Carnation really doesn't get the "Essentials...."

I really don't care if adults want to take the ultimate short cut and guzzle this stuff every morning, trying to trick their brains into thinking that they are actually consuming something that will get them to lunch.  I mean, they are adults and can make their own decisions, and at least this is better than a quick stop at the McDonald's drive-thru for sausages and eggs wrapped in pancakes.

But the final scene features an entire family standing around a MASSIVE kitchen "enjoying" this crap instead of....oh, I don't know...getting out of bed a few minutes earlier and sitting down to cereal, fruit, some orange juice, and an actual "hey we're a family so we might as well get to know eachother" breakfast.   Kids kind of need nutrition (again, not to mention the "look how much we care" gestures like actual food and quality time) to start the day.  Mom and Dad will be grabbing a coffee and a donut in the breakroom before 10- around the same time these kids hear the first gurgles of an empty stomach as they struggle to undertand algebra.   Something's wrong here- though they ARE standing ridiculously close together in that kitchen- so we'll know the parents are at least somewhat emotionally attached to their kids, perhaps....

Two parents, three growing kids, a big kitchen....and five glasses of chocolate milk for breakfast?  Fail, Mom and Dad.  Maybe the tagline for this commercial should be "Because We Care....Sort Of."

Dish is how you come close to ruining my summer

Pretty much the only thing worse than this horrible ad is it's radio version, which assaulted by eardrums roughly four hundred times this summer, jumping out of my headphones to commit a brutal crime against my eardrums during pretty much every commercial break during every baseball game and most XM/Sirius talk shows.

I didn't even realize that the jackass screeching this swill was "singing" "DISH is how we do it" until maybe the 100th time I was subjected to this commercial, and by then I was getting pretty good at just muting my radio during ad breaks because I kind of LIKE my ears, and I REALLY would like to hold on to my sanity for a few more years.  Once I realized that he was saying DISH instead of THIS.....it didn't help at all.  Not even a little.

I'm just really hoping that this was a summer offer and it's about to end, and that Dish Network just irritated and turned off a lot more people than it conned into locking themselves into a two-year committment with a massive cancellation fee and then discovered just how incredibly crappy the service is whenever it gets cloudy (my parents have a dish because cable doesn't reach where they live- and whenever it rains hard, the only channel available is the NO SATELLITE SIGNAL PLEASE WAIT SEARCHING......screen.)  I can't feel sorry for anyone who decided to reward Dish Network for this garbage by signing up.  You get what you pay for, idiots.

It works if you can forget "Episodes I, II and III"

I was fourteen years old when Star Wars hit the movie screens for the first time (it was called Star Wars- that Episode I A New Hope crap didn't take hold until some years later.)  Like so many of my generation, I was transfixed by the experience of watching what seemed at the time to be nothing short of magic.  I'll always be grateful that I was able to experience the original film-- 35 times in five weeks- before George Lucas decided to "fix" and "improve" (come damn close to ruining) it.

I can remember there being NO Star Wars vehicles, action figures, etc. that first Christmas after the original film was released (1977.)  I do not remember it being a problem, since whiffle bats worked great as light sabers and GI Joes were perfectly good stand-ins for our favorite characters.  Seems strange now, but back then it was not automatically assumed that films would come with a built-in merchandising campaign.  By "Episode VI" (gag) stuffed Ewoks were on the shelves BEFORE the film showed up, and Sears was devoting an entire page of it's wonderful Christmas catalogue to tie-in stuff.

I'm so glad I wasn't a little kid in the late-90s, and I could take that three-serving steaming bowl of crud Lucas dumped all over us with a grain of salt.  I will probably give Episode VII a try, because what the heck....but I can't help but note that all of these home movies date from the late-70s and early-80s, and not the turn of the century.....hmmm.....

Xfinity's drive to turn us all into zombies continues unabated....

