Home Depot just broke the Wasteful Consumption meter

I get that ramping up the electricity usage is just something that gets done this time of year- December is "to hell with the bill, to hell with the planet, let's just wrap miles of bulbs around everything and crank up the juice" month.  It's "we won't be satisfied until our house can be seen from space" month.  It's "let's see if we can use so much electricity that we crash the grid or at least melt every bit of snow off our lawns" month.

But this family- good lord, they actually created a sign screaming CHEER for their living room?  What the HELL for?  What kind of lunatic actually does something which screams "Be Happy Dammit, Or Else," let alone does it exclusively for his own family?

Reminds me of that blinking billboard in the classic film Flash Gordon- "All Citizens Will Make Merry Upon Pain of Death."  Jeesh, people- it's bad enough that you are going to consume more fossil fuels in one month than the average not-insane-with-conspicious-consumption-fever uses in a decade.  You have to burn out your eyeballs with gaudy, silent demands INSIDE as well as outside?

Ok- cute or not, this girl's time is up, AT&T

Once this woman finished explaining to the stupid knob customer how easy it will be for him to waste his life fooling around on his new phone with it's awesome gigs plan (WTF-ever, 21st century) it was really time for this commercial to be over.  Buy this phone and this deal, and you never have to have a conversation with an organic life form ever again.  Message received.  Over and Out.

Naturally, AT&T could not let it go before adding an Exclamation Point of Dumb, however.  So we get this other jackass who hasn't noticed that there are fifteen people waiting to be pandered to and told where to sign hundreds of dollars a month away on a stupid toy and instead decides to try to steal Cute AT&T Girl's sale away from her with a little attempt at levity which- I don't want to be overly harsh here- really ought to get him bludgeoned to death in an alley on Christmas Eve.*

New Year's Resolution AT&T- let's move on from this.  This girl is easy to look at but you've run out of plausible things for her to say.  Do something revolutionary and actually end an ad campaign before we are tearing our hair out with bored despair whenever one of your stupid commercials comes on, and a girl who went from being a  Very Pleasant Break from Flo to Oh Her Again finishes up at Oh God I Never Want To See This Person Where's the Damn Remote Make It Stop.   Please.

More comments on this classic Kay Jewelers ad

I commented on this ad produced for My First Crush* way back in 2009- I don't think I was even embedding at the time- but I thought it deserved another go-around (and since I'm not being paid to do this blog, I don't mind repeating myself from time to time.  I mean, I'm not ripping off anyone.  And based on the hit counter, it's hard to imagine anyone noticing anyway.  So maybe I shouldn't have even mentioned that I've done this commercial already...

Anyway, this poor woman has apparently accepted the idea that her husband's father is going to be moving in- she's got the chilling family portait (featuring the Patriarch Hovering Over All) out of storage to be displayed so that when he shows up, he'll think it's always been there.  She's got this resigned "well, maybe he won't live very long" look on her face.  She makes some odd comment about their daughter needing a new pair of headphones- five years later I still don't know what that means- does Grampa shout a lot?  Does he play the television too loud?  Did Mom just discover Grampa's collection of Dean Martin CDs?  What?

"Thanks for making our home, His Home" says her husband, who deep down probably wishes that his wife had put her foot down and said No because he couldn't.

"This IS his home" she replies.  Well, I guess that's supposed to be sweet.  Again, all I hear is resignation, perhaps mixed with despair and sherry.  At least it's not 1955 and Mom probably works outside the home so she doesn't have to vacuum around the old guy's splayed-on-the-living-room-couch snoring (is THAT why daughter needs headphones?)

And then she gets the payoff- a piece of crap jewelry.  If I were her, I'd make sure that jewelry kept coming- or better yet, was eventually upgraded to an Audi.  A "diamond" pennant from Kay Jewelers for turning your perfectly-sized home over to Grampa?  Jeesh, what's next- a night out at the Olive Garden?

*Jane Seymour wasn't actually my first crush. That would be Linda Kaye from Petticoat Junction.  And when Seymour's character got killed off after the pilot for Battlestar Galactica, I didn't have much problem moving on to Phoebe Cates.  My heart was more flexible back then.

