Craftsman (n:) Combination of Epic Laziness and Deep Confusion over what it Means to be an American Male

Notice how not one of these Suburban idiots even remotely needs a riding mower?

I spend my summers at my boyhood home in Vermont.  Our combined front, side and back yards consist of maybe two acres of hilly land.  I spend one day a week for two months mowing those lawns.  With a push mower.

That's right- when my parents went shopping for a new mower a few years back, I insisted that they skip the self-propelled nonsense.  I'm the self that will be doing the propelling.  It's good exercise, and when it's over I can cool off with a dip in the pond.  Good times.

Meanwhile, these jackasses don identical worn-out plaid shirts, faded jeans, two-day stubble and (oh please!) safety goggles so they can cruise around their postage-stamp lawns for roughly thirty seconds.  Give me a freaking break- these "lawns" could be reduced to piles of dirt with less than a full bottle of Round-Up.  "Up to 7.5 MPH?"  The commercial concedes that to reach any speed at all, the owner must trespass on to the property of his neighbors.  Yeah, I guess if you want to use your "tractor" to race the Lesser Mowers on Clapton Drive, this is the vehicle for you.  But if you an actual adult, what the hell?

( If I ever heard one of these guys complain about the cost of gasoline, I seriously think I would lose it. And I'm not even going to mention the White Suburban Housewife who is rendered mute and breathless by the Awesome Manly Man On The Tractor- jeeeesh, lady.  Every want more out of life than this?)

Craftsman?  I have to congratulate you for your success in selling your riding mowers to people who simply have no use for them.  This is right up there with the residents of Levittown sticking Ford  F150 Trucks or (gag) Humvees in their driveways- just more evidence that in this incredibly unfair world, there are way too many people out there who have tons of money and not Clue One what to do with any of it.  Must be nice.

(Oh, and "kicking grass and taking names?"  Hey, whatever helps you keep a grip on your manhood as you cruise around in your little I'm a Lazy Douchenozzlemobile, buddy.)

Personally, I'm more than ready to be "used"

The woman is this ad finds the fact that her new boyfriend keeps taking her out to dinner- and picking up the tab-rather odd.  Yeah, that IS very strange behavior.  Taking a date out to dinner?  Weird- maybe he's a serial killer or something.

No, turns out that he's much, much worse- thanks to her- um, "friend," she realizes* that her horrible user boyfriend is just "racking up thank you points" by using his CitiBank Visa card.  What a scumbag, using her innocently healthy appetite and equally innocent "guys pay" philosophy in order to get rewards from his credit card.  She ought to do a little more thinking now- those flowers he sent?  I bet he used his card to buy THAT, too!  What a jerk!

I really hope she tells him off- maybe something like "ok, buster, I'm on to you- from now on, we are going DUTCH TREAT-- no, forget that, I'M PAYING FOR BOTH OF US!"  That'll teach him!  And if it doesn't- can this woman please give me a call?  Because unlike her insane friend, I don't look for nefarious motives behind my date's willingness to pick up the check....;>)

*Or maybe he's just being a kind of old-fashioned gentleman.  Naw, couldn't be.

Stupid, Sexist Garbage and DirecTV: Perfect Together

Ok, does anyone else think that it's more than a little creepy and weird to see a commercial featuring two men being served by an actual female puppet in a commercial in the year 2014?

And I thought the whole "TV Genie" bit, with the scantily-clad slave-girl type recording, storing and playing your favorite shows on demand (as she drapes herself across the set) was bizarrely sexist.  This takes it to a whole new level of bad- this guy's girlfriend/wife doesn't just act like a puppet, chirping brainless pleasantries while serving up lemonade to the Two Males In The House-- she's actually being controlled with wires.  I'm sure her puppet master-errr, husband- is very nice and all, but this doesn't change the fact that she's a fricking puppet being controlled by wires.

And her only function in this ad is, again, to provide drinks for The Guys as they discuss the new DirecTV setup. Maybe I should be grateful that this is her only function in the ad.  I don't think I really want to see what happens when there's no company and Master and Puppet are alone.  Maybe I should give a little credit to the fact that the punchline seems to be "don't call wires weird, because my girl has them and we don't want to hurt her feelings," but sorry, no- I'm not getting past the fact that this guy has a disgustingly-thin mannequin handmaiden who comes- umm, running- with drinks when The Guy has a friend over.  Sick.

April 15 cant' come soon enough

It's bad enough that this ugly idiot's ugly mug is grinning at me from every freaking metro bus and every other freaking billboard in the DC area.  Now I have to watch him pretend to care about my money on TV ads too?

