Insurance Reminds Us Why We Are Here

"Hey dad, what's life insurance?"

"Oh, it's something dads buy."

"Not moms?"

"Some moms.  Not your mom.  Your mom used to have a job outside the home so Daddy didn't have to work fifty hours a week in a stuffy office to make enough money to pay all the bills, but then you came around and she took some time off, and even though she said she'd be going back to work as soon as you were old enough for a day care here it is five years later and she's still totally dependent on me and my income.  So even though Mommy bought everything in this house, it was with my money.  I'm just here to make sure the money keeps coming in, until I finally keel over from exhaustion someday."

"Oh...so what is life insurance?"

"Well, you see, son, you and mommy live off my back like deer tics.  If something were to happen to me, you wouldn't have any money because God Forbid Mommy kept her toe in the employment pool instead of letting her skills atrophy until she wasn't an attractive candidate for any job other than Mommy.  So the idea is, I work even LONGER hours so I can make MORE money and buy this policy that says that when I finally do lose the last of my will to live because my whole life is work work work so she doesn't have to, you and your Mommy can keep living as if I'm still around, except with a slightly lower food bill, until Mommy can find another guy to take care of her like she's a helpless princess for the rest of HIS life."

"Do we have insurance?"

"Yes, we do.  I just kind of said so, didn't I?'

"It's good we have insurance."

"Of course it is.  It won't ever mean a thing to me, because if you ever see any of that money it means I'm dead, but it will keep you and your Mommy in style, and that's the important thing."

"Good!"

"Mommy has raised you well, son."

The right time of year for more Optima Tax Relief snark

Here we go again.....

Eric was "overwhelmed" because he made money and didn't pay taxes and accumulated assets with the extra money he had because he didn't pay taxes.  "Suddenly" he found himself owing the IRS* $15,000 in unpaid taxes and no matter how hard he "tried," he just couldn't figure out how to pay it back- you know, without selling the stuff he bought with the money he was supposed to pay in taxes, because that was totally out of the question, of course.

So poor Eric did the only thing he could do short of calling the IRS and arranging a payment plan to take care of his 100 percent legitimate debt which he chose to create- he called Optima Tax Relief and paid THEM to negotiate a settlement, because Eric is pretty damn stupid with money, disinterested in paying his fair share for the maintenence of the society he benefits from, and basically a selfish asshat.

"It was easy as 1....2....3...." good thing, because I don't think Eric would have been able to deal with this if Optima had made it any more difficult.  Besides being stupid and selfish, Eric doesn't strike me as particularly bright. 

*notice how the people in these ads always tell us that they "owe the IRS."  They never, EVER say that they "owe the people of the United States," which is much more accurate but far less likely to draw a sympathetic reaction from the audience.  I suspect the commercials wouldn't be quite as successful if the people in them said "Unlike most of you watching, I didn't pay my fair share in taxes for years.  Instead, I used that money to buy stuff- stuff that you didn't buy because you didn't have the money, because you thought you had to pay taxes."

23andme and weird confirmation bias

So this young woman decided that because she had a grandmother who had Parkinson's disease, she should get this genetic test done to see.....if she might get it to?  Ok, let's definitely get back to that at the end of this post.

She spends a lot of time these days thinking about what her life might be like in forty years when she's a senior citizen, which I bet makes her a real hit with her friends who wonder why she can't enjoy her youth and insists on living in the year 2058 and worrying in advance about things she really can't do anything about and which might not even be problems by the time she gets there (maybe Parkinson's is cured by then.  Maybe she gets run over by a bus next week because she was daydreaming about what her health might be like when she's seventy.  We really don't know, do we?)

Anyway, the tests come back and it turns out that she's low risk for Parkinson's, but may be high risk for Alzheimer's (at least I think that's what she's saying here.)  She's not sad about it, she's not happy about it, she's just kind of relieved.....to know what to obsess about for the next several decades, assuming she doesn't get run over by that bus.  I guess.

The way I figure it, this woman's quest to uncover the future before it happens results in nothing of any value.  Ok, so she's more likely to get Alzheimer's instead of Parkinson's.  So what is she going to do with that information?  Spend her family's money on New Age Homeopathic "medications?"  Bore her friends to death with contant blather about how she's "not sad" that she has a slightly better chance of contracting Alzheimer's and is going to "deal with this" in a brave manner Please Don't Pity Me Let Me Tell You Again About My Test Results Wait Where Are You Going?

