Scented Candles are the Audi of Punjab, apparently

Or "stupid and insulting is stupid and insulting in any language."

Punjab is sometimes referred to as the "bread basket of India."  It has the lowest level of hunger of any province in the country.  So it's got that going for it, anyway.

But the statistics are pretty much downhill from there.  The fertility of the soil has been dropping pretty dramatically over the last few decades, as most of the land is rotated between only two major crops- corn and rice.  This has also created a great deal of pollution.  The need for Punjab to supply a huge percentage of India's food has also lead to the creation of an enormous population of migrant "casual workers" who own no land of their own- 45% of the male population of Punjab is made up of agricultural workers who do not own any land.  My guess is that they don't own televisions, either, so they'll at least be spared this disgusting bit of Americana.

I guess this commercial is for Punjab's one percent- the tiny fraction of pretty people who live in substantial houses and throw parties for their pretty friends and are in the market for scented candles which change color over the course of beautiful warm evenings of chit-chat and self-congratulation.  I don't speak Punjabi, but I imagine that these pretty people are spending most of their time talking about how great it is not to be agricultural workers and instead be able to afford not only nice homes, but these cool scented candles which change color.  And how they all aspire to be Americans some day and move on from appreciating candles to appreciating flashy cars with Bluetooth technology.  Ah well, everything in it's own time, right?

Lifelock expects a lot from a $12 an hour security guard, don't you think?

I'm not exactly sure what the customers at this bank expect the security guard to do.  He was there to serve as a warning to wannabe Dillingers that yes, the bank does employ armed security.  That was supposed to dissuade those bad guys from robbing the bank.  My bet is that 99.9% of the time it worked just fine.

But when it doesn't work, and bank robbers totally ignore the fact that there's a guy in a blue shirt and a badge with a gun and start smashing things and waving guns around, I'm not exactly sure how the people here expect the guard to react.  Should he escalate the situation by pulling out his gun and shooting?  Other than leading to bullets dancing around in a room full of innocent people, what would that accomplish exactly?

Back in the late-80s (when I was twelve) I managed a video rental store in downtown Washington, DC.  When I wasn't restocking shelves or doing a little cleaning, I was usually standing next to the register- you know, to keep people with sticky fingers from stealing the money inside.  Three times in two years, someone with a gun attached to their sticky fingers came in and demanded cash (they also stole vhs tapes- tapes you couldn't give away on Ebay today.  Go figure.)  Guess what?  I gave it to them- even though my job was to run the store, not hand money to guys with guns.  And I don't recall ever hearing a customer say "why did you do that? You were supposed to be taking care of the register?"

So when these bank robbers exit, I hope none of the idiots on the floor actually start complaining to the security guard- "why didn't you stop that from happening?"  If they do, I hope he takes out his wallet and shows them pictures of his wife and kids and says something like "because stopping armed men from taking federally insured money isn't worth the risk- if you think it is, next time there's a robbery ask to borrow my gun."

And nope, I'm not even going to get to a snark on Lifelock.  Been there, done that.

Irritating the tobacco lobby. But only a little.

If this ad had been produced for Australian Television, the kid buying the cigarettes would have walked away with blood spurting out of his mouth and his jaw swelling to the size of a watermelon.  He would have screamed his head off as he pulled his tooth with the pliers, by the way.  Because Reality.

Ah, but this is American television, where anti-smoking ads can't feature anything resembling reality.  Instead we get CGI monsters crawling into cigarette packs.  Just like the anti-texting while driving ads are more comical than scary- because getting run over by a car is actually more of an inconvenience than anything else.  And don't even get me started on the ads which calmly, quietly and sweetly encourage us to maybe kind of think about not drinking to excess before getting behind the wheel.  Sure, the message is important- but the tobacco, phone and alcohol lobbies are enormous, musn't ever tick them off too much.

From this ad, we get the idea that if you smoke enough cigarettes, it might cost you one of your teeth.  I can see a lot of smokers thinking "hey, I remember being told that smoking covered my lungs with thick tar and lead to all kinds of nasty diseases and birth defects and early death.  Losing a tooth?  I can totally deal with that."  Sometimes I don't know why we even bother, if this is the level of edgy we are willing to go for.

