The Perfect Potato, just a phone call away....

(Am I the only person who really hates this woman's voice?  Maybe it's because I'm pretty sure she's the same person who has been trying to tell me this junk for roughly 20 years now, but wow it's annoying...)

I think I could do a separate blog focusing exclusively on these Available Only On Television products.  They are all basically the same, falling into one of three categories:

1.  The Very Cheap Solution to a Very Expensive Problem.  Got a dent or deep scratch on your car?  Dulled headlights?  Pets with bad breath? The standard answer to these potentially life-ruining difficulties Could Cost Hundreds of Dollars.   But here's a quickie fix you didn't even know existed.  Don't pay a mechanic or doctor outRAGEOUS fees- just use this cream or spray, problem solved in seconds!   Now don't you feel like an idiot?

But wait, you can get double the amount, just pay separate shipping and handling!

2.  The Very Cheap Solution to a Problem You Didn't Even Know You Had.  How much television do you miss because you simply cannot hear it?  How many times a year do you just walk into that glass door, causing serious injury to yourself?  Driving at night without Miracle Eagle Eyes sunglasses is taking your life into your own hands- you'll probably get yourself killed one of these nights.  And speaking of getting killed- how have you managed to live this long without a Miracle Hose or Raptor Straps?  You could pay HUNDREDS for products that look just like this in stores.....

But wait- you can get double the amount, just pay separate shipping and handling!

3. The Very Cheap Way to Prepare Ordinary Food You Thought You Knew How To Make Already.  Everyone LOVES fried chicken, pot roast, scrambled eggs, bread, cakes, cookies, ice cream, pizza- but no one ever actually EATS any of these things because it's just Too Gosh-Darned Hard To Make.  (Not to mention that a box of cookies can cost you HUNDREDS of dollars in stores....)  You had no idea how incredibly hard it was to cook until you spent time watching the idiots fumble around a kitchen in these ads (hey, lady?  Those potatoes will cook faster if you stop OPENING THE FREAKING OVEN.)

But wait- you can get double the amount, just pay separate shipping and handling!

This particular commercial includes a feature I like to call "padding:"- having spent ten seconds giving us a bs explanation for how this potholder with a flap will cook our potatoes to fluffy hot perfection in four minutes, almost the entire remainder of the ad is devoted to showing us What We Already Knew We Can Do With Potatoes.  Cheese?  Sour Cream and Chives?  Bacon bits?  No Way!!  Does this thing come with a recipe book, because I'm sure I'm going to need help remembering these revolutionary serving suggestions?!

What's this all about, Taco Bell?

Ok, I have no idea what is going on in this commercial, except that I think it's supposed to be funny that the dad with the look of total rage on his face is chasing a kid down the street, having come home early to catch him....um.....doing what, exactly?

Seriously, what set the guy off like this?  Chasing a kid down the street with a look on your face which seems to read "I'm going to kill you?"  So what- was he banging the guy's daughter?*  How do the giant tacos come in?  This is maybe funny in comic strips (you know, like Andy Capp being a worthless, unemployed drunk ignoring his wife funny) but probably not- and it certainly isn't funny in real life.  I mean, think about it- if you lived on this street and saw this guy chasing some teenager down the street in the middle of the night with that look on his face- well, would you find this at all amusing?  What would you do- laugh?  Call the cops?  Child Protective Services?  Or shrug your shoulders and mutter to your spouse "yep, there's Bill, he's going to kick the crap out of one of his daughter's boyfriends again. Same old same old?"

Now, we do see this little grin appear on the kid's face, perhaps to let us know that this is all in fun- he's happy with his pizza-sized taco thing, and he's getting away so easily that he even takes a bite as he dashes down the street.  But that doesn't really make sense either- ok, so he's going to outrun this guy.  Great.  Then what?  Is he going to call later and find out if the girl he was not supposed to be visiting survived Dad's rage?  Because she's still back there at the house, right?

Getting back to my original question- the parents came home early, and caught this kid doing something so out of bounds, so against the rules, that he felt compelled to make a run for it, and Dad is determined to catch him.  What was it?

Here's the saddest part-  that this is 2014, and the image of an enraged dad chasing some kid down the street with a murderous look on his face is presented as comedy.   Like I said- I just don't get it.

*Song lyrics:  "Your daddy's got nothin' on me...."  Ok, it's official.  I don't want to get it.

Hashtag Idiot Loser Hashtag Dunkin Donuts Hashtag Too Much Time On My Hands

Thoughts for the sad, coffee-loving cat lady with no sense of perspective in this ad:

1.  This sure looks like it's your apartment- if you like Dunkin Donuts Pumpkin Spice so much, why don't you just buy more of it, so you don't have to fish around for it among the coffees you DON'T like?  You remind me of Homer Simpson repeatedly opening cartoons of Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry Ice Cream, finding all the Chocolate gone, and yelling "Marge!  We need more Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry Ice Cream!"

2.  "Best day ever?"  Um, really?  Even better than when you picked up your bestest friend, Mr. Smuggums, from the shelter?  Finding a k-cup of Pumpkin Spice beats that?  How depressing for you.

Tis the season to be Judgemental ;>)!!!  Sorry, crazy cat woman- but I can't relate to your discovery of nirvana in a coffee cup.  With a cat.  And then your feel compelled to share your Finest Moment with everyone out there in TwitterHashtagLand.  You know, I had such high hopes for Dunkin Donuts when they hired They Might Be Giants to do a few jingles.  Those ads were ok, because at least there was some nice music to listen to while you tried to ignore the crap on the screen.  What happened to that idea, Dunkin?

