American Idol? Call back when you get some killer monkeys and poisonous fog.

First, the cloying little cards being held up at the beginning would be so much more honest if they were just decorated with dollar signs and nothing but dollar signs.   "I"m doing it for him?"  Yeah, sure you are, lady.  Keep telling your parents that every time you drop that baby off so you can stand in line for another six hours in another American Idol Audition City.   I'm sure they buy it at least as much as I do.

Second, why don't we just admit that this is just the currently legal version of "The Hunger Games?"  No, we don't get to see these sad idiots hunt and actually murder each other, but it's the best we can do under our current system of law- sure, they can't bludgeon each other with rocks or form temporary alliances with people they'll eventually be plotting to butcher when they are no longer useful (you have to watch Survivor for that) but at least we can look forward to another season of watching people being emotionally beaten to bloody pulps before being tossed into the waste bin of life.

Only until we finally get this Destruction of Society thing over with already (five years, tops) and can start building those "game zones."  Hey, at least we won't have to deal with pathetic losers who think they can sing just because All Their Friends Think They're Awesome.

And I'm assuming Jennifer Lopez won't be involved either.  Bonus.

Get a cannon ready!

Get this guy away from these kids, before he does even more damage.

"Let's say a friend called and asked you to come over and had a really cool pool.  What would you do?"

"Go over and swim in the pool!"

"Ok, now let's say another friend called right before you left and invited you to come over and swim in their bigger pool.  What would you do?"

"Go swim in the bigger pool!"

"Wait a minute- what about the first friend who called? Do you just blow them off because their pool is smaller and, therefore, lamer?"

"Hell yes!"

"Ok, now what if a friend called who didn't own a pool at all and invited you to visit.  Would you go?"

"No!  Only if they have a pool!  And I'll only visit if they have the biggest, best pool of all my friends!"

"Congratulations.  At the age of five, you are a shallow dickwad who picks friends based on what they can provide for you, and dumps them as soon as you find friends who have more to offer in terms of things like swimming pools.  You are ready to be an adult who embraces 21st Century American Values."

He IS going to die soon, right?

1.  I love the framed photo including the Family Patriarch, hovering over all.  Kind of creepy.

2.  Mom says everything will be fine once they buy Daughter some headphones.  I'm not sure what this means- does Grampa snore?  Is it so Daughter can still listen to her music and not bother Grampa?  If it's the latter, um...is this still daughter's home, or what?  What else in our lives are we turning upside down to make life better for Grampa?  How about getting HIM some headphones and leaving Daughter Who Wasn't Asked If She Minded Giving Up Her Room And Moving Into the Basement alone?

3.  "Thanks for not putting up too much of a fuss over moving my incontinent, grumpy, doddering old fool of a father move in and disrupt our happy home until he's ultimately found dead on the toilet.  Here's your first installment of Shut Up and Deal With It By Sobbing Quietly Into Your Pillow and Hiding Alcohol Around The House jewelry."

4.  "This IS his home."  Sounds sweet, but my guess is she means "we thought getting him to cosign the mortgage was a good idea, but now it's come back to bite us in the ass, what are we going to do?"

Oh, and Jane Seymour Medicine Woman?   Who the hell asked you?

A talking plastic nightmare and "Forrest Gump?" This was the best you could do, Netflix?

Thirty-four years ago, Mrs. McDermott was browsing the local Dollar Store and found the most god-awful ugly Christmas angel to ever come out of a factory in China and inexplicably decided to buy it.

Turned out that this garish piece of middle-class kitsch had a nasal Jersey accent- not that it really mattered to the McDermotts, since it couldn't actually talk, except to itself.  Good thing, too- because it never stopped talking to itself, and the only thing it was interested in was creepily watching the McDermotts do whatever the McDermotts do during the holidays- like watch 20-year old films that everyone else has already seen a dozen times on Netflix, for example.*

During the holidays and ONLY during the holidays, of course- because it's safe to assume that this piece of nasty junk spends 49 weeks of the year sitting in a musty box in the attic, alone with it's thoughts (which, hopefully, don't include "someday I'm going to climb down from that tree and kill the McDermotts.")