Woman near the end of this horrible Joys Of Sitting On Your Ass Watching TV Whenever Wherever ad:  "What does it not do?"  Easy answer- it doesn't do anything to encourage you to get off your overfed ass and go outside and actually do something, you addicted moron.

But she's just the last person in the long parade of slouching couch potato jackass mouth-breathers who populate this two minutes of sludge.  Everyone here is just enchanted with the idea of getting rid of their "dissapointing" DVR-- "it only lets you record two shows at the same time,"ooooh poor baby how DO you find the courage to get through life?  With Xfinity, you can record up to FOUR shows at the same time while watching a fifth show- well, it's about damn time, and never mind that there has never, ever in the history of television been more than two shows worth watching on the tv at the same time.  Hell, I can't remember I flipped back and forth between two shows because I was actually interested in both of them.  More like "meh, whatever, I might come back to this, but let's see what else is on just in case it's better...."  I don't have DVR at all, and believe it or not, I couldn't care less.

The people in TV land apparently all have so many channels and so many fun things to watch that they need to be able to record four shows at the same time even when they are home watching a fifth show.  Which leads me to two questions- what kind of cable package to they have, and where do they ever find the time to watch all these recorded shows?

Oh, and if you're carrying around your television on your phone, forever watching one show while recording four others for later consumption, do you ever get around to doing anything other than watching tv?

Oh, and for you people who have bought in to this TV Is My Life crap- do you really want your kids to emulate your sad behavior?  Really?

Volkswagen brings Fail to a whole new level

Ok, forget the disgusting antics of these women attempting to pick up a guy half their age in a Volkswagen dealership by bleating lame innuendo that, if uttered by a guy at a bar, would get a drink thrown into his face. Once again I could point out that if you reverse the roles here and feature three old men tossing sleazy lines at a young female seller this ad probably gets rejected during production and never sees the light of day.  Because, you know, it's 2015.

Because the lines are being put into the mouths of elderly women, and are being directed at a guy who works at the dealership, it's not only stupid, but also very confusing- aren't these women customers?  Then why are they trying to sell the car instead of letting the salesman do that?

I could do an entire second post on all this, but I'm not going to bother.  I'm way too interested in getting an answer to just one question:

Why are elderly women, children, and animals ever used to sell anything that is not specifically geared to elderly women, children, or animals?  I just don't get it, and I never have.

A peak into Toyota's Fantasy Showroom

I'm certain that if it could, Toyota would gladly swap out all of it's actual human salespeople- who, after all, get sick every once in a while, have to take coffee and bathrooom breaks, and engage in all of those other Not Pimping Cars With A Huge Fake Smile On their Faces activities- with holograms of chirpy idiot Jan Forever OD'ng on Starbucks, Five Hour Energy, Red Bull and Speed.  In fact, that's apparently what happened in this TV Land Toyota- Virtual Reality Jan gets to do all the work, and everyone who used to work here got shown the door.

I bet actual car salespeople really appreciate these commercials, and car commercials in general which always show drooling, super-eager customers who are blown away by every little buzzer and gadget and who are never really being talked into buying a car, just being shown the one that happens to be closest to the entrance so they can swoon for a few moments before pulling out their wallets.   Ads which made being a car salesman look like the easiest job on the planet were bad enough.  Ads which show the job being done by a lunatic with nothing more to do than escort customers across the room to The Perfect Car 'Cause Look Its Got WiFi have to be a thousand times worse.

What cave did this woman grow up in?

Sometimes, I can't get past one line in an ad.  Here's the line I can't get past this time:  "A sleeping cream.  That's a new one."

Um, seriously?  Cream you apply to your skin at night is "a new one" for this woman?  Um, whatever.  I suspect that later in the day, she stared at amazement at cheese being added to hamburgers and chocolate sauce being added to ice cream.

I mean, really- where has this woman and her smashed-with-a-frying-pan sleepy-eyed face* been for the last several hundred years?  CLEOPATRA applied cream to her face for crissakes.

*what is with her face?  Is she supposed to be attractive?  Because I don't see it.