This is how sad Steve is

This is Steve.  Steve has absolutely, positively no shame, and he woudn't know dignity if it bit him in his overfed butt.  Steve just wants to be on tv, and if it means doing a dance worthy of a minstrel show for a tax preparation service, well, that's just fine with Steve, because remember that stuff I just said about Steve's shame level?

Meanwhile, the other company that is using "This Is How We Do It" -- Dish Network- is entering the eighth month of it's "limited time promotion" -- Dish Network for $49 per month for 24 months.  People who took advantage of the offer last summer are more than a quarter through their "special" contracts.  Ugh, can this end now, PLEASE?

Oh, and Steve?  Hope the sale of your soul was totally worth it.

The more things change...

This is the iPhone 6 S.  Not much has changed, except that in the expectation that you've become even more of a pathetically helpless knob who can't put his socks on without consulting a website, we've made the newest version of our phone capable of giving you step-by-step instructions on how to do that and other super-complicated things that your parents could do without even thinking twice about it, but which leave you a drooling, befuddled, clueless fleeb.

So run out and get the latest version of our Crutch For Able-Bodied Alleged Adults, which will never leave you spending more than 3.5 seconds pondering any mystery at all but will give you answers from Siri at the drop of a hat (remember when you criticized your kids for saying "why, I can always use a calculator" when you nagged them to do their homework?  Pot, meet Kettle.)  With the new iPhone 6, Thinking itself is a thing of the past (assuming you've been a steady consumer of Apple products for the past dozen years or so, a thing of the distant past.)  Welcome to the Brave New World of instant gratificaiton of every witless query or half-thought that has ever popped into your increasingly vacant skull.

This is why our ancestors fought and died in wars.  So this generation could dedicate itself to the consumption of electronics and call asking a phone questions the next big step in the pursuit of knowledge.  No, not much has changed.  Not much at all.  I still hate this century so very much.

Did I speak too soon?

Remember when I said that Chrysler pairing with The Hunger Games equaled the worst cross-promotion ever?  Well, this one might not be "worse," but it's certainly giving it a run for it's money.

I mean, the Chrysler commercial didn't feature a talking lizard walking along a beach and encountering a wedding, at least.  Who the hell gets married on the beach like this, anyway?  I like the beach, but I can't imagine trying to arrange a wedding on one, unless it's in a private section.  Even then, there are going to be seagulls everywhere.  Not to mention the sand getting in everything (and probably rendering the rental tuxes unreturnable) and it being too hot and sunny-- it just doesn't work on any level.  At least these people should be wearing Hawaiian shirts.

(Oh wait, it's a "destination wedding"- one of those obnoxious ego-orgies where the couples think that they are so damned important they can force their friends to spend bucketloads of money to travel to another part of the world to watch them exchange rings and still remain their friends.)

Oh and a diamond ring+beach=several dozen people on their knees looking for a rock that doesn't look like all the other rocks.  Stupid.

These Fitbit ads should really come with a disclaimer.

What happened to that girl this guy was chasing in the other commercial?????  Never mind- it's too dark to even think about.

Meanwhile, I feel sorry for people who try to emulate this guy's workout routine- at least, if they try to do it without first consulting a doctor or at least a good chiropractor.  Here's a tip- if you want to get into shape, do NOT get workout ideas from Rocky montages or Fitbit ads.  Unless what you are really after is a severely torn back muscle or a hernia, most of what this guy is doing is not for you, or anyone else for that matter.

It's almost scary to think how many suddenly-inspired sedentary slugs with money burning holes in their pockets are going to be inspired by this guy to go right out and give themselves a quick heart attack by overdoing it instead of building up to a decent workout.  But at least they'll die wearing a pretty watch, right?

Because I like to be helpful every once in a while, check out this article for better advice than "buy this electronic thing and go overboard trying to fix twenty years of sitting on your butt:"

http://www.examiner.com/article/exercise-walking-is-the-best-medicine

Audi ramps up the loathsome meter

The guy in this ad who gives his wife/girlfriend a brand-new SUV, only to have her get distracted by a "better" car as it drives by a moment later- so soon, in fact, that she doesn't even have time to express the gratitude she doesn't feel for a gift that costs about as much as dinner for 10,000 homeless families at the town's shelters- really ought to just say "only kidding" and take the damn thing back to the dealer for a refund.

Then he should donate that money to those homeless shelters.  He won't, of course, because anyone who would buy one of these LookAtMeMobiles is a self-centered, self-satisfied, amoral douchenozzle who probably speeds up and looks at his Italian shoes as he passes Salvation Army kettles or those aforementioned homeless people.

Oh and by the way, the people who made this should all die horrible deaths.  Not to be overly negative, but there it is.

Three Quick Question for viewers of this Verizon Ad

Never mind all the Norman Rockwell-ish imagery that pervades this cloying nonsense.  Here's what I want honest answers to:

1.  If the parents had slipped each of their crying little brats a shot of whiskey instead of handing them an electronic drug to keep them occupied during the long drive to Grampa's, would that have been worse?  I mean, the whiskey would have just knocked them out and given them a nice nap.  The tablet encourages the use of a glowing screen as a babysitter/pacifier.  Plus, it can't be great for their eyes.

2.  If Verizon really wants us to shut our electronics off-- ever-- why do all of it's commercials celebrate the "miracle" of 24/7 "connectivity" and the "joy" of houses filled with people staring at their personal electronic best friends while ignoring those organic life forms who seem to exist to suck up data and deny them their share of broadband?

3.  Did anyone visiting you this holiday actually shut their phones off when they arrived at your house so they wouldn't be disturbed by the outside world and would spend their time actually enjoying your company and the company of other people in the same room?  And if you answered "yes," is there room in your family for one more?

Chrysler: Your place for really, really bad cross-promotion

Maybe I should be thankful that The Hunger Games didn't go with Arby's or KFC to pitch it's (thankfully) final chapter, which btw somehow takes the second half of the third and dullest book of the series and turns it into a full-length film in the service of making another billion dollars.  But using Chrysler doesn't make any sense at all, either- "if you're an unknown..." Chrysler is an unknown?  Huh?

The rest of this ad is just as awful- because it takes the opening failure to connect the movie and the car and just keeps trying to pound it into our skulls, like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that simply MUST be made to fit or a square peg that must be forced into a round hole, dammit.  The problem is that anyone with half a brain is well aware that a film about the final victory of a ragtag group of rebels over a brutal totalitarian dictatorship has precious little in common with buying an overpriced SUV.  Unless I'm missing something.  (I'm not.)

Oh, actually I am missing something- I'm not going to see this movie, either.  I read the books and saw the first two films in the theater and caught the third one on Roku.  As I stated above, the third book was a bore and the third film was an almost preposterously ponderous, obviously padded waste of time.  I'm not endorsing the current "string them along and then make the third book into two films" phenomena by shelling out $10 to see Katniss make the inevitable decision to be with that whiny, perpetually wounded and helpless dishrag Peeta (sorry for the spoiler, but geeeeeshhh....)  Not when there's a James Bond film playing in the same theatre.  Which reminds me, I'm thirsty for a Heineken for some reason.....