H&R Block doesn't give one flying damn about your refund.  It doesn't care if we "get our billion back."  It doesn't fight for us against the IRS or live to make our lives better by getting more cash in our pockets.  Like all tax preparation services, Block is all about convincing us to let them skim their share off the top.  If they can get us to take "Refund Anticipation Loans," all the better.  They'd love us to take our refunds in the form of gift cards, because they get a nice kickback from participating retailers.  But what they really want is to just convince us that taxes are Scary and Complicated and if we try to do them ourselves we are going to miss out on Big Money so we better let These Experts (you can tell they are Experts from the bow ties) who Care About Us And Our Money do our taxes because They Really Want Us To Get Our Fair Share.  WTF-ever, man.

Oh, and BTW- why does an old, bald white guy with no fashion sense spell "tax expert?"  Isn't it 2014 anywhere in TV land?

As sad as it gets, courtesy of Taco Bell

Hmm...let's see....we can't really get people to talk about how good our food is, because...I mean, come on.  It's greasy hamburger stuffed into cheap taco shells.

So, what else do we got?  Hey, I know!  Let's get a bunch of stupid losers with the unfortunate name of "Ronald McDonald" to talk about how much they like Taco Bell!  That'll be convincing, right?  I mean, they are all named "Ronald McDonald."  That means they should all like to eat at McDonalds- right?  I mean, that makes sense- right?

What?  It doesn't, at all?  Well, whatever.  We're out of ideas, and this concept seems kind of familiar, so let's go with it.  Hey, it's not as stupid as asking people from St Cloud Minnesota what it's like to "sleep on a cloud"- is it? Again, we don't care.  It's late, we don't know what we are doing, and I bet these idiots will be so happy at the prospect of being on television we won't even have to offer to pay them.

So just aim the camera, let these morons tell the world their names, have them shove a piece of disgusting fatty crap down their cake holes, and we've got ourselves a commercial.  This ain't rocket science, after all.

The Assistant Manager of this Dominos has a PhD in Astrophysics. He gets a 10 percent discount on Thursdays.

Yeah, whatever.  Just get it here inside an hour and I'll be happy, Pizza Monkey.

I just love these Dominos "our pizza makers are artisans who are real people check out their really cool stories about how talented they are when they aren't making pizzas for minimum wage" commercials, don't you?

I mean, it's really cool that this guy is an artist and he sees his hands as his tools- I guess.  I mean, I really don't care.  What this guy does when he's not on the clock at Dominos isn't anyone's business and it's kind of hard to see why it's of interest to anyone other than himself.   Not to be rude or anything, but, dude?  It's not that people think of you as "just a pizza maker, just a pizza boy."  It's that we don't think about you at all.
You want us to know that outside of Dominos, you paint?  Um, ok.  Mission accomplished.  Did you want us to care? You still have a long way to go with that one.

And oh, hey, Dominos?  If you respect this guy's skills so much, if you want us to think of him as a craftsman and of Dominos as a company that hires craftsmen to make your pizzas, where do you get off failing to pay these Artists a living wage or providing them with a decent health insurance package?  Sorry, but you don't get to have it both ways.  Either you hire desperate kids drowning in student loans who can't find a job in their field because the economy is still in the toilet and will work for slave wages for a massive, impersonal corporation, or you take advantage of budding dreamer artists who also are willing to work for those same slave wages.  Either way, don't expect any plaudits from me.

Oh, and your pizza still sucks.

Golden Corral invites us to kill ourselves this weekend

Ah, Golden Corral, you truly are the gift that keeps on giving....

Come in on Friday for All You Can Eat For About Ten Bucks batter-fried fish, hush puppies, and french fries!  Remember we are only open till 10 PM, so we strongly suggest that you get back on line before you actually finish the food on your plate- and don't forget the Chocolate Wonderfall!

Come back on Saturday for All You Can Eat For About Ten Bucks steak, mashed potatoes, and macaroni and cheese!  Don't forget to wear your sweat pants- and don't forget the Everyone Stick Your Hands Right In There Cotton Candy Machine!

What could be better for getting the bad taste of church out of your mouth than a Sunday Afternoon at Golden Corral and all the fried chicken, waffles with chipped beef on toast, and pancakes you can shove down your cakeholes (oh yeah, don't forget the cake!) It's all yours for About Ten Bucks- and for a change of pace, we've got a Caramel Wonderfall to stick your macaroons in now!

If you're still alive on Monday morning, good luck rolling out of bed and squeezing your fat ass into your car and heading off for another week of wheezing and sweating in your cubicle, just a few pounds heavier and a few months closer to a premature death brought on by your truly horrible eating habits.  See you Friday!