For Sloppy Valentines to itself, nobody beats Apple

This self-congratulatory wall of noise and blurry images brought to you by the masters of self-congratulation.  our friends at Apple.

Some companies are satisfied to try to convince us that their products will make our lives more fun, slightly more bearable, more interesting, etc.  Apple is forever intent on convincing us that their products will change the way in which the Earth revolves around the sun and that a thousand years from now, we will be using a new calender which marks Year One as the year Apple first decided to bless us with it's awesome thin electronic crap.

Personally, I'm pretty damned sick of Apple shouting "your life was a smoldering pile of nothing before we came along" in every one of their ads.  Especially since I'm not likely to ever actually own anything made by Apple (and yet....I live....I breathe....I communicate.....what the heck?)  Just tell me what new version of yesterday's pointless junk you are peddling this month, ok, Apple?  Stop trying to sell me on the idea that you are introducing a new Renaissance in Connectivity, because all I see is more and more people staring at screens like crack addicts looking for a constant fix.

Seriously Stupid, Sprint

Here's how to cut your phone bill by MORE than half- just use it to make calls and text.  Don't treat it as an f--ing portable television or movie theater.  Don't download everything that catches your eye as if you've got a severe case of ADD.  Use it in moderation and stop pretending that you can't find your way around your neighborhood without consulting it.   Do all that, and you can cut your phone bill in half- easily.

And then you don't have to go on tv and act like a freaking lunatic who was tazered, tagged and chained to a data plan which is draining you of your life savings, Poor Martyr You.

And Sprint?  You could make my life a little happier if you let me know that at least one person was seriously injured in the making of this ad.  Because all of these whiny choads definitely deserve it.

Montel Williams, Payday Loans, and the rigged economic system that keeps the poor poor

So you wake up one morning, walk into your kitchen, and step in a puddle of water.

Guess what?  Your refrigerator is dead.  Gone.  It's full of perishables and you need a new fridge. Today.

So, what do you do?  That depends entirely on your financial situation.

If you're rich, you call Sears or Best Buy or whoever and you order a new fridge for $1000.  You pay cash, which means the fridge costs you $1000.

If you're middle class (the definition of "middle class" in this country is "a poor person who thinks he's doing well because he can pay the bills and has credit) you pull out your VISA card and order a new fridge.  You pay $150 a month because that's what you can afford.  In seven months you've paid for it, and it cost you $1050.

If you're poor, you don't have cash and you don't have credit, so you go to Rent A Center or Aaron's and you sign a contract which requires you to make monthly payments of $69.99 for two years for your new fridge.  If you miss a payment, you'll get hit with a $40 charge.  If you miss a couple of payments, the fridge will be repossessed and the money you paid into it will be lost.  If you make all your payments, in two years you'll be out $1680 you paid for the same $1000 refrigerator the rich guy and the middle class guy got.  See how much fun it is to be poor?  See how easy it is to get yourself out of the situation of being poor?

Which brings us to scumbag Montel Williams and this revolting pimping for this company which doesn't call itself a Payday Lender though that's EXACTLY what it is.  "Would an extra thousand dollars be handy?"  Hmm-- if my refrigerator is broken, a thousand dollars is definitely what I need, but I wouldn't use the word "handy" where "essential" is much more accurate.  And "standing in line" behind other poor people in dire straits certainly would be annoying- but you know what, that's not a problem compared to paying 300% interest on a short-term loan.

In case some people out there aren't aware, here's how Payday Loans work- you go to one of these loan sharks and prove that you have a job, usually by providing a cancelled paycheck or pay stub.  Then you write a check for the amount you need to borrow, plus the usury-level interest rates required by the scumbucket leech Payday Loan company.  You get the money you need for the emergency (more about this in a moment) and now you are in even worse shape economically, because if you can't cover that check in a few weeks, guess what?  Time for another Payday Loan.  Economic death spirals are fun, aren't they?

These commercials rarely talk about people facing actual emergencies (like my broken refrigerator example.)  Instead, they show grinning idiots moaning that "there's a concert in town and I'm out of money" or "I need extra cash for Christmas," I think because they don't want to anger the audience by showing people being taken advantage of by Payday lenders - it's easier to shrug at these money-changers when their customers are presented as people who are stupid and frivilous with money anyway (hey, if you are really willing to risk your car title or next paycheck because you simply must see Katy Perry on Saturday night, why do I care about you?  Fools and their money, after all...)  So we won't see "John will be evicted if he doesn't have rent money tomorrow" or "Sue really needs to get the heat turned back on so her kids don't freeze to death" stories.  Because then we'd turn our anger on Mr. Williams and his We Are In Business Because You Are Poor sales pitch.  ("Designed with you in mind?"  Probably the most honest part of this ad.)

