Oh Bite Me, Mercedes Benz

So the people in this boring but affluent suburb are doing the usual boring but affluent things- playing catch, writing on the driveway with chalk, etc.- just minding their own business and enjoying life, when....

...they are interrupted by a parade of roaring ImpulseBuy LookAtMe StatusMobiles, which completely distract each and every one of them from the quiet little moments they were enjoying and compel them to stare with drooling mouths at the cars which for some reason are coming down their street at a speed at least 15-10 MPH over the posted speed limit (oh and this is apparently the only suburb in the United States without any speed bumps, anywhere, but never mind....)

I supposed that when these idiots have moved on, the kids and adults who live in this suburb will completely forget what they were doing and will continue to be consumed with Consumer Lust which will not be satisfied until a red Mercedes Benz is in the driveway.  I just hope that once that itch is scratched they are allowed to go back to doing those innocent but very unprofitable things they were enjoying before they were interrupted by Madison Avenue.  Down $60 K or so, it's back to playing catch and writing on the sidewalk, right?

Please?

Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans: Just a sign of the times, I guess...

Maybe it's because I was born after 1980, I don't know, but I'll agonize for ten minutes over which brand of freaking laundry detergent to buy and when I used to shop for cars I'd visit the dealership at LEAST twice before finally committing.  My travel agent knows that I'll be sending her at least half a dozen emails requesting information on as many different countries before I decide which, if any, I'm going to be visiting next summer- and then I'll start the long, ardous process of nailing down the right week I intend to go.

But apparently it's perfectly normal nowadays for young people to see a house they like, whip out their phones, and commit to a 30-year mortgage in about fifteen seconds flat.  Monthly payments? Insurance?  WTF-ever, I guess.  Checking out different banks to see who is offering the best deal?  We don't do that anymore, grampa.  We've got Smartphones now- which means we can make life-defining decisions by scrolling our finger across a screen.  We've got thirty years to think about it, starting later.  That house is available, we want it, what else is there to discuss?

A few years ago I snarked on a commercial which featured someone using a Smartphone to check out pets available at the local shelter, and picking one out based on how it looked on her screen.  I feel stupid for making fun of that person now.  The people in this ad are spending far less time researching mortgages and agreeing to spend $400,000 plus interest between now and mid-century than that pet-seeker did in finding a small mammal to take care of for a decade or so.  I thought "One-Click" adoption would come before instant mortgages.  Shows what I know.

Let us give thanks to the power grid....

This ad reminds me of those Educational Videos put out by Encyclopedia Brittanica or Centron back in the 1950s which were supposed to remind kids that Freedom isn't FreeTM and that all the wonderful things that make life in the lily-white suburbs worth living- cars, parks, schools for white people, and prefab housing for white people- not to mention cheap fruits and vegetables for white people harvested by brown people- come to us courtesy of American Capitalism, which is God-Given but must be defended with prayers, hard work, and the Military Industrial Complex.

Sure, when you flip that switch, you just "take for granted" that because you paid your electric bill, the lights will come on.  But being a spoiled rotten We Americans Have No Idea How Much Blood, Sweat and Tears Went Into Providing This Service culture, we need two minutes of "this is why you should shut up about the negatives attached to oil, natural gas and nuclear power because hey do you want power or not?"

Turns out that for me to have the power to run my laptop so I can post this blog, thousands upon thousands of people had to sacrifice millions of hours to build thousands of miles of pipelines and wiring and dozens of nuclear power plants, I had no idea and I feel so immensely selfish and will never again complain when there's a spill or meltdown and I'm sure as hell not going to ask where the waste goes EVER, because after all it's my fault it even exists because I turned on my laptop and I TAKE IT FOR GRANTED that power will be there.

While I'm at it, I sure as HELL am not going to ever grouse about my electric bill again, when you consider the army of people who toiled for decades to create the grid which even made the Miracle of Electrical Power possible, I should be thankful it's not a thousand times higher, and I should be AMAZED that despite the obvious superiority of the American Energy System (direct from Canada, but shut up) virtual saints are (unbelievably) working to make it EVEN BETTER OMIGOD WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS I'M NOT WORTHY!

Personally, I'd be proud to have a nuclear waste dump in my backyard.  Or fire coming out of my faucet.  I'd think I was doing at least SOMETHING to contribute to this Miracle of Endless Practically Free Energy All The Time and not just being a selfish ungrateful maggot like those hippies with their Commie solar panels and wind farms (I bet they are all atheists, too.)  Now if you'll excuse me, I have to flip my lights on and off while singing "God Bless America."  Oh, and thanks to you too, Canada.  I guess.

Verizon, please tell me why I bother....

...wearing a day-glo green backpack, or looking both ways before I cross the street, or working hard to make eye contact with drivers before attempting to cross the street, or always walking defensively, assuming that the people operating motor vehicles these days have their eyes on everything BUT what is right in front of them....

