I'll be generous and call Audible a very small step in the right direction

Ok, so the thing that successful people have in common is that they read, except that none of the successful (I mean, look at these houses!  Check out those home gyms!  And they are busy, too!) people we see in this ad are actually reading.

It's because they are busy- you see, they may have become successful by reading, but now they don't have time to read (too busy being successful) but to stay successful they have to keep reading, so they listen instead.  Listening is just as good as reading- that's the mindset that weaned kids away from books to radio in the 1940s.  And Watching is as good as Listening, which convinced the offspring of those radio-listeners that Television was the New Radio.  So watching tv and reading a book are basically the same thing.

No, wait- according to Audible, reading and  listening are the same thing.  In fact, listening in at least some (all?) cases is superior to reading- when you're working out in your suburban palace or driving around, for example (though I must say, as a pedestrian, I would really rather not have people conjuring up images of what they are listening to while operating that heavy machinery through cross-walks and intersections.  I suppose this is marginally better than having them staring at their phones or dashboards, however.)

I don't want to be too hard on Audible- I do think that Listening is superior to Watching.  At least your brain is getting some exercise, and I totally agree that this is a benefit to joggers and gym rats who for obvious reasons can't read while also working out.  I might try this myself someday.  But right now I have to start reading the Kindle edition of Ron Chernow's biography Hamilton, which I purchased seconds before starting to write this post.  I didn't buy the additional audible option, because I think that with very rare exceptions like the ones I listed, Reading is the new Reading, and it's really not replaceable.

Quickbooks Self-Employed App: My own personal Groundhog Day

Yes, I'm totally aware that Quickbooks follows me everywhere.  I'm reminded every time I try to watch any video on YouTube and get smacked across the face with a version of this stupid ad.

Hey, Quickbooks?  I'm still not self-employed.  So please, PLEASE stop.  I've already developed a callous on my thumb from hitting the Skip Ad button so I don't have to suffer through yet another chirpy "here's how you can keep track of your receipts," "here's how you can keep track of your miles," "here's how you can keep track of your deductions," etc. etc. "helpful" blather which does not apply to me at all but is just annoying as hell.

Another Panera Better Food for Better People Commercial

We at Panera would like to remind you that you aren't one of the unwashed masses who must grub a meal at McDonald's or Burger King or one of those other Non-Panera fast food places where teachers and bus drivers and truckers and the rest of their ilk must settle for (giggle) microwaved eggs from the (snigger) Dollar Menu.

Please remember that you are sooooo much better than those "people."  You DESERVE freshly made eggs contributed by free range chickens  lovingly placed* on brioche rolls with Grade A cheese and topped with ham donated by pigs who have spent their entire lives in air-conditioned, silk-lined stalls.   These sandwiches will set you back $6 but the whole point is that you don't care about the price- you're all about quality and reminding yourself that you're better than those weird dirty people who buy their food at those Common chain places because they have to.  

You don't have to.  So don't. 

*by people who aren't wearing plastic gloves.  Ick. 

Blue Apron Lives in the Land of Presumption

"Every night in America, people make something for dinner."  Well, Blue Apron puts the "every" in the right place, at least.  They don't say "everyone makes something for dinner."  That would be much worse, because it would ignore the fact that every night in America, millions of Americans make absolutely nothing for dinner.

Some of those people eat at McDonald's or pick up something they can quickly warm up at home (I don't think that qualifies as "making" dinner.)  The enormous prepackaged meals section at my local Giant grocery store is testimony to the fact that a whole lot of people don't "make" dinner, because they don't have time or money or skills.

Many more people don't make anything for dinner because their financial situation requires that they cut back a meal, and dinner is the most easily disposable of the three.  I just hope that it's the only meal they have to cut back on, and that this situation is only temporary, because the other two are really, really important, and "eating" should not be considered an optional activity in the richest nation on Earth (or anywhere else.)

But these ads aren't aimed at people who can't afford dinner or the time to make it.  Like most ads that don't include golden arches or nightmare-inducing royalty or freakishly thin redheads singing the praises of an all-fast food lifestyle, these are directed at Upper Middle Class White People with money burning a hole in their pocket and who think that crumbling marriages and/or distant children might be made more durable by reintroducing Family Dinner Time.  Or are just suckers for any "service" that gives them an opportunity to remind themselves that they've got extra money without actually buying that new Lexus or making yet ANOTHER trip to Whole Foods.

As far as Blue Apron is concerned, those are the People in the line "every night in America, people make something for dinner."  Not those other humans lacking in skills or resources or time.  Who cares about them? They don't even live in nice, TV-quality houses with massive kitchens featuring enormous islands and all the latest appliances.  And they sure aren't as Pretty as the people who might as well use Blue Apron Because They Can.

