Jared Jewelers meets Lowered Expectations and I guess we're supposed to find it charming.

This thing is, after all, three and a half minutes long.  Which means it's strictly for the Jared website and YouTube.  Well, MAYBE it shows up on one of those lame All Reruns All The Time channels you didn't even know your cable company provided because they are up there in the 500s, past HBO and Showtime.  Those channels have no problem with three and a half minute commercials.

Anyway, the whole time I watched this ad with it's weird imaging and music and camera angles and documentary-style narration, I kept waiting it to become a dark story of betrayal, secret families, money and murder.  Surely, I thought, the sweet balding old man would eventually bludgeon the sweet, lonely middle-aged woman and dump her body two miles off-shore after cleaning out her bank account.  I mean, there was no WAY this was actually going to be nothing but 210 seconds of a Jared Jewelry ad, right?

Man, was I wrong.  This thing actually ends with these people smiling and hugging and happy with eachother and the guy's choice of a ring.  He's not a serial killer or swindler or anything.  He's just an old guy who proposed to this woman and she said yes.  Even after watching the whole damn thing I can't tell you why it took three and a half minutes, but it did and because I watched, you don't have to.  You're welcome.

(By the way, if you want to know why this story is "one of a kind," you will have to watch it yourself.  Because I watched this once and found nothing special or unique about this "one of a kind" story.  If you see something special, feel free to let me know.  I'm done looking.)

This World of Warships thing keeps happening on my Internet

"What?  You haven't played World of Warships yet?  Why the hell not?"

That's how it opens, seriously.  I guess we're all done trying to sell games to kids.  Everyone who plays games nowadays is a thirtysomething male desperately trying to delay adulthood for a few more years.  Got it.

Check out the virtually infinite number of things you can do in this game.  You can sink the Yomoto.  You can "avenge the Titanic," which means blast an iceberg, which strikes me as really stupid but which I guess it's supposed to be funny but sure as hell doesn't make me want to play the game because once you've taken out the iceberg, what then? 

Oh right.  You can sink the Yomoto again.  The fact that this option is mentioned twice in a thirty-second ad which is supposed to be about the almost infinite things you can do in this game makes me suspicious about how vast the World of Warships universe actually is.  What makes me even more suspicious is the line "you can go to the beach...." Uh huh.  That sounds fun.  Take a warship to the beach.  And then do what? Blow up the beach?  Hey, is the Yomoto back yet?

Whatever, people.  I'll never understand the attraction of any of this.  I'm going to play round of Frogger before getting back to cleaning and recovering from my dentist appointment.  Later.

Oh yeah, and this commercial is for Esurance. Somehow.

Dad is a bumbling doofus who acts as if he never, ever spends any time with his son and had no intention of ever having a conversation with him except dammit the car has broken down and he's trapped with this kid.

Kid is incredibly uncomfortable being with his "father," who is only making things worse by doing what only cliche'd awkward loser dads on tv do- take accidental moments of forced intimacy to try to check that "have the sex talk with the boy" box on his Parent Bingo Card.  He clearly would rather be ANYWHERE ELSE but with his dad right now.  And I can only guess that there's no WiFi service wherever it is they broke down, otherwise none of this would be happening- both of these idiots would be on their phones, pretending the other does not exist.

Dad is "saved" from having "the talk" by the appearance of the tow truck.  Oh thank goodness, they were only seconds away from maybe having a meaningful conversation (though I doubt it.  Dad's an inappropriate ass with lousy timing, Kid has or is going to learn about puberty the way all boys do- through experience, and through their friends, NOT from their dads.)

Kid has let dad know that he doesn't want to have this conversation with Dad, EVER.  Dad would be wise not to share this almost-moment with Mom; she'd be totally justified in calling him a clueless moron for making such a half-assed attempt to be meaningful in any way to the kid he helped make.  Go back to being silent and stupid, Dad.  Kid and his friends have got this.  Mom doesn't expect you to rise above your mediocrity.  Just get the car fixed, drop the kid off, and get back to the office where you will be surrounded by people you can relate to.  Moron.

I hate so much about this Domino's ad

So this guy isn't at all concerned that his car has suffered severe damage- as long as his crap mass-produced box of bland bread and sugary tomato sauce is intact?  Ok, whatever.  The guy is a moron.  I get it.

Here's what I don't understand- how did this idiot get back to Pizza Hut to exchange his "ruined" (it was ruined before he left the "restaurant," but again, whatever) pizza?  Did he call an Uber and pay ten bucks to exchange a pizza which cost the same amount?  He certainly looks dumb enough.

Pizza Insurance?  For Domino's?  Really?  Heck, I think dropping this junk into the snow could only improve it.  Meanwhile, shouldn't this idiot be calling about that other insurance policy- the one that covers his car?

I suppose that in a previous scene, Amazon Echo reminded this guy he was getting married today

Think about it- this guy is seconds away from getting married, and he's already assuming that a year from now he'll totally forget the date of his wedding so he better let Amazon know so "she" can remind him.  Wow, what a great catch.

Prediction:  A year from now, Amazon will remind him that it's been six months since his wife threw him out of the house because he was incapable of finding his ass with both hands, a flashlight, and Amazon Echo.  Because seriously- if you walk into your wedding figuring you won't remember the date A YEAR FROM NOW, you aren't taking it very seriously and it just isn't that big a deal to you. Cripes, I've been divorced for more than twenty years and I STILL remember my anniversary date.

One more piece of evidence that this guy is a totally clueless jackass- he's telling Amazon Echo to remind him that today is his anniversary "one year from now."  Hey, buddy- if you do forget your anniversary as you expect you will, being reminded of it ON YOUR ANNIVERSARY is not going to help at all.  Even if you ARE miraculously still married, it will be WAY too late to do anything that doesn't stink of last-minute Yes Honey I Actually Forgot our FIRST Anniversary asshattery.  Loser.

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.