Just because this Passat commercial reminds me of a true story....

So about, oh, fifteen or twenty years ago I was getting ready to drive my little nephew from Vermont to visit his grandparents in Washington, DC.  That's a 9-hour drive, not including gas and bathroom breaks for those of you who are interested.

Very early in the morning of the big drive the kid is dropped off with a little suitcase.  His dad hands me a box of audio tapes.  "What's this?" I ask.  "It's his audio version of The Lord of the Rings- he loves listening to it, and it takes about ten hours to get through."

"Oh cool" I replied.  "Does he have enough batteries for his Walkman to last that long?"  And here comes the punchline.

"Oh, he doesn't have a Walkman.  Don't you have a tape player in the car?"

No kidding.  I was expected to listen to The Lord of the Rings on my car's stereo system.  For nine hours.  Seriously.

I had totally forgotten this story until I saw this ridiculous, obnoxious commercial.  Who the hell plans a road trip and then forces his companion to listen exclusively to one thing all the way?

BTW, considering that everyone except me has a Smartphone these days, isn't this kind of outdated anyway?  What stopped the guest from just whipping out his phone, a pair of ear buds, and living his own little world while the idiot, selfish asshat  driver learned Spanish?

Oh, and no- I don't really remember exactly how it worked out, but I didn't listen to one minute of  The Lord of the Rings during that drive.  Not. One. Minute.

Zombies and Cell Phones- Perfect Together

Personally, I'm amazed that it took so long for cell phone companies to use zombies in commercials for their brain cell-murdering, society-destroying, "luxury ten minutes ago now more important than air" little devices.  After all, if these things don't attract zombies, they certainly turn their users into them.

Ancestory.com- because no one wants to chat, no one wants to read your tweets, and G-d F-ing Forbid you just go offline for a bit.

"You don't have to know what you're looking for, you just have to start looking."*

Um, no, you don't.  You can get your fat butt out of that chair, smear some sunscreen on your face, and go outside.  Who knows what you'll find?  Fresh air.  Singing birds.  Kids playing.  A warm sun giving your skin a healthy glow.  Air that hasn't been filtered through an AC unit filling your lungs.  Maybe a neighbor who got the same inspiration to actually do something that didn't involve the internet- the neighbor you haven't seen since you were stringing lights around your house last December, perhaps?

Because after all, you really haven't managed to convince yourself that you give a damn about your ancestors, or that giving a damn will do anything to enrich your life in any way.  This is all about having another excuse for not leaving the house, or using that So Much Smarter Than You phone.  And wasting money.  In short, it's all about your sad little life spent gazing at a glowing screen, trying to find some meaning in all this and hoping that you'll find it for sale on some website at a reasonable price.

I just had to include this parody ad along with the actual commercial, because it's so spot-on.  Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

*Unless I'm misinterpreting what I'm seeing, doesn't the woman in the first ad hit a gigantic dead end just a few generations into her search, when she finds out her great-grandmother was found abandoned outside an Abbey (thus her last name?)

I'm J-O-H-N and your commercial gives me a H-E-A-D-A-C-H-E

Here you are, ladies and gentlemen- the laziest, most condescendingly insulting commercial since the last time someone tried to sell us a cell phone or cable service.

Seriously, I'm sorry the K-N-O-B who wrote this lump of C-R-U-D is so L-A-M-E, but I'll be even sorrier if he doesn't soon himself on the unemployment L-I-N-E.  After all, SOMEONE needs to pay for making me really, really hate the jackasses who appear in this steaming pile of D-U-N-G.

I"m assuming that all of these idiots are Libertarians?

I mean, what kind of Live Free or Die jagoff carries his pathetic "No gummint gonna tell me what I'm gonna do with my own skull" philosophy as far as refusing to wear a seat belt?

There's a very good reason for seat belt laws, none of which have anything to do with the Big Bad Nanny Government wanting to deprive you of your god-given right to be a clueless jackass.  You see, there's this annoying thing called Car Insurance that state laws require to buy so when you slam into someone while scrolling baseball scores on your smartphone instead of watching the damn road the medical bills which result won't be the responsibility of the person you hit.  And if we are all wearing seat belts, the chances are really good that the bill will be a lot lower than if we got tossed around (or out) of the vehicle upon impact.

It's not rocket science.  But if you are still wedded to your "principles" which require to you repeatedly threaten to have your nose shaved off by your steering wheel to spite your face, Man Up and just pay the fines.  Thoreau spent the night in jail rather than compromise HIS principles.  What's a hundred dollars or so compared to the satisfaction of knowing you didn't let the Big Bad Government Push You Around?

