It's come to this. Thanks, iPhoneX!

Twenty years into the Cellphone Generation, these things have gone from phones you can take everywhere to postal services you can take everywhere to televisions you can take everywhere to professional photographer photo labs you can take everywhere.

And now, in 2018, a $1000 phone is pitched as the perfect device to use to....take a photo of yourself.  And then lovingly edit it so you look a lot better than you actually do.  And then...share it with the planet?  Or just store it on your phone, so it can be your very bestest friend and the one thing you really, really need to have pictures of?

I don't think we can get past this level of self-absorption, do you?  Oh, maybe- if you bleat "I am the Greatest" as you adjust the lighting of that Amazing Photo of Amazing You so it's Just Right Because It Doesn't Look Like You Anymore.  That manages to add a bit more narcissism to this stupid impulse purchase.  And why are you the greatest because you need to take a photo of yourself, having lost all of your friends due to your obsession with that stupid Can You Believe It Was Once Used as a Phone electronic device?  Oh, right- because you say so, and after all, what else is on the planet besides you and pictures of you?

Chevy's Real People, Not Actors Ad writers inconvenience 2 million people for a 30 second commercial

Of all of the stupid settings for these ubiquitious Chevy "Really Stupid, Sad, Buttkissing People Not Actors" Commercials, this one has to be the most unpleasant as well as the one which demonstrates that every single one of these Not Actors were perfectly aware long before the cameras were turned on that they were going to be in an advertisement in which they'd be required to gape and gasp and drool over ugly More Of The Same cars.

I mean, think about it- they are sitting around a table perched on a concrete overpass, literally 20 feet from a traffic jam probably created by Chevrolet's desire to make an obvious and really idiotic point about "reliability."  Even if it's the one day of the summer in which Los Angeles isn't sticky-hot, it sure can't be that much fun to try to talk to eachother over roaring engines and car horns and shouts of "hey you assholes all the rubbernecking you're encouraging is causing a backup and keeping me from getting to my destination you entitled thoughtless douchenozzles," not to mention all that lovely carbon monoxide they're breathing in.  All for about twenty seconds of film which involves everyone's favorite spokeschoad who doesn't pitch Verizon whipping out that trophy for the 450th time to the delight of the dribbling idiots who just want to bleat their one line - be it "I want a Chevy now!" or "that's super awesome impressive Chevy rocks!" or whatever- so they can pile back into that van and be returned to the parking lot and be dropped off next to their own cars, where they'll be quickly reminded that there's no guarantee that their one line won't be snipped before the final product hits the air.

BTW, those "If Chevy Commercials were real life" bits are pretty funny, but I was more than a little annoyed that I had to sift through about a hundred of them before I could find a link to the ACTUAL commercial.  I've got things to do, YouTube!  Get your search engine tuned!

Hulu: Bringing families together, but only physically

Instead of this guy frantically switching back to the cartoon show in the hopes of making his son finally fall asleep so he can put him away and get back to sports, maybe he could have an actual dad moment by teaching that kid about the sports daddy likes and why they are fun to watch (and actually do- my great nephew is already getting into hockey and he's only two and a half?)

Naw- just let Hulu hypnotize your kid into a deep, deep sleep, carry him to the bed, and then get back to the couch to watch your sports all by yourself, "dad."  Much better that way.

How Black Entertainment Television "celebrates" Black History Month

So I'm back on the treadmill and Black Entertainment Television is replaying this excellent film, 2013's Twelve Years A Slave, based on the 1853 memoir by Solomon Northup, a free black man kidnapped and sold into slavery some twenty years before the outbreak of the Civil War.  Northup's narrative is a powerful indictment of the moral depravity of the slave-master relationship as well as being an uplifting tale of stoic determination in the face of despair.

And during commercial breaks, BET shows us advertisements for....this.  A game show based on a board game in which black people test each other's "blackness" by asking trivia questions that I guess only people who are "really" black are able to answer correctly.

A few years ago, BET "celebrated" Labor Day Weekend by running the entire original Roots series- and airing the most obnoxiously racist Stepin Fetchit crap ads during every commercial break (and if you've ever watched BET, you know that there were a LOT of commercials breaks.)  When I snarked on that atrocity I think I used the term "one step forward, two steps back."  It fits here, too.

Hey, kids- sit yourselves in front of the tv and enrich yourselves by learning about the life of Solomon Northup, as told by Northup himself.  During the commercial breaks, PLEASE mute the tv, or better yet, mute the tv and leave the room for 4 minutes or so to get a sandwich or use the rest room or- hey, here's an idea!- go to Amazon and order a copy of Twelve Years a Slave.  It's a great read, and Northup's race isn't degraded and belittled and insulted in between chapters.

Courtney's looking for a Facebook Friend who will buy her dinner every other weekend

Courtney can't find a boyfriend in the traditional way because she's a flight attendant and is always traveling.  She likes "nice guys" and can usually be found on the beach- which beach she doesn't say, because as she said she's always traveling.  My guess is that if you want to be Courtney's boyfriend and actually spend time with Courtney you need to be nice and to follow her around the world so you can be at the same beach she's at between flights.

Seriously, does any of this make any sense?  Courtney doesn't meet a lot of those nice guys she likes because she's always traveling.  She doesn't say she's retired from the airline, so it sounds like what she really wants is someone willing to drop everything and spend a few hours with her from time to time while she's between flights, and is then willing to be satisfied with texts and skype chats and maybe the ocassional