TD Ameritrade's "Green Room" doesn't exist in any universe I know

The couple in this commercial look to be about forty.  And they are telling the TD Ameritrade guy that they've "carefully saved" $103,000 and are nervous about investing it because, after all, it took them a long time to save that $103,000 so it's super important that they don't blow it on bad investments....

Couple of things.  First, if this couple really is about forty, they are at least 25 years from retirement and are still around a decade away from their peak earning years.  At the rate they are going, they could expect to quadruple that amount at least without even trying.  Which brings me to my next point...

This couple is not even trying.  If they've "carefully saved" $103,000 and are just now thinking maybe of sorta investing if they can be sure the investments are safe, they have been stashing money away in a bank which is paying them no interest, meaning that every year they've been saving their hard-earned, carefully-hoarded money has been losing value.  Their strategy so far has been one step above the Bury The Cash In Coffee Cans In The Backyard method.  Idiots.

I suppose the TD Ameritrade guy is too good at his job to openly laugh and shake his head at these stupid people who apparently think that it's 1896 and a savings account at the neighborhood bank is the solid foundation of a retirement plan.  So he'll suggest that rather than be concerned about $103,000 they've got saved up a freaking quarter-century before retirement, they ought to be thinking about making that money- and future "savings"- grow at a rate somewhat faster than the 1% they've been getting at the Safe As A Vault Because That's What You're Using It For bank.

Finally, I don't give a flying damn about these people.  They are barely getting started and they've got $103,000 in savings?  I hope an earthquake devours them and the pile of cash they are so damn proud of.  I hate you people so damn much- but not as much as I hate the fact that there's a massive industry devoted to hiring grinning number-pushers dedicated to manipulating your cash to make other people rich in return for virtually no actual work.  They make you jackwads look like saints.

Taco Bell Couples Counseling

The woman in this ad is so distraught at the idea of being single, she's actually mourning the end of a "relationship" she had with a disgusting, insensitive-to-the-extreme slob and willing to take "relationship counseling" from one of his equally loathsome friends.

Think about it- the message here is that the woman does not know how to fill the void in her life created by the imminent departure of the man-child sitting next to her.  And the man-child?  He's already found a way to replace her.  It's with a handful of greasy beef and carbs.  She's already been forgotten, because Hey Calories.

And think about this- loathsome male who barely acknowledges her existence because he's shoving poison into his cake hole has an actual male friend there to back him up.  Where's her support?  Oh, she doesn't have any- she's all alone in the world, now that the guy she thought was going to be The One has decided she's totally expendable as long as Taco Bell keeps coming up with delicious ways to deliver toxins to the bloodstream.

I'd say that this woman is better off, but it's hard to imagine that she's not going to quickly find another sociopath to cling to in the hopes of fulfilling the American dream of marriage, children, house in the suburbs, and....well, that's about it, actually.

Message to DirecTV NFL package fans....

If you are going to loudly demand Every Game, All Season, like the loathsome choad in this ad, you'd better come to grips with a few things.

First, you aren't a football fan.  Football fans follow a team.  Maybe it's their college team, maybe it's the NFL team they grew up with.  Maybe it's both.  But NFL fans do not follow every team, every week, because unless you are insane you get that there's more to weekends- and life in general- than watching football.

Second, you aren't even a sports fan.  I'll explain further by linking it to another ugly phenomenon which somehow became normal over the last ten years, that plague on America called "Fantasy Sports."

Fantasy Sports Fans- like NFL Direct Ticket fans, you are not actually sports fans.   You aren't even Fantasy fans.  You are fans of finding reasons to sit on your butts doing absolutely nothing while your brains and bodies turn to mush and your loved ones go about their lives without you.   You practitioners in the Art of Not Moving.

In short, you are in the same group as the people who demand live streaming and infinite DVR'ing and "must" have access to Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime 24/7.   Pathetic.

I don't know who these commercials are supposed to appeal to, but I can think of two possible target audiences:

1.  People who are currently spending as much time as possible on the couch but who are perplexed by a nagging feeling that when the game is over they really ought to get up and do something because, you know, life and relationships and fleeting time and all that.  If the football never ends, that nagging feeling never shows up, right?

