Sure puts that bag of 9 peanuts in perspective....

One day, Jennifer Aniston had a terrible nightmare.   She dreamed that she was on a plane which did not provide showers or a bar.  She was wandering around in a bathrobe looking for these things (which, after all, are available in even the most modest of private residences) up and down the plane, only to be told that they were not available because she was not on an Emirates jet.

Fortunately, she woke up before the nightmare could get any more horrible.  She got her shower in, and then sat at the bar and told someone all about her truly horrific experience.   I mean, can you imagine- a jet plane without a shower?

Let's sum up the real message of this commercial:  One day, Jennifer Aniston fell asleep on a jet and dreamt that she was not a multimillionaire still coasting on the inexplicable success of a stupid sitcom that went off the air twenty years ago and a series of totally forgetable romantic comedies.  Instead, in her dream, she was pretty much just like the rest of us, on a totally shower-less and bar-less plane, with nothing to remind her that she was So Much Better Than Pretty Much Everyone except for that First Class Seat, which clearly doesn't mean anything like it used to.  In her dream she was so much like 99.9999 percent of the population, it was enough to startle her back to her golden reality.

Me?  I'll remember Jennifer Aniston's nightmare often.  Probably every time I'm handed my complimentary 6-ounce cup of Diet Coke (mini cans of Pringles available for $3.50, exact change is appreciated.)  And every time I see Aniston's face on a magazine cover at a checkout line- which is to say, every time I'm on a checkout line.  Thanks a lot, Ms Aniston.

Pointless Waste of Time. It's what makes a Subaru Commercial a Subaru Commercial.

I guess that this commerical has two messages we are supposed to get-

1.  The idiots in the Subaru have lived such sadly sheltered lives that their view of nature involved skunks, scary animals and inbred hillbillies straight out of Deliverance.*  (Hey, idiots, here's another reason for not taking that unmarked dirt road- you don't know where it goes.)

2.  The only option these boring losers have if they don't take the Path Less Traveled is trying on Kakis at the Penny's down the road.  And is anyone else totally weirded out at the way they are staring at eachother and those pants?  What the hell?

Here's another message I think we were supposed to get, but which never shows up- Subarus are good cars to use for off-road adventures.  Maybe we never really get this message because we are too busy being told that no matter what the Subaru owners decide to do with their Subaru, they aren't going to be very happy with that choice.  Because in the end, the car doesn't change the fact that they are really, really boring losers who absolutely deserve eachother.

*Oh, and one more message- it doesn't matter what the product being pitched is.  Ad makers simply hate the idea of being outside the city or suburbs.  In commercial-land, nothing good ever comes from venturing beyond the picket fence, unless of course one has total internet connectivity and a cooler full of beer as companions.  Weird.

"Ok, I read my lines. Where's my money?"

Am I the only person out there who finds the Match.com spokeschoad in this ad one of the most unpleasant people on television?  I mean, he couldn't make it more clear that he absolutely hates this gig and couldn't actually give a damn if the guy he's accosting on the street actually tries Match.com.  He just wants to get his three sentences out so he can get back to the phone and ream out his agent some more.  I suspect that if the poor guy he decided to pick on replied "I'm not interested, see I have friends and they have friends and I can meet people in the normal, not-stupid ways that don't require me to pay a monthly fee to an internet site" he'd be risking serious injury.

BTW, I also find the "95% of people who try Match.com get second dates" pretty uncompelling.  Desperation will do that.  And speaking of desperate, if you are taking online dating advice from an angry stranger on the street, well--- you don't need me to describe desperate, do you?

Here's a better idea- therapy.

Don't blame me if you watched all three minutes of this awfulness- I didn't ask you to, after all.  Personally, I gave up after about forty seconds of this horrible woman's monotonous voice, which convinced me with each passing syllable that she was completely and utterly dead inside.

I mean, think about it- she's not interested in being healthy.  She's obsessed with causing her body considerable pain in an attempt to get rid of a little "bump" in her stomach area Oh It's So Frustrating.  Geesh, really?  Never mind a Flex Belt- wouldn't sitting down with a professional and discussing your lack of self-esteem and poor body image be more productive?

I gotta share this ad with my twitter followers before the light turns green.

If corporations weren't so damned powerful in this country, we might get to see public service ads like this on television instead of having to find them on YouTube.  Unfortunately, we who live in the United States will never get anything more edgy than "you can learn a lot from a dummy" and posters slapped on bus stops showing attractive people with tire tracks painted on their faces.

Maybe if we weren't so damned busy trying to jam our cars with distracting electronics ("traveling WiFi? Awesome, something to do while Cruise Control and warning cameras are getting me where I need to go without my active participation!") we wouldn't need commercials like this.  But we do.  Aren't going to get them, though.  They'd be too much of a downer.

Now back to the latest Hey Look Facebook on your dashboard commercial.  Much better.

Gotta struggle with something....

I'm sorry that this woman is suffering with diabetes- I have family members who manage theirs and I know it's an expensive pain in the butt.  But looking at her life, I can see that there are other things she could easily be suffering from, including

1.  Badly burned irises caused by living in a blindingly white world.  What the hell is going on here?  I know that in commercials everyone lives in houses with snow-white interiors (I think it has to do with making things easier on the camera crew and creating a distraction-free environment) but man what I would give to see a crumpled newspaper or dirty coffee cup SOMEWHERE in this ad.  And before she gets inside, she walks through a world that is every bit as bizarrely white and perfect on the street as in her living room.  This woman's world is disgustingly clean and glowing right down to her freaking dog.

2.  Deep confusion caused by the flood of confusing disclaimers concerning possible side effects. I think I know what a "site reaction" is.    Do I not know what any of this stuff means because I don't have diabetes?  What the hell are TZDs, for example?

3.  Deep confusion caused by the usual "don't do this without asking your doctor" stuff.  Isn't this medication available only through prescriptions?  Doesn't that kind of imply a conversation between patient and doctor which covers these warnings?  Who the hell would mix this medication with other insulins?  Diluting it I totally understand- watering down prescription liquids and chopping up pills  are just fringe benefits of our wonderful for-profit health care system.  But "Mixing it with other insulins?"  What the hell is that?

Some questions about this weird Symbicort ad

Why does the doctor in this ad sound exactly like the female voice featured in this program?



I mean, it's not like it's hard to get doctors to totally whore themselves out for pharmecutical companies.  Are the makers of Symbicort really this cheap?

Oh wait, what am I saying?  They decided to use a "grampa explains his serious medical condition to his grandchildren, who can't possibly understand any of this and just want him to finish the damn story" cliche.  So a robotic "doctor" bleating drug boilerplate should come as no surprise to anyone.  I do have one more question, though- is the grampa actually repeating all of this to his grandchildren?  What the hell?