Walmart's answer to degraded purchasing power....

..which they are largely responsible for....

"Your family expects gifts this Christmas, but you don't have very much money, Typical Republican-Voting Poor White Male Who Thinks He's Middle Class Because He Manages To Pay His Bills And Has Some Credit and a Mortgage.  Here's a way out of a predicament which is only a predicament because you can't be honest with your family about your finances and maybe teach them something about the true spirit of Christmas but simply must perpetuate the myth that Mommy and Daddy are in great financial shape by showering them with crap from Walmart (here's a quick tip: if your kids are over eight years old, they already know you do your shopping at Walmart, which means they already know they are not as well off as the neighbors down the street celebrating the fact that Santa brought them a Lexus.)

"Oh, but please, don't be honest with yourself or your kids.  Con yourselves into thinking that you are just One More Credit Card Away from engaging in a financially responsible gift-giving orgy made less ruinous by a $35 credit which vanished the moment you picked out the big-screen tv you don't need but will distract your kids from that Lexus family for at least a few hours every day."

Aaron Rodgers needs something to do while not winning Superbowls, I guess

It's almost frightening to think how many rubes there are out there who think that this commercial is at all funny.  It's predictable, it's intensely stupid, it does nothing to sell it's product, and it's just a gigantic waste of time.

If I just insulted you by calling you a vapid rube if you think this ad is funny, well, tough.  You have no taste, you have no sense of humor, and if you are a Green Bay fan, you ought to be wondering why Aaron Rodgers isn't spending a little more time with the playbook and a little less time making these asinine little nubs.

But if you persist in finding these ads entertaining, be my guest- and appreciate that Rodgers has joined  Eli and Peyton Manning in the Quarterbacks Who Would Rather Make Commercials Than Win Superbowls Club.  Tom Brady?  He's too busy to join.  Guess what he's too busy doing?

Time for Lexus Dad to go to Plan B

"But dad, penguins live at the South Pole..." chirps Adorable Offspring of Human Pig-Man.  Here's a good reply from Dad- better than the delighted chuckle from Trophy Wife:

"Ok, son, I'll admit it.  All that crap about penguins and racetracks was just something I made up because I thought maybe you were a little too young to know the truth....but my friends over at Fox Business News told me the other day that it's really never too early for kids to start learning about the Blessings of Capitalism, so here goes...

"You see, Daddy's a hedge fund manager.  That means he makes money moving other people's money around in complicated ways, and constantly skimming off the top.  Daddy makes more doing that every month than the average coal miner or school teacher will make in three years.  And thanks to a political system featuring two parties crawling all over themselves to be the bestest of friends with hedge fund managers, Daddy got to keep practically all that of that money, while coal miners and school teachers hand over a third of their income to the Evil Tax Man every paycheck."

"To make sure Daddy could buy Trophy Wife---errr, Mommy-- the Lexus she wanted so she wouldn't start wondering if selling her body and soul to me was worth it, Daddy did a little work on the side merging a few corporations and getting a few thousand people downsized, which meant a little more in Daddy's bank account come the end of the year."

Adorable Offspring:  "Daddy, did those people who lost their jobs get a Lexus in their driveway?"

"No, but don't worry-  those people get to ride even bigger cars, with lots of wheels and their own driver.  They just have to go out to the street and wait for one to show up."

Adorable Offspring- "Aren't those called buses, and arent' they kind of crowded and gross?"

"Hey kids, who's up for a ride in Mommy's New Lexus?  Check out the dual DVD players in the back!"

Fail on Several Levels by PapaJohns

The Redskins take on Dallastonight and we've got Burgunday and Gold Nation  covered with this great deal from Papa John's!  2 Large 2-topping pizzas and a 2-liter Pepsi product is only $25! #HTTR! Use the promotion code NCR2500 Offer expires 12/7/2015 Offer available Online Only! 1.  It would have been so great if PapaJohns could have omitted the racist name of the franchise which currently plays in the suburbs of Washington, DC when creating this ad. 2.  "Burgunday?"  Really?

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.