And when you are eating your meals out of a straw from your wheelchair because instead of a mild case of strap burn and a neck sprain you cracked your skull open on the dashboard while the steering column was severing your spine, don't ask your insurance company to pay out.  That's what a wuss would do.  You aren't a wuss- you proved that by refusing to wear a seat belt, remember?

I just don't get this Altima Ad at all

What exactly is it about this car that the rubes taking the test drive find so amazing?  All we see it do is drive fast around a track after being disguised as a race car.  Why do I get the strong suspicion that these tools just got taken in by the bunting and the race track and the helmets and somehow conned themselves into believing that they were experiencing something extraordinary?

And then, when it was revealed to them that they were shrieking and getting off on riding around in a freaking Nissan, instead of just admitting that they were fooled, decided to cover up by pretending that this was some kind of super awesome amazing experience OMIGOD I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS AWESOME CAR IS A NISSAN NO SHIT THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN?

I mean, come on.  It's a freaking Nissan.  You people are easily fooled, and you got carried away by the shiny crap.  Own it.  Suckers.

"God's Not Dead"- and neither are blatant straw men, or bad movies

I'm not going to do a review for this sad pile of muck calling itself a film- that's been done, and very well, by others already.  I'll just point out a few things that really ticked me off about this junk, which I was forced to watch by a "friend" the other night-

1.  Kevin Sorbo's philosophy professor character starts off by demanding that his class write "God Is Dead' on a piece of paper as a prerequisite to a passing grade.  I don't care what school this is supposed to be- in the real world* this gets you canned, fast.  Plus, only ONE kid in what looks to be a class of at least twenty refuses to instantly obey the teacher's commands.  Come on- I get that the producers are trying to convince us that America is filled with Basically Heathen Spoiled Rotten On Their Way To Hell Only Interested In Drugs And Sex Kids, but in real life the population of that class would consist of

.....Other Christians as shocked and defiant as the star,

.....Jews and Muslims equally horrified at the command and determined not to obey, and

.....Students who realize that they didn't shell out thousands of dollars in tuition to be told what to believe by a philosophy professor (seriously, what does this have to do with philosophy?)  In six years of Undergraduate and Graduate study in private and state Universities, I've never met a student who would  write "God is Dead" just because a teacher told him to.  Personally, I'd protest, and if that failed to achieve the desired result, I'd be having a discussion with the Dean of Students within the hour.  I mean, come on.

2.  Kevin Sorbo's character seems perfectly willing to toss out the class curriculum in order to challenge the One Brave Christian Student's belief in God.  At this point, if I hadn't already asked Sorbo to sign my Drop Sheet, I'd be doing that now.  Remember that stuff about not paying thousands of dollars to be told what to believe?  I'm also not paying thousands of dollars to watch an alleged university professor debate the existence of God with one kid instead of, oh, I don't know, TEACHING THE FREAKING CLASS.

3.  Instead of arguing the actual atheistic position on God- that "God exists" is a positive claim that is not supported by sufficient evidence- Sorbo's "Professor Radisson" repeatedly hides behind the Argument from Authority, ranting how unbelievable it is to him that a "mere Freshman" would question "great minds" like Stephen Hawking- if Hawking is an atheist, how could a Freshman argue for the existence of God?  I mean, come on- it's this pimply nobody v. Stephen Hawking!  Of course, this is shameless projection- it's actually Christians who commonly claim that arguing against the 1500-year old Bible- not to mention all these well-respected political leaders and scientists- is the height of absurdity (Albert Einstein believed in God, who are YOU to disagree?  You think you are smarter than Einstein?)

4.  In one of the most painfully insulting "debate" climaxes in cinematic history, Professor Raddison falls into the trap of admitting he DOES believe in God, because he blames God for letting his mother die of cancer. You know, WTF-ever, movie.  This guy is supposed to be a professor?  Professors generally don't get bent out of shape and flustered and raving during debates.  That's what Christians do when their belief system is threatened by science- not the other way around.

5.  I am not even going to get to the Duck Dynasty and some Christian rock band product placement.  My friend knows who these people are.  I don't- nor do I care.

*I'll wrap up by quoting an excellent review I read shortly after viewing this film- "God's Not Dead is a film by Christians which portrays the world Christians wish they lived in- a world in which they are a brave, downtrodden but not defeated minority, defending the One True Faith against the Atheistic Majority and their science-worshiping materialism.  Not the world they actually live in, which is dominated by people who think exactly the way they do, and it's the atheists who struggle to have their voice heard."   And by forgiving the person who made me watch this (next time, I get to pick the movie.  I still haven't seen Divergent.)