The kids in this ad think waaayyy too much about Dad

When I wasn't being mortified and nauseous, I was trying to understand why Son is giving Father a condom before Father goes out on his fourth date with "Sheila."

Is it because Son has done a little E-Verifying and has discovered that "Sheila" has been around the block more than a few times, so Father better be careful not to pick up something unpleasant from his Lady Friend?  Is it because Father is dating someone half his age, and Son isn't interested in seeing a new Heir to the Suburban Mansion popping up nine months down the road?  I mean, what the hell?  Until Son pulled out the condom, I was pretty sure this was going to be an ad for Just For Men Hair Coloring.  That would have made sense (because we know from watching tv that grey hair is Very Bad And Wrong.)

I think I'll stop trying to figure this out and just go back to being mortified and nauseous.

Missing Scenes and other thoughts from the ING "Orange Money" Ad

1.  Can I assume that in the extended cut of this ad, we saw the woman here apologizing for giving her husband a sermon on carelessness she realized that SHE was the one leaving Orange Retirement Money (yeah, whatever) in her jeans?  Because...

2.  We all know that if the sexes were reversed in this ad, it would not end with the guy simply slinking away.  We'd probably see him doing something to make up for the fact that he dared suggest for even one moment that his wife was the one who was careless with money.  Come on, what were you thinking, Doofus Hubby? Everyone knows she's the brains holding this family's financial future together!

3.  Anyone else think that the whole "Orange Money" thing is really, really stupid?  Ok, so there's money they are spending, and money they are saving.  When it's in cash form, it's just money.  When it's time to buy the groceries, what happens if all you've got in your pocket is Orange money?  Do you put them back on the shelf?  No? Then shut up with the Orange Money crap.

Actually, knowing the words to this song is grounds for divorce in most countries

1.  Why did two twentysomethings pick one of the most blatantly twee songs of the 1980s as "their song?"  Seriously, this is one of those ear-bleeders that had anyone with taste frantically twisting the dial of their Sony Walkman the moment the first chords made it identifiable.  "Our song?"  Ugh.

2.  Moron doofus thoughtless choad sharing a romantic moment with his two best friends- his girl and his phone.  Check.  Seriously, what kind of douchenozzle can't put his f---ing phone in his pocket during a dance?  It's called addiction, buddy.  Get help for it.

3.  Girlfriend asked boyfriend if he remembered this was their song- she didn't ask him to sing it, and once he starts to, we can certainly understand why.  I guess that's part of the joke- hey look people, not only is this guy thoughtless (can't remember* he and his girl have a song) and rude (holds his phone in his hand during a dance) but he has the worst singing voice since that guy screeching "This Magic Moment" in that Google ad.  Wow, what a great catch, lady.

*Or maybe he's just trying to forget that his girlfriend picked out this truly atrocious, cloying lump of decaying gush which really should have been left in the dumpster thirty years ago.

One day I decided to stop trying to kill my cat

1.  Jake didn't "realize" anything, it's just a cat.  All Jake knows is that at some point it's owner stopped feeding it cheap takeout pizza and potato chips.  Which means Jake is still alive.  If Jake understands this on any level, Jake is Grateful.

2.  And now Jake is wondering why there's this delicious-looking slab of salmon sitting there in the fridge, and he has to settle for this dry stuff.  What the hell?

New Homes Guide- message received and understood

Watch this ad closely, and the not-very-subliminal message becomes obvious:

A)  Guys are expected to find and buy houses for the Little Women they convinced to marry them.

B)  If the Little Women actually let the Guys do this on their own, however, they will fail miserably.  Because they are clueless assholes who generally can't find their own butts with both hands and a flashlight.  In other words, because they are Guys.

C)  Therefore, the best plan is for women to just take yet another job out of the hands of the stupid Guys They Inexplicably Gave Themselves To and go find their freaking dream homes themselves.  Sure, they could just sigh and pout as the Stupid Idiot tries to explain why he failed to do that part of his husbandly duty which did not involve getting her pregnant, but that doesn't get them a house now, does it?

D)  It's not a matter of money- the makers of this ad know that you've got more than enough to buy a home.  It's just a matter of picking out the right one.  "Jeesh, honey, why didn't you know that these houses were available so we could just go get one?  Must be nice.

No good guys in this Chevy Tahoe Ad

Everyone agrees that the babysitter is acting unethically here by raising her rates when she realizes that her customers have so much money coming out of their ears that they drive a Pompousmobile with every bell and whistle imaginable.   Personally, I think she might have noticed that they can afford to pay a little more when she looked around and saw that they live in a house larger than some Nigerian villages.

I don't disagree that this is the wrong thing to do....sort of.  I mean, employer and employee made a deal, right?  On the other hand....the mom in this ad seems to go out of her way to impress babysitter with her wealth in the most ostentatious way possible.  What's with the pop-up screens, Facebook, GPS, etc?  She's driving the kid home, not retracing the Lewis and Clark expedition.  She might as well just announce "hey, check out how filthy rich we are, babysitter monkey.  Easily rich enough to hire teenaged girls to take care of our pampered spawn.  When I get to your- umm-- 'house'- I'll find two twenties gathering lint at the bottom of my purse."

So while I kind of go along with the "she needs to stick with the agreed-upon salary" argument, I can't build up any sense of outrage either.  The fact is the mom can easily afford to pay more, and if she's going to toss money around on tricked-out SUVs she might as well be pushed to pay her hired help a decent wage.  I hope the word gets around and they end up paying every babysitter $40 an hour - or just staying home with the Crown Prince.

Sucks to be rich sometimes- or so I've heard.

Hollywood's Hammer of Been There, Done That, Here We Go Again

1.  Who asked for a sequel to the very weakest installment  in the Marvel Comics Parade of Avengers?  Thor was a plotless, CGI-dominated boring mess featuring a cast of characters no one could possibly give a flying damn about.  The humans in the film who interact (sort of) with Thor could not have been more colorless, and the "story" could not have been less engaging.  Sequel? Really?

2.  When I first saw Thor, my reaction to seeing the main female lead was "what the hell is Natalie Portman doing in this?"  Now I see she's in the sequel, and my reaction is exactly the same.  What are you doing, Miss Portman?  Every time I think your acting career might actually take off, you take a huge step backward.  I understand your wanting to wash the stink of the Star Wars prequels off your resume, but playing the love interest of a mannequin with the acting talent of a caterpillar is not the way to accomplish that.  Heck, that's what you were doing in those Star Wars prequels!

3.  I thought that the whole point of releasing an Avengers movie every few months for a decade was to build up interest for a movie featuring all of them.  We got that, in 2012.  It was called The Avengers.  It was bloated and busy and boring, as dull characters engaged in dull conversations in between fights with some bad guys whose motivation was never made at all clear (or maybe I was asleep by then.)  It made a billion dollars, Mission Accomplished.  So what the hell- you are going to keep subjecting us to the "adventures" of the individual avengers now?  What's the point?  I didn't even bother with Iron Man 3- you think I want to see Thor and Captain America and the Hulk in their own movies after the Big Splashy Get-Together?  Jeesh, that's about as pointless as rebooting Spider-Man....oh wait.....