...when you are just going to keep coming out with products designed to encourage those motor vehicle operators to completely zone out concerning everything going on in the real world all around them and just be on Facebook or obsessively checking their email instead of making sure that they aren't slamming into someone who is just trying to get from Point A to Point B without being smushed from a completely distracted asshat who is supposed to be OPERATING A MOTOR VEHICLE AND NOT F--NG AROUND WITH THE INTERNET????

BTW, I just love how no part of this ad actually shows anyone using the WiFi capabilities being offered- probably because Verizon couldn't figure out a way to do it without showing people breaking the f--ing law, which they are totally being encouraged to do with this kind of technology.  I'm doomed.

Real Rubes, Ruining my summer by "starring" in Chevy Commercials

Just do a quick survey of YouTube comments and you'll see that Chevrolet's "Real People, Not Actors" series is among the most loathed in the history of commercial buffoonery.  Chevy's response, clearly, is to just ramp up the jaw-dropping dumb by putting the pathetic mouth-breathing "I'll say or do anything for a few seconds of facetime on tv" Real Idiots into increasingly absurd, forehead-slapping situations.

Check out this latest chunk of stupid, accredited to Valley Motors or something which I guess is just one of the 3500 or so local Chevy dealers in the United States where you can see one of these dull crapmobiles for yourself.  One of the Real Shameless Not Actors squeals with delight because she's test driving a Chevrolet on a racetrack, something she'll never be able to do once she buys the car but figures that won't matter because taking Brady to soccer practice will feel just like being on the Nascar circuit.  Another refugee from a nearby Trump rally gives us the obligatory "WOOOO!" as he uses a Totally Unnecessary But Satisfyingly Compensating pickup to- umm, climb some obstacle, for some reason. Never mind that he'll be using that $40,000 toy to haul garbage and couches and groceries over speed bumps and will never, ever encounter anything like this obstacle in real life.  As for the guy who wants to "head to the Chevy dealership as soon as he gets home," well, more power to you, buddy.  I don't even care that you're blatantly brown-nosing Chevrolet to get yourself on tv because when you've sunk as low as this, what difference would my dissaproval matter to you, you pathetic nothingburger?

The really bad news is that there's absolutely nothing different about these ads except for the word "Summer."  These look exactly like the ads we saw all last fall during the baseball playoffs and then during the NFL season.  And there are always Chevy sales events going on- always.  Just like there are always people ready to chirp valentines to Chevy in exchange for 2 seconds of "hey look at me I'm on tv" validation.  Man are you people sad!

SimpliSafe: 'Cause you gotta cut corners somewhere....

So the fiftysomething husband and father in this ad looks at his thirtysomething trophy wife and the kids she dutifully popped out for him as her end of the bargain and says "look, honey, I work pretty damned hard for this multimillion dollar home with it's massive kitchen and modern appliances and even bigger living room.  And I know you think that I'm a bottomless well of cash, mainly because that's what I told you when I convinced you to surrender your youth to me in exchange for a life of security.

"Fact is, these mortgage and Lexus SUV payments are taking a pretty big bite out of that hedge fund money- I'd explain to you what 'hedge funds' are and how they support this lifestyle, but if you were interested in clogging your pretty little head with stuff like that I would never have married you- and the kids' endless parade of extracurricular activities don't help much either.  Not to mention the big-screen TVs and internet access you kind of insisted on so you don't go absolutely insane in this house while the kids are away and Juanita (whom I am NOT sleeping with, yet) is doing the shopping and cleaning.  And let's not forget Juanita, who is fifteen years younger than you are and has the kind of body you had when we first met, just sayin'.

"So we're going to have to economize somewhere.  And since I have hefty life insurance policies on you and the kids, and I'm home maybe eight hours a week anyway, it's going to be in home security.  That's why I'm going to protect your guilded cage with a bargain-basement do-it-yourself saw-it-on-late-night-tv so-called alarm system.  It will keep you and the kids- and Juanita, if she's not helping me in the office that night- super safe, I assure you.  Now how about another beer, hon?"

Trumpy Bear? Come on!

In 1991 I bought a Dan Quayle watch, but they weren't being sold to "honor" Dan Quayle.  This has got to be brilliant snark, right?  Right?

I mean, it uses every cliche from every Collector Plate/Prayer Coin/Authentic Replica WWII Watch commercial ever, right down to the ancient codger telling us that he is "proud to own this bear, and proud to be an American."  Heck, it might even be the SAME vet who told us that he was proud to own the Not-Actually-WWII-era aviator-style watch and was "proud to be an American."

I mean, I know this is an incredibly stupid country populated by mouth-breathers (look how 46 percent of us voted last time around) but this can't be real, can it?  Or if it is, and someone will actually answer that phone number and there's a factory in It's Pronounced JINA making these things, this concept was put together by someone with a PhD in Cynicism?

This can't be the brainchild of someone who actually LIKES Trump, can it?