Oh, and if you think about it, please try to avoid running me over, dickwad

Remember when car commercials used to focus on things like gas mileage, warranties, leg room, and safety?  You know, things that actually had something to do with driving a freaking car?

Nowadays it seems like more and more car ads concentrate on letting you know that you can continue to blather away to family, friends, coworkers and the boss who never ever stops cracking the whip even after you are allegedly off hours while in your tripped-out techmobile.  Why hold off being distracted by phone conversations while cruising around?  Look how easy it is to pretend to pay attention to traffic and pedestrians while you babble aimlessly and scroll your fingers along a screen.

Now hold on a second, John!  I'm quite certain that these cars come with disclaimers to keep your eyes on the road while the car is in motion!  Uh huh, yeah, I'm sure, too.  And I'm also sure that every single person who buys one of these cars is going to be spending more time staring at that screen (it IS a screen, isn't it?  Well, you have a screen but you aren't supposed to actually look at it?  How are you going to touch the right icon on that screen if you don't look at it- and if you don't have 20/20 eyesight, how much time is it going to take you to find the right one?) than making sure they aren't sideswiping someone who is just trying to get home (while yakking away on their phones, no doubt.)

I've seen ads like this which show people scrolling down to Facebook.  No fucking kidding- Facebook.  Because it's super-important that you update your status while cruising around in your LookAtMeMobile- far more important than checking your blind spot (hell, there's special alarm for that, right?) or to see if someone with a blaze orange backpack is trying to cross the street in front of you.  Jerkwad.

It's almost impossible for me to believe that a few short years ago, people used to actually get into their cars and have absolutely no contact with the outside world beyond the radio for the entire time they were traveling.  Now I rarely see people operating motor vehicles who AREN'T chatting away on their phones (at best) or staring (not glancing) at a screen propped up against the steering wheel (at worst.)

Is this any better?  Several scrollable screens, a dozen different media offerings, and basically a plethora of  gadgets offering distractions all at the same time?  Here, listen to music.  Here, call your mom.  Here, check Facebook.  We strongly suggest that every few seconds, you glance up and notice that your car has moved three hundred yards while you were flipping through your options for the 86th time since you left your house nine minutes ago.  Just because you could.

Here's a better idea- keep your mind and eyes on the fucking road and stop pretending that you are so damned important that you can't possibly be out of touch for even a moment while you are in your car, Mr. Essential Person.   This pedestrian will thank you for it, and it might even be good for your soul to just say "no" to these stupid, dangerous bells and whistles for once.

Show me a skeleton in the driver's seat holding a glowing cell phone, and you'll make me happier than I've been in a long, long time

So.....

Maybe you picked up the wrong hitch hiker while cruising home from the classic car show, and he forced you to pull over into a swamp before slicing off your ears, gouging out your eyes, and leaving you to be leech food to the creatures lurking in the most putrid festering swamp this side of the Degoba system, but at least your radio entertained the toothless trolls as they waited to be discovered and offered their own show by the History Channel?

Thanks for the uber-creepy message, Interstate.  Nice to see that you are no better at finding good ad agencies than anyone else.  And at least you spared us a good view of that rotting corpse.

AAMCO: Come in and make a total ass of yourself for our entertainment

Advanced Warning: This video MAY be used to induce vomiting.

Another Advanced Warning:  This ad is more than two and a half minutes long.  You will think it's over several times before it is.  You will wish it's over LONG before it is.

My suggestion:  Do not try to watch this entire ad in one sitting.  Or any number of sittings.

No one does a better job making commercials that have your ears bleeding inside of ten seconds than AAMCO.   I'm pretty sure I'd rather spend an afternoon watching a Nails on Chalkboard marathon* than thirty seconds of one of these awful "haha check out how stupid our customers are as we engage in the fantasy that AAMCO is going to diagnose your car based on the screeching noises they make, and the even more laughable fantasy that your AAMCO mechanic will ever say something like 'no big deal' when 'that sounds like a very serious problem' will always have many, many more dollar signs attached to it."

Thanks, AAMCO, for making Punch Dub Days look like High Art.  And for once again letting us know that you think we in the non-mechanic world are a bunch of blabbering sheep who are not only totally mystified by these magical machines we call automobiles but are perfectly willing to let everyone know- in the most humiliating way imaginable- that this is the case.

*Coming soon to The History Channel.  Only kidding.  Or am I?

(BTW, is the guy with the problem car five years old? No? Then why did he need two people to go with him to AAMCO?)

And in 33 seconds, Subaru kind of makes us wish they hadn't

This family survived a horrible crash because they were riding in a Subaru.  In fact, they apparently walked away without a scratch.  Good for them.  Good for Subaru.

Underneath the surface, however, the tiny fissures we can't quite see will soon widen and become cracks, which will then become chasms, and this family will come apart at the weakened seams.