And don't forget, George W Bush kept us safe, except for those times he didn't

These people spend roughly ten seconds telling us that their driving record is absolutely perfect, until it isn't.  And then "despite their perfect driving record," which is no longer perfect, their insurance company won't "cut them some slack."  Gee, you'd think that insurance companies would understand an argument like "but my insurance record was perfect before the accident," just like "I never once stabbed anybody and then hid the body in the celler until that day I did."*  You'd be wrong about both.

BTW, anyone else shocked that it's the guy in this commercial who had the accident?  Anyone at all?

*I'm not speaking from experience, so shut up.  What were you thinking?

Retirement looks like fun, except for the people.

How the hell do you either win or lose a bet like "I'm the biggest fan" unless "biggest" means "heaviest" or "tallest?"  How does one go about measuring devotion to a cell phone service?  How does one go about measuring devotion at all?

Never mind, these two bored old idiots, suddenly discovering a reason to keep breathing for at least one more day, are so inspired by this reason that they ramp up their speed from "stroll" to "moderately fast walk" as they enthusastically seek out fellow old idiots to annoy with their "are you a bigger fan than this guy" weirdness.

Naturally, the people they meet- being just as bored and lonely and desperate for distraction as they are- jump at the opportunity to spend a few minutes gushing about their ConsumerCellular packages. "Plans start at ten dollars a month!"  "I can text my grandchildren!"  "No contracts!"  "You can even get Facebook and Email and that other stuff the young people are using on the World Wide Interwebs!"  "We signed up on the phone!"  "I signed up online, which is that internet thing I think!"  "I bought my phone at Walmart!"  "I got mine at Sears!"  "Wait, I haven't shown you pictures of those grandchildren yet, please please don't go away talk to me for a few more minutes at least I haven't had a conversation this long since that nice man on the phone got me to give him my credit card number!"

And oh my god, these pathetic people with waaaaaayyyyy too much time on their hands end up traveling all the way across the country to "settle" their "bet."  Along the way, they meet all kinds of bored people who all have in common the fact that they love ConsumerCellular and are killing time until they finally fall into the abyss.  They get all the way to the coast, decide that He Was Wrong (some things never change, even with old age) and then laugh for no reason at all (again, some things never change...)

What are they going to do now?  Well, I guess they are going to drive, kayak, or whatever back across the country, mission accomplished.  Have fun at bingo, weird old people.

A great ad for Socialized Medicine

Imagine- a health insurance company commercial which makes you want to hurt someone.

This particular ad is so vacuous, so stupid, so smothering in it's extra-gooey, extra-thick layers of dumb, I can almost take it as an ad for Single Payer.  The punchline should be "just imagine- if we had Europe's health care system, we'd never have to watch anything near this level of awfulness ever again.  Promise."

Until then, continue to say "ahhhhhhh......my premiums went up 30% AGAIN?" Or "ahhhhh.....my employer is being forced to dump our health insurance provider and search for a cheaper one AGAIN?"  Or "ahhhhhh.....I really need to step up my search for overseas teaching positions.  Before the competition gets ridiculous after Donald Trump's inauguration next year."

Dad never missed a soccer game or field hockey practice until the court order, either

1.  Dad is really, really insistent on bringing his teenaged daughter to the front of the school, despite the fact that said daughter makes it really, really clear that she doesn't want him to, because "that's where your friends are."

2.  "Is it a boy?" I could see a Dad asking this- at the dinner table, that night.  Or in a private conversation when he's not supposed to be paying attention to the road.  At this moment?  Shut up, Dad, and just drop your daughter off where she wants to be dropped off.

3.  Ok, I'm sorry, but Dad seems way too distracted by Tracy, who I guess is daughter's BFF.  So distracted that if he had been driving any other car- one without "we'll brake for you even when you are thinking about your teen daughter's friends when you should be paying attention" brakes- he would have been involved in a serious accident.  Maybe I'm getting this all wrong, but man....I'm kind of worried about Dad, and I think it's pretty obvious now why daughter didn't want him to drive her all the way to school.  The ick factor is just way too high here.