2.  People who already have the package and spend 20 hours or so every weekend watching football but who worry that they are being abnormal and who need affirmation that devoting one-seventh of their lives to a tv show is something others aspire to do.

3.  People whose lives from Monday to Friday are so unbelievably horrible that they really do need entire weekends of TV Coma to "recharge" and get ready for another five days of the relentless agony which defines their existence- and who have already binged on Game of Thrones marathons.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for purchasing the DirecTV package.  You are making traffic much more bearable on the weekends by just staying in your caves with your glowing friend.  Just don't call yourself football fans, because the only thing you are fans of is being immobile as much as possible before death comes to claim your flabby, worthless selves.

The Upgrade includes Asian kids dressed as angels singing you to sleep

If you live in this freaking palace, you have ZERO business complaining about the quality of your sleep, you entitled asshats.

Seriously, I just love these ads, which always feature the beds located in impossibly opulent rooms with 360 degree views of oceans, city skylines, etc.  The message of each is "you're unbelievably wealthy.  You've got pretty much everything.  Oh, but if your sleep isn't 100 percent perfect, then neither is your life.  I bet you didn't even realize it, but for a few more grand which you have lying around anyway, even your sleep can be Superior to that of your Lessers.  So buy this."

Just innocently destroying the planet, one stupid move at a time

I bet the woman is this ad always unplugs her phone charger when it's not in use.  You know, to save energy and all that.  Think Globally, Act Locally.

And then, before going out on a date which will last a few hours, she leaves her television on so her dog can watch ping pong.  Otherwise, he might.....um, be lonely while she's away, I guess.*

One step forward, two steps back.  Again.

*this is assuming, of course, that the guy goes through with the date after witnessing her insanity.  Personally, I'd see this as her way of scaring me off.  It would work, too.

Xfinity's Not-So-Brave New World

The woman is this ad is singing the virtues of nonstop "connectivity," from the moment she rises (and before she actually gets out of bed) to the end of the day, when she meets up with the ugly choad she's decided is "cute" enough for her, or at the very least better than those other guys she flung away with a swipe of her finger because she could.

The most amazingly wonderful thing about the world and her life is that her phone "evolved" with her, so now every single thing she does- from ordering a total stranger to pick her up in an unfamiliar car to picking out someone to breed with- can be done with one little hand-held device.  She can even do really STUPID things (even more stupid than using phones to get rides from strangers or pick out potential life partners) like make flowered crowns to wear at the movies, or something.  I don't know what that's all about, and I'm pretty sure I don't care, because this is a pretty stupid woman.

In the end she's super-happy with Mr. "he's cute" (which sounds a lot like "he'll do") which tells me that this woman is really into stupid-looking doofuses who are obviously going to be bald before they get near 30, but hey to each her own.  Not as much as she's into worshipping her phone, though.  Not even close.

Six years later....Windows didn't "solve" anything

I actually commented on this commercial back in 2011.  I didn't go back and look at the post, but I'm pretty sure I said something like "yeah, right- what people really want is to get the Very Important Information they want more quickly so they can get back to their real lives.  Sure, they do.  No, they don't.  Because people actually like staring at their phones and if you give them faster connectivity they'll just use that to stare at more things on their phones."

I'm pretty sure I wasn't proven wrong.  In 2017 our phones can do more, faster, than they could way back in 2011.  And stop me if I'm wrong, but I haven't noticed a decrease in the amount of time people spend staring at their phones.

In fact, I feel pretty safe in arguing that what seemed like stupid, time-wasting, zombie behavior in 2011- walking down the sidewalk with eyes fixed on the phone, sitting at a restaurant and staring at that phone rather than talking to the person you are "with," and basically incorporating that phone into every aspect of your life no matter how bizarre it might have seemed a few years ago- has become so normal that I suspect a lot of people look at this ad and say to themselves "yes, really.  And? So? What's the point?"

I also think it's safe to say that the drug dealers who peddle the idea of nonstop electronic stimulus in the form of Permanent "Connectivity" have won their battle with civilization, and restaurants of the future will feature single-seating because our phones don't need chairs.