First, we have the nightmares and the 2 AM screaming and the 7 AM soaked mattresses and the 3 PM therapy sessions.  Over and over again the images and sounds fly through Brittany and Cody's tortured minds- first there was mom's sneering, stabbing put-down which sent dad into a brief, offended silence which felt like a smothering blanket choking everyone in the speeding car.  It sounded like "you're driving too goddamned fast, what the fuck is your hurry?"  Then there was dad's frustrated, defiant pulling out of the cellphone, accompanied by an awkward, sudden jerking caused by his momentary failure to control the steering wheel.  Another stab by mom- "put your fucking phone away!"  The retort from Dad- "Stop telling me what to do goddammit you've been like this ever since you got pregnant with Cody!"  Screams.

Second, we have the black cloud of recrimination hanging over the entire house.  It hangs thickly over every silent meal consumed despite stomachs knotted with tension.  It manifests itself in tight-lipped smiles and tighter-lipped pecks on the cheek and in every "no, really, everything's fine" and every icy glance.  It whispers from every corner-- "you almost killed us because you were driving too fast and you weren't paying attention....you almost killed us because you couldn't let it alone and had to keep nagging me...we almost died because your phone was more important than we were....maybe you even wanted us dead because you didn't want Cody OR Brittany and you didn't want to marry me but I got pregnant.....you feel trapped that's why you didn't care enough to slow down when I told you to...."

"The Subaru saved us from a quick death.....so we could live this slow one.   So we could die a little every day, so we could go through the motions of this sham marriage for the sake of the kids we are torturing with the fact that we no longer trust each other, taking comfort only in the fact that someday, we'll die for real.   Until then, here's your toast, here's your coffee, here's your peck on the cheek, here's another Christmas, here's another birthday, there's another line on your face and another gray hair on your head, when the kids are gone we can talk about what comes next, until then just suck it up because They Need Us Now. "

Hey, I bet you thought the TITLE of this post was dark!

I guess it's the house that she found so attractive

As usual, the people in this commercial are living in a palace which includes a kitchen larger than my entire apartment.

I guess that's why the sad-looking woman in this ad seems reasonably content with her lot in life, married to a car-obsessed idiot who thinks of nothing but hitting sharp curves at dangerous speeds in his Buick Regal.   She is so used to his obvious preference for his car that instead of just congratulating Dad for Doing Something Right For Once and getting his kid to eat his strained peas, she mutters "gee I wonder where he got that idea" when the baby appreciates the Cliche'd Car Noises.  She looks like she's about to cry- which gives me the idea that she's had more than enough of hubby's love of his car.

Then she goes back to washing dishes, or whatever she was doing as Her Side of the Bargain (along with popping out a baby now and then.)

Dad's share- providing the big house- has already been taken care of.  Now if you'll excuse him, he has to leave his family to go play Speed Racer on those dangerous curves, like the Man He Is.  Vrooom!  Vroom! Vrooooooooooommmmmmmm!!!

This Magic Moment- when Dell stops torturing us with this guy's horrible voice

Seriously, is the singer in this ad someone's nephew, or what?

Every time this commercial comes on, I think of how lovely listening to nails across a chalkboard would be compared to the singer's weak, whiny, treacly voice.  And then I wonder who he's related to, to have landed this gig.

I mean, I can play the guitar every bit as well as the --umm-- "artist" here.  Not that that's saying much- this is not exactly the most complicated song he's playing.  And as for his voice- I'm no braggart, but I have a MUCH better singing voice that this guy.  Again, not that that's saying much- a rusted-out electric fan clogged with swamp slime produces better sound than this.

So spill it, Dell- who is this horrible, talent-less, tune-less non-talent you got to "sing" this already-awful song related to?  Whoever it is, congratulations- he is so BAD that he actually has me in the same corner as the YouTubers.  And whoever it is, please- stop punishing us with his cracking, straining caterwauling.  We beg of you.

Or I could just beat him to death with the straw dispenser.....

Notice how people almost never choke to death in fast-food restaurants?  I mean, you'd think that several thousand times a year, someone simultaneously shoveling greasy crap down their cake holes while bleating pathetic, brain-dead junk which can only be the product of years of shoveling greasy crap down their cake holes would have a piece of non-food go down the wrong tube and get lodged there long enough to cause the person to choke to death.

You'd think so.  But to the best of my knowledge, people jumping up, grabbing their throats, thrashing about and then just dying in a humiliating manner, sprawled across the grimy floor of one of these pig troughs is actually pretty rare.  Even people who slip into a McDonalds now and then for a black coffee (the only thing for sale at McDonalds that is actually worth buying) are very unlikely to see someone actually convulse away what made up his life because he thought he could give a speech and get down a McNotChicken at the same time.

Rare, but it must happen sometimes.  In this guy's case, could I get some advance notice?  'Cause I'd kind of like to be there.