Well, today wasn't that bad. Until now.

If you are a pretty white person who has the time and money to wax poetic about how "great" today is while some black guy sings about it, yeah, today is pretty great.

My day was pretty great too, until you jackanapes invaded my tv screen.  Please stop making me wish for a Santa Claus And His Choice of Audis commercial.  Please.

For all the wrong reasons, Honda gives us a blast from the past

About half a dozen of these horrible Honda "remember when you were a kid and a simple toy could make you happy- you know, before you became an entitled douchebag who thinks CARS make good Christmas presents" commercials popped out of nowhere and on to my television a few days ago.  They are all very depressing, but this one is probably the worst, because it includes a really cool toy from the mid-1980s, otherwise known as the Decade When Everything That Makes Life Worth Living Peaked.

I mean, when you think about it, the 80s were the decade of The Cars and R.E.M. and Michael Jackson and Madonna in her cute Material Girl stage and the last decade until rap music invaded the airwaves and dumbed down music, apparently forever.  It was the last decade in which pretty much nobody had a cellphone- which meant you could be legitimately out of touch and have a conversation with someone without being interrupted by Someone More Interesting On Their iPhone.  It was the last decade without the internet, the last decade without 24/7 "news," and the last decade in which we didn't fight a single war for no clear reason in the Middle East.  It was the decade in which the real Star Wars Trilogy wrapped up and we had no idea that Lucas would go insane and ruin it with CGI recuts and three god-awful crap "prequels" later.  It was the decade in which Democrats and Republicans could get together to fix Social Security and grant amnesty to undocumented workers.

It was the decade of Danger Mouse and miniature GI Joe Action Figures and Zelda II (if you had an inside girl at Waxie Maxie's- and I did.)  And it was the decade of He Man and Skeletor as toys, not as lame-ass spokesjokes for Honda.  (From almost ruling Eternia to this- man have you fallen far, Skeletor!)

"Remember when you wanted me for Christmas?"  Well, no- but I remember when my nephew did.  Neither he nor I grew up to imagine getting Hondas for Christmas, but I bet we'd both appreciate a cool He-Man toy in our stockings.

I need help with this NFL Commercial

Can someone explain to me why I should give a flying damn about this woman and her Vikings Steelers Giants Whoever family?

I mean, how could this possibly have any impact on me at all?  I'm a Patriots fan who used to be married to a Buffalo Bills fan (I lived in the Buffalo area during the four years in which that team perfected the art of losing the Superbowl, failing by a larger margin each time.)  I rooted for the Bills (the Pats stank at the time) but never became a fan.  My wife remained a big Bills fan.  The rest of my family, and hers?  Couldn't care less.  Because jeeesh- it's football, not a freaking religion.

And it's not like a Red Sox fan marrying a Yankee fan- I mean, that would be too much, of course.

So can someone explain this to me?  Please?

The North Pole would love to provide a health care plan, but the boss's daughter wants a new Lexus, so....

Ok, as near as I can figure it, the guy in this ad (who bears a striking resemblence to Santa Claus) works hard in a brutal sweatshop in some Northern climate (Siberia?) doing work which has become automated in most of the civilized world.  (I'm not actually sure that giant wheels have been turned by humans since the 15th century- outside of a Conan The Barbarian movie, that is.)

Anyway, this fat bearded guy is so ungrateful for the job some benevolent factory owner "gave" him that he's constantly pulling this whiny "oh my poor back" bit, until every other employee on the floor gets it, your back hurts, oh boo hoo Don't You Know There Are People Who Don't Have Any Jobs At All Get Back To Your Wheel.*

Finally, three ghosts visit the factory owner (they find him at his winter palace in Vail) and convince him that he's being too hard on his employees (especially the elderly ones with bad taste in clothes.)  So he decided that yes, it's time to provide a health care plan.  Thus, the bottle of Aleve.

Did I figure this right?

*Are we supposed to find it heartwarming that Santa pops a pill and gets right back to cranking out crap for spoiled kids? I have a better idea for an old man who is doing work which is causing him constant pain- STOP DOING THAT WORK.  And a bottle of Aleve?  F--K THAT!  Fill out a Worker's Comp form and get an attorney!