*I mean, come on.  At least show them watching The Lone Ranger, or something else a bit more current.  Forrest Gump?  Who the hell would gather with their family on the holidays to watch Forrest Gump?  Maybe the plastic atrocity's memory is a bit off?

Verizon continues its assault on common decency

1.  I'm pretty sure that if the song that accompanies this ad isn't already our official National Anthem, it soon will be.  I can't imagine another with lyrics which more accurately speak to the hearts of the Better Off and Therefore Better Amongst Us.

2.  I'm also pretty sure that if Buying Stuff For Yourself isn't already our official National Pastime, it soon will be.  I can't imagine an activity which more accurately appeals to the hearts of the One Percenters, One Percenter Wannabees, and those who believe they are in the One Percent because Rush Limbaugh told them they were.

Instant Gratification- and your right to experience it- continues to be the guiding philosophy of the richest, fattest, most over-indulged nation on Earth.

Meanwhile, there's a soup kitchen down the street that had to turn families away last night while you were chanting (and living) "I want it, I want it, I want it RIGHT NOW" on your way to the Verizon store.  Dickwad.

Nissan? What the HELL is the POINT?

So the passengers in this commercial are concerned about being late- I guess because they don't know the power of the Nissan Rogue.

The owner of this car proceeds to show off a variety of CGI effects, accompanied by repeated "Do Not Attempt," "You Can't Really Do This" and "Fantasy" disclaimers (and a truly stupid "I do this all the time and it never stops being awesome" head-wag from the driver) to arrive at a parking lot and quip "are we early?"

The punchline, meanwhile, is "Commute Your Way."

So the viewers are expected to keep these two ideas in our heads at the same time- you can chart your own course with the Nissan Rogue, but you can't actually do any of these things we show the Nissan Rogue doing with the Nissan Rogue.  In real life, these passengers would have been late- just like they would have been late if they were driving a Honda, a Volkswagen, or a Ford.  Because in real life, the Nissan Rogue can't jump highways and disobey the laws of gravity.

So....what were we just watching here- and why?

KFC Presents 2014's version of "Family Time." Caution: May Cause Nausea

This is pretty sad, isn't it?

This.....um...."family" is busy congratulating itself because it's....um....."together."

Actually, the.....um....."parents" are being pretty straight with us- they admit that they just bribed their two idiot offspring out of their rooms by bringing home a bucket of everyone's favorite greasy fried chicken.  And that "being together" is good enough- the kids can continue to be isolated, rude douchenozzles with their cell phones and MP3 players.  Nobody expects them to put their electronic shit away for a few minutes to acknowledge Mom and Dad and maybe even have a conversation with them- nope, Mom and Dad are way, way beyond expecting anything like THAT.  Just being in the same room is good enough.

Um, is it way out of bounds for me to ask why?  As in, why can't these "parents" get their kids out of their rooms simply by announcing "time to come out of your rooms and to the dinner table?"  And once they are at the dinner table, what exactly would be wrong with "put your phones and music away, you are with your parents now?"  Why is this depicted as some kind of unreasonable, impossible expectation?

What the hell is this?  Mom and Dad have simply surrendered to the "inevitability" that their kids will act like soulless, rude jerkwads and are happy with the tiny crumbs of attention they are willing to spare the people who made the house, their rooms, and this chicken possible?  Again- am I out of bounds when I simply ask "Why?"

And while I'm at it, why is dad's "now, if their batteries die, we might just have a conversation" supposed to be anything but depressing?  What exactly would happen if Dad told his kids to shut their crap toys off for fifteen minutes?  Why are the electronics in charge here?

Was I just born in the wrong century, or what?  WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?