unsung end.  The 80s were dominated by Star Wars and Indiana Jones and Back to the Future, and our optimism didn't leave any room for screaming, desperate, frightened idiots trying to escape impending doom (unless the impending doom was in the form of a guy with a big knife wearing a hockey mask.)

In the 90s we had a mini-revival of the Disaster Film craze with Twister (if you've never seen it, you must not own a TV, because with the possible exception of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I don't think any film has been rebroadcast as often) Armageddon, Deep Impact (despite the aforementioned failure of Meteor, Hollywood seemed pretty convinced that there was an appetite for Big Rocks Falling from Space to kill us story lines,) Volcano, Dante's Peak (which should have convinced the Broccolis to stick with Dalton.  Idiots.) And of course the ultimate disaster flick, the most overrated film of all time, Titanic.*  

More recently, we've had a Poseidon remake.  Let's just forget that one, shall we?

Well, maybe my readers won't believe this, but more than a decade ago, while watching Gladiator and wondering how many togas-and-sandals imitators it would spawn, I found myself also wondering why Hollywood hadn't recreated the story of Pompeii since around the silent era.  Maybe it was considered during the first two Disaster Eras and rejected as too pricey?  So the only thing I find surprising about the impending release of Pompeii is what took so long.  Sure, Showtime gave us Spartacus: Sweat, Sex and Sandals (ok, I don't really know what each season is called, I just know the show lasted longer than the actual slave rebellion) and HBO the superior Rome, but the story of the Big Volcano that Blew Up and Gave Us an Awesomely Preserved Tourist Attraction seemed like a lost opportunity at the time.

But here it is.  I'm sure it's going to be awful- but that's fine, as long as it doesn't lead to another Disaster Film Era.  I think the next Batman film will be more than enough disaster for this decade.

*Rose killed Jack.  She had multiple opportunities to just get on one of the lifeboats, and each time she refused so she could continue to be a millstone around Jack's neck.  If she had just left him to take care of himself and not have to worry about saving her helpless butt every few minutes, he would have been on that raft by himself and they would have met up with the other survivors at the end.  Idiot.

One Dryer+ Sixteen Hours= More than one pizza, I'd think

1. Why is Jim so determined to use only one dryer for all of his clothes?  It's clear that there are plenty of dryers that are not being used all around the one he is trying to break.  And it's not to save money, because we are told it took "16 hours to dry all his clothes," and "his hoodie was still a little damp" even then.

2.  Is Jim really eating pizza in a laundromat?  Yeah, there's nothing like the smell of soap, bleach and dirty socks to get your appetite cranked up, huh, Jim?

3.  Is Jim really going to be handling his finally sort-of-dry laundry with hands that just spent fifteen minutes delivering pizza to his face?  Jim isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, is he?