The perfect payment method for Androids

A few years ago I saw a commercial featuring an assembly line of consumers quickly using their credit cards to swipe and chip their way through purchases at some coffee shop.  The monotonous but speedy and efficient process was suddenly interrupted by some loser who LOL Can You Believe It actually attempted to fumble for cash No I'm Not Kidding That Stuff Is Still Out There And Even People Who Aren't Your Grampa Still Try To Use It Sometimes.

Flash forward to today, and we get obnoxious crap like this ad, in which we are informed that using your credit card to swipe or chip is LOL lame and soooo very 2016 and look at all the disgusting, stupid, hilarious things which happen when people reach for even THAT level of interaction.  In the few months that are left before every store is equipped with AmazonGo, we must use this scan option if we don't want our bratty kids rolling their eyes and bleating "dad....dad.....dad....." while the rest of the crowd behind us wonders why we insist on inserting pieces of plastic into card machines because we just figured out how to do that.

Not to mention that this Android Pay thing is happening despite the fact that a lot of stores haven't even gotten around to switching over to Chip technology yet.  I can see stores getting super-cynical about payment methods that are all the rage for a few months before being classified as ancient history and replaced with the REALLY EFFICIENT way of paying for stuff.  Maybe this is all about getting us ready for the "final" transition to cashier-less stores with no payment methods other than product detection on our phones (back to that AmazonGo thing again.) 

Ok, we get it.  Human interaction is disgusting and slow and sloppy and we really need to stop engaging in it- the only reason people did that for thousands of years is because they didn't have a choice.  We do.  So we should listen to the commercials and the kid bleating "dad....dad....dad...." and stop trying to have a society here.  Society sucks anyway- after all, "social" implies "other human beings," and why on Earth would we EVER want to share the shopping experience with other human beings? 

I'd still rather watch this than the prequels

I thought I was completely jaded about product placement, and as far as I'm concerned the last Star Wars film was released in 1983,* but this still managed to tick me off by scraping the bottom of the barrell, getting all the way through it, and then tunneling through the muck underneath until it suffocated from lack of oxygen.  If I cared about the crap that passes as Star Wars these days, I'd be angrier, but as it is I really can't go beyond ticked off.  And it's not because Lucas started making sci-fi fantasy movies again in the late 90s.  It's more because Lucas had to molest my childhood with "Special Editions" which demonstrated that he didn't even understand his own films.  Oh, and midichlorians.

I'd call it shameless, but that would require explaining to the people who made this ad what the word "Shame" means, because they clearly don't know.  All they know is that there's money to be made and there's a sci-fi fantasy movie to be released next month and it will make a billion dollars because it's got this iconic label on it that means something to millions of people my age or thereabouts.  Oh, and they couldn't give a flying damn about our childhoods.

*There's this thing called the Star Wars trilogy.  It includes three films, and they are called Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.  There's no such film as A New Hope and they certainly aren't episodes.  It ends with the empire being destroyed and the Republic being restored.  And yes, I mean ends.  Because the other stuff that's come along which uses the label "Star Wars" has nothing to do with Star Wars and everything to do with Capitalism.

eBay's soul-sucking salute to nonstop consumption*

Don't celebrate Christmas like everyone else, because you aren't like everyone else.  You're a pampered, white, rich American brat for whom three days for shipping seem like a crushing burden and is the reason why you spend $99 a year on Amazon Prime.

Oh, but this is an ad for eBay, that worldwide garage sale Weird Al Yankovic rightfully parodied more than a decade ago.  Ok, so if you buy your Christmas presents on eBay you certainly aren't like everyone else.  You aren't even like most spoiled brat American white people who live to have stuff show up on their doorstep in ugly brown boxes pretty much every day.  You are a different level of impulse, Live-For-Today shopper who has totally bought in to the Need It Right Now Gimmeee Gimmeee GIMMMMEEEEE philosophy that comes as a pre-loaded App on your Smartphone.

And no, I'm not apologizing to the jackass Youtube commenter who desperately needed to know what music accompanies this disgusting salute to instant gratification.  I really do want you to go die in a fire.  Because I hate you and the rest of your "I need to know what every piece of music I ever hear on any commercial right now plz plz plz" ilk.  You'll never contribute anything to anyone's life.  You are dumb as dirt and more vapid than I ever thought possible.  You won't be missed.  So go find that fire. Bet you can find one nearby using your Smartphone.  Maybe you can even get it delivered.

*wouldn't it be cool if this kind of behavior actually GAVE you consumption? 

Clarins Hysterical Word Salad....errr, Serum

In thirty-one seconds of narration and silly visuals accented by a zombie-pale woman who worries about wrinkles despite the fact that she's never been in the sun in her life, we learn that this bottle of pricey goo is

Two Serums in One!  (Wow!  That's twice as good as just ONE serum!  Where do I buy this stuff for the girl in my life who is starting to look her age, which is my age, which sucks?)

With 21 Potent Plant Abstracts! (That sounds so impressive!  So, what are these plants?  What do you mean, Shut Up That's Why?)

Hydric and Lipidic Systems!  (I don't know what those are, but if I admit that I'll look stupid, so This Is Impressive Too!)

And here's the hilarious punchline:  "After seven days, Instant Radiance!"  Ok, stop.  That doesn't even make any sense.  Seven days isn't "instant."  Does the narrator mean that there's no gradual improvement during those seven days, but the effects of the two serums with hydric and lipidic systems from 21 plant abstracts suddenly show up "instantly" on Day Seven?  Will it hurt?  Will it be scary?

Oh, and everyone in this Budweiser ad needs to die horribly. Right now.

If I thought that even one in ten of the people posting how much they love this ad were sincere and not paid whores for Budweiser, I don't think I could go on.  There is simply no way that more than a few dozen people on the entire planet think that this crap is even remotely funny, let alone Comedy Gold worthy of being imitated in real life.

As for being "Superbowl Worthy," I can totally buy that, since I think the Superbowl is the toxic waste dump of bad ad ideas.  There, I said it.

Grammarly- when you kind of want to sound like you, but not really because you're an illiterate idiot

"The Future" being one owned and controlled by idiots who don't read or write because Hey TV Was On Every Time I Planned To Do That Stuff.

"Does this sound like me?"  Well, no- it sounds like a literate person, and we know you aren't that.  As soon as the people who read this notice that it's not filled with grammatical errors, they are going to know you didn't write it.  And because they know what Grammarly is and get most of their information from Alexa and Siri and can't get to the local Starbucks without consulting turn-by-turn directions on their iPhones, they probably won't care either.

Oh, but this guy is going to be the "VP of Analytics."  Whatever the hell that is.  All I know about that job is that doing it doesn't require any actual English skills, because this worthless choad has already survived the interview and the rest of the hiring process and is now just momentarily flummoxed because for at least one day he has to pretend to know just a little bit about the language he allegedly grew up speaking (but never writing unless absolutely forced to, which wasn't often because Sports and TV. 

Two ways to "celebrate" prohibition, according to Budweiser

As near as I can figure:

First, you celebrate prohibition by drinking non-alcoholic "beer" because Reasons.  The only people who think this sounds intelligent probably add germs to milk to remind them of the good old days before Louis Pasteur came around and ruined everything.  Or they use chamberpots because it was so much cooler back when you had to fling your personal filth out the window instead of all this lame plumbing stuff.

Then, you wash that horrible taste of not-beer out of your mouth with "1933 Repeal Reserve."  If you are remarkably stupid- and the fact that you were just drinking non-alcoholic beer and are now drinking Budweiser in ANY form suggests that you are- you might just be able to con yourself into believing that this stuff is from the vaults of the Budweiser brewery.  It was just sitting there for 95 years, waiting for you to enjoy it for a limited time.  Uh-huh. 

Deleted Clip:  you then wash THAT horrible taste out of your mouth by consuming real beer.