One more thing about Payday Lenders* before I end this (completely justifiable) rant- they rely on people with bad credit to stay in business.  So they don't report to credit bureaus when customers make their payments on time (because that would improve credit scores, and why would Payday lenders want to do that?)  They aren't required to, so they don't.  How does that gell with the "we care about you" message Montel Seriously Go Die Already Williams is shoveling at us here?

*I've never used Payday Loans, Rent A Center, Aaron's, Liberty Tax, or any other organization that preys on the poor.  In fact, my credit score is extremely high.  But I do enjoy researching stuff like this, and am well aware that "there but for the grace of g-d go I" is a good thing to keep in mind for everyone.

Because G-d F--ing forbid you ever, EVER put that stupid electronic toy down

Well, thank goodness you never, ever have to be "disconnected" from your fellow techno-addled jackass friends, because otherwise

1.  You might actually find yourself forced to have a conversation with the person sitting on the couch with you (the look on that guy's face says nothing other than "good lord, there has got to be something going on somewhere I can get in on and at least mentally escape this loser.")

2.  Someone somewhere else would not be treated to your Way Too Important To Wait "hey, whassup?" call.  (This must really make that other guy on the couch feel good about himself- his friend is hanging out at the house, they seem to be watching a football game- but he feels compelled to make an utterly pointless "hey, whassup?" call to someone else.*)

3.  Grandma might actually have to wait to see pictures from the family trip she wasn't invited on - "hey grandma, here's a selfy from the gondola during our ski trip, did we tell you we were going on a ski trip?  Well anyway here's a photo, so don't expect a call this week because this covers it."

*I was on Amtrak for all of fifteen seconds before the guy across the aisle from me made a "hey, whassup?"call on his cell phone.  Within another thirty seconds I had my earplugs, earphones, and portable DVD player going.  I used to read on the train.  That's pretty much an impossibility now, since the jackasses with rocks in their heads simply can't bear to be alone with their thoughts for more than a few minutes at a time.

'tis the season to be an immoble, socially isolated zombie. Wait a minute, isn't that every season?

You an almost hear their muscles becoming atrophied through the tv.

What you can't hear is me pretending to care that these morons equate "winning" with succeeding in mastering some stupid, pointless, brain-cell and life-sucking video game.  Because I can't manage that.  I guess I'm going to have to leave the "dominating" to these worthless, vapid pools of skin.

Just one thing, jackanapes:  When you finally do get up from the couch?  The time you spent doing absolutely nothing is gone forever.  It's not coming back.  Sorry, but I just thought you needed reminding.

The North Face steals a classic folk song. Why am I not surprised in the least?

This Land Is Your Land was written by legendary American folk singer Woody Guthrie in 1940, the year in which America was transitioning from the Great Depression and the New Deal to preparation for World War II, which was already raging in Europe.  It was written in response to Irving Berlin's extremely popular- but oppressively cloying and jingoistic- God Bless America.  Early versions of the song were criticized by bigoted, ignorant morons as endorsements of Communism (and therefore, of course, Un-American and Wrong.)  This Land Is Your Land was not released until 1945, at the end of the conflict with Germany and Japan and the beginning of the conflict with the Communist World.

The song originally included the phrase "God blessed this land for you and me," but Guthrie didn't want to mock Berlin's song and he didn't want to exclude non-believers, so he changed it to "This land was made for you and me,"  It also includes verses mocking the idea of private property and walls designed to keep people away, and actually questioned the direction of a country which claimed to be an island of freedom in a world of slavery in a pompous, clueless, Disney-ish "America Love It Or Leave It" kind of way.*  These were scary concepts in the 1940s and are scary concepts now, because when it comes to shallow and paranoid, nobody beats Americans.

And when it comes to using classic songs to sell stuff, again, nobody beats Americans.  Which is why we now have the song which really ought to be the National Anthem (wouldn't this or "America" be far better choices than a song about an assault on a fort during a war nobody remembers?) being used to sell jackets and backpacks.  Ugh.

*In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;

By the relief office, I'd seen my people.

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,

Is this land made for you and me?

Let's sum up this sad KFC Commercial

Watch this ugly doofus slob miss the entire point of the Office Holiday Party.  Yes, his coworkers are weird, and have weird ideas of what "having fun" means (karaoke?  Really?)  And they have really odd notions of what decent party food is- it looks like they've got fruitcake, jello, maybe some pate?  So- not much fun, and no good food.

But that's not what the party is about, is it?  I mean, isn't this supposed to be a time for colleagues to just spent some time getting to know eachother a little better in a comfortable, no-stress setting?

I guess not- to this guy, it's all about the food.  So he ditches his coworkers and instead of being at a party, he's sitting all by himself at the local KFC getting ready to consume a bowl of shepard's pie.

And I think we are supposed to think he made a wise choice.  Hmmm....