Glasses USA keeps trying to convince us that glasses are awesome. Tough sell.

The first woman in this ad really likes her friend's glasses- they kind of remind her that she ought to be wearing her own, which by the way cost hundreds of dollars, but she can't find them, which I guess is a design flaw of some kind.

She doesn't know what to do because even though she paid hundreds of dollars for her glasses, she can't find them, what kind of ripoff is that???  Her friend's response is not to help find the missing glasses, but to whip out her laptop so she can show her where she can get replacement glasses for much less than several hundred dollars. 

(In fact, she can get glasses "starting at $48."  You can bet that the $48 pairs don't include the "cute" glasses her friend is wearing, but if she's going to be careless with her glasses anyway, she's better off going for the cheapies, right?)

"Do people know about this?"  No, they don't.  This is a super-secret bit of information only available to non-people, like your friend with the cute glasses and now, you.  Dogs and certain breeds of rabbit are also aware of Glasses.com.  But not people. 

So please spend the next several hours obsessing over the Try The Glasses On With the Virtual Mirror tool thingee before ordering your own pair of cute, nowhere-near-as-misplacable glasses, Stupid Non-Person.  And then be like everyone else in these ads- absolutely thrilled out of their freaking minds to be wearing uncomfortable pieces of plastic and glass which are virtually non-functional during snow and rain and despite "scratchproofing" currently in it's fifth decade continue to attract stratches if you look at them wrong.  Me, I'll stick with contact lenses.  They aren't cute, but they do help me avoid walking in front of cars.  That's good enough.

Paul, McDonald's, and coworkers who want Paul dead

I hope you guys don't actually have to go through nearly four minutes of another ad featuring some jackass wandering around his office showing us the highlights of something or another for some reason or another ("I've got a lot of books here, and I've learned a lot from them.....here's my closet....here's my kitchen but I don't really eat there that much Manhattan has a lot of great restaurants..." seriously) like I did- but even if you don't, there's no reason to watch what is a series of really stupid "My office is full of kleptomaniacs who keep steeling my lunch so that's why you keep seeing me every afternoon ordering from McDonald's I have a legit excuse seriously" ads.  Just read the helpful description some McDonalds Monkey posted along with the commercial.  It explains everything that happens in it.  Because that's what you do when you post super-complicated commercials like this, I guess.

So this stupid fat jackass responds to his lunch being stolen by going to the only place in town where an alternative lunch is available- McDonald's.  In this ad, he gets McDiabetes Meal #3 featuring fried chicken parts and a triple cheeseburger.  In another he gets two McChicken sandwiches and a Sprite.  I think there's another where he just asks the cashier to shoot him because he's sick of being referred to as the Gassy Pig in Cubicle 5. 

And then he goes back to the office to consume his 2000 empty calories, thanking whoever stole his lunch because he had an excuse to gorge himself (and fall into a carb coma an hour later, no doubt.)  I can't help but wonder if the guy who keeps stealing the yogurt and fruit salad Stupid Paul puts in the office fridge has a life insurance policy on Stupid Paul.  One that pays a double indemnity if Paul's heart explodes during working hours.

More Sexist Garbage from McDonald's.

Look everybody, it's Episode 17,897 in televison advertising's longest-running show, "Stupid, Helpless Dad Doesn't Know What To Do With Children Because After All that's Wimmin's Work."  Hil-ARIOUS!!

See, Doofus Dad inexplicably finds himself actually taking care of a group of children, presumably including several who share his DNA, because Mommy inexplicably is away for the evening.  Why on Earth is Mommy away?  And on a Sleepover night?  Wait, did I just answer my own question?

Anyway, Dad sure as hell isn't going to maybe kill himself and everyone in that house by attempting to prepare a meal.  It's easy to imagine that somewhere between taking out the bowls and opening the box of Cheerios he'd set fire to the kitchen.  Stupid Dad!

Instead, Dad goes off to McDonald's to blow $20 or so on Happy Meals (totally worth it) and feels the need to let the cashier know he has no idea how he's going to survive the night attempting to be a parent, which is being "totally over his head" because after all, he's a guy and what do guys know about taking care of kids?

He carries the food back to the kids and gets Mommy on the phone to clarify- oh, he's expected to take care of these kids all night?  He didn't know that.  He and Mommy don't do a lot of talking.  Or, Mommy is sick of Daddy suddenly absenting himself every time there's a sleepover.  Chalk up another win for Mommy!

I'm sure everyone finds this hokey, insulting nonsense totally funny and charming.  Nothing like reinforcing retrograde ideas about gender roles, right McDonald's?  Meanwhile, I'm sure the other parents have no idea that Dad was left in charge of these doomed kids.  Frankly I wonder if they'll survive the trip back to the car.