Chrome-Plated Awful

Or "the Future of Relationships, brought to you by Electronics."

Gee, I wonder what went wrong with their relationship?  It wasn't that they didn't have fun together- hell, they are going to amusement parks and ROME for chrissakes.  So we can cross that out.

Was it the stalking?  This guy seems to know where his girlfriend (excuse me, "travel buddy"- gag-) was at every moment of every date (and maybe when she wasn't on a date with him....hmm....) I can see that getting old, fast.  Like, right away.  I can even see the "hey I was just worried about you" bit not quite smoothing things over.

Was it the Being An Annoying, Hovering Dickwad?  This guy isn't satisfied poking his girl awake for no obvious reason- he has to catch himself doing it, and her reaction, on video which I'm going to just go ahead and assume he posted on YouTube fifteen seconds later.  I can see this being a sore point in any relationship- "hey, honey? Why didn't you just let me sleep?  Or if you needed to wake me up, why did you need to video it?  Did you think this was endearing?  Hint: It wasn't."

No, my guess is that it was the whole Total Lack of Communication thing.  The "conversation" these people have is made up entirely of texts, links and videos.  No talking.  None.  A few years ago, I would have criticized people for attempting to make up over the phone.  Now I see how truly naive I was back then- discussions that once required face to face communication moved to being perfectly appropriate over the phone, and now don't require any emotional risk at all.  Just text, cut and paste, link and stream your way to an understanding of What Went Wrong and What You'll Do To Fix It.

Not that she's any better- am I missing something, or does she actually consult a website to find pros and cons to taking him back?  Meh, nothing surprises me anymore.  Depresses me, yes.  Surprises me, no.

Call me back when you can use it to lift comics off the funny pages

You know, over the past twenty years or so I've gotten very used to these commercials for Pillsbury Non-Food-in-a-Can products.  I don't even blink when I see people at kitchen tables smiling appreciatively at mom when she sets down a basket of this awful junk as if she actually put in the time to make it from scratch- no, not even when we see two alleged adults argue over who gets the last greasy, fat-infused chemical--err, crescent roll- on the table.

It doesn't bug me one bit to watch people who seem to be reasonably prosperous demonstrating absolutely zero taste or common sense as they happily shovel this cheap poison down their cake holes.  Heck, these are probably the same people who just love it when mom dishes up the Kraft mac'n cheese and Hamburger Helper and Shake'n bake and Manwiches and canned ravioli.  Like I said, zero taste and less common sense.

But please, enough with these commercials showing me people playing with this particular non-food product called "Grands."  It's not a toy, is it? If the answer is "no," please, please stop it with the "look how fun it is to tear it apart" and wave it around before sticking it in your mouth" crap.

Or maybe I've been wrong all these years, and it IS a toy?  It would certainly do less harm if it was marketed as a bakeable form of Play-Doh or Silly Putty.  Just put a disclaimer on the can- "Do Not Ingest."

Spying on birds- who the hell do we think we are?

I can't be the only person who watched this commercial and just kept thinking over and over again "this is just so very wrong...."

For the convenience of douchenozzle humans, now we can trick birds into living their entire freaking lives for our entertainment?  And is this in any way good for the birds- don't they kind of need darkness on a regular schedule?  I don't own fish, but I know from talking to the very strange people who seem to like them that aquariums are supposed to include objects that allow the little things to hide from the prying eyes of their captors from time to time.  I've been told this is true of other animals, too- zookeepers don't force animals to spend every hour the place is open on display, and provide caves, holes etc. for the poor things to take a break from the gawking gaze of idiot The World Was Fashioned For Us homo sapiens.

Maybe birds are different but, geeesh....

It's bad enough that we often play Mad Scientist with nature, breeding dogs with hip problems because we like them to look Just So and after all, they exist for our pleasure and only our pleasure anyway, right?  But it's worse when we expect wild animals to eat, breathe, mate and die under the magnifying glass of our overbearing cluelessness and monstrous sense of entitlement.  To paraphrase Frank Zappa, "I'm not a bird, but there sure are times when I wish I could say I wasn't a human."

I don't see any "Misunderstanding" here, Apple

(Author's Note: If I totally misunderstood this little nugget of self-congratulatory rubbish from Apple, don't feel the need to point that out to me.  I like my interpretation as is....)

"My whole family thinks I'm a morose, whiny little techno-addled loner.  I mean, I guess I can't blame them- I'm constantly avoiding human interaction so I can spend time with my electronic buddy, and I make it very clear that I'd much rather watch something I just downloaded to my phone than to actually talk to any of them.  Whenever I am forced to attend a family function, I walk around with my chin in my chest and a 'I'm a sullen, misunderstood artist type' look on my face, and I don't try to hide the fact that I'm totally addicted to that glowing thing that might as well be surgically attached to my hand.  I have no sense of courtesy or respect or even gratitude because indulging in those emotions means I would have to stop being an isolated dickwad for a few minutes.  Hell, I'm not even going to wash my hair now and then, because that's just not who I am.

But I'll show them- over the past week, while they were thinking I was just doing my usual 'fuck off and leave me alone carbon-based life forms, you are the assholes who need therapy, not me' bit, I was actually making a video that the whole family could share. That ought to shut them up for a while, and heck maybe it will even get me an upgrade on this lame-ass phone they got me on my birthday, six months ago.

And now that this whole sharing thing is over, maybe they'll leave me alone  so I can back to posting pointless crap for my 369 friends on Facebook (367 of whom I've never met in person.)  First thing I'm going to do is make a video about how painful it was to devote so damn much time to my idiot family.  But we artists- we must suffer for our art, mustn't we?"