This commercial seems to be a very good advertisement for saving your money and admitting that you really can't buy peace of mind unless that means purchasing life insurance or savings bonds.  You aren't going to get good news from a 23andme report- the best you can hope for is news that there's not a lot of history of cancer or other life-shortening diseases in your family.  It can't tell you YOU won't get cancer or another disease, any more than it can tell you you aren't going to get run over by that bus.  All it can do is take money out of your wallet and reward you with a little trivia about your family.  Maybe that's valuable to someone.  It's way too important to this stupid woman, who has decided that DNA is Destiny.  Armed with that philosophy, she's going to march through whatever time she has left with this stoic, self-important, self-absorbed look on her face, pretending to stare down a threat which may or may not be lurking around the corner.  What a waste of time.

"Watson" contributes to technological unemployment, and we don't care

I guess the aviation mechanics in this ad are portrayed as being about as motivated to work as your average road crew so that we feel better about Watson pushing them out of their jobs?  Because right now it looks as though the only drawback to these guys all getting canned is that there won't be anyone around to drink coffee anymore.

Hey, Verizon? Move on now. Just move on. We're all done with this.

Maybe it was easy for the crowd to guess that the network this douchenozzle is talking about is Verizon because he has the most recognizable, most punchable face on television?  And maybe instead of taking this as evidence that everyone is familiar with Verizon's stellar record for service, Verizon might figure out that this bit has been done to death and we all want to see this guy given his walking papers already?

Maybe the next time Verizon attempts to set up in a park or waterfront or wherever so this guy can bleat ten seconds of what is apparently supposed to be improv gushing, the crowd can just boo and tell him to get lost because It's Over and We Hate Your Face and Your Schtick Has Gone to Seed?

Please?

Dannon Yogurt Ads: the bane of daytime television....

I spend every January visiting the Vermont farmhouse I grew up in, usually parked in front of the tv grading a mountain of midterm exams while my mom watches Soap Operas and Lifetime Movies For White Women.  It's the one week a year that I get a lot of exposure to the world of Daytime Television, which means it's the one week a year I get a lot of exposure to the world of Daytime Television Commercials.  And I'm reminded that there's more on sale than cars, drugs, cell phones and beer.

For instance, they sell a lot of toilet paper during the day.  And "feminine protection" products.  And fabric softener and air fresheners.  And diapers. 

And yogurt.  Lots and lots of yogurt.  Which means lots and lots of women like this one, who finds herself utterly enthralled at the idea of eating "cheesecake" and "chocolate pudding" and "key lime pie" without worrying that her husband is going to dump her for the babysitter because she's starting to look her age, because now she can "indulge" in all those "bad foods" in yogurt form.  So while hubby is off doing whatever he does to provide for the family mansion and Lexus payments, TrophyStepfordWife wanders about the grocery store looking at the stuff she COULD be eating if she wasn't in constant fear of losing that girlish figure and going right to the stuff she CAN eat which kind of sort of maybe tastes a little like the stuff she WANTS to eat. 

After she frantically grabs an armful of Keep Me Thin Keep Husband Happy Keep Me In That Home I Sold Myself For yogurt, she'll stop by the pharmacy area to pick up her monthly supply of VitaLift, Revlon Anti-Aging Serum, etc. etc. before heading home for an hour on the Pelaton bike.  Then it's time to pick up the kids and get dinner ready.  Husband and kids like to eat.  This woman? She's what yogurt was invented for. 

This happened on my tv, courtesy of Lexus

I don't know what any of this bs is all about, and I really don't care, either.  On the most superficial level, it's a muscular young black guy dancing around in a box with a red Lexus.  With the help of CGI magic he does gravity-defying stunts in an apparent celebration of German engineering.  This goes on for about a minute, and then we cut to the standard "look how fast this car can go on wet streets" bit.

And then we have the YouTube paid-by-the-comment making-a-little-money-on-the-side soul-be-damned monkeys typing about how much they adore the ad and the car they'll never come close to owning and letting us know where we can download the awesome music, etc. etc. etc.  It's all very obvious and phony and stupid and sad, but hey, who am I to diss another man's hustle.  Times are tough, right?

Anyway, enjoy this Lexus ad, if you can.  If you find it difficult, keep in mind that at least it doesn't feature some rich jackass being given the car by his equally rich spouse in front of their also-rich children standing in the driveway of their massively opulent Suburban McMansion.  We won't  be seeing ads like that again for another ten months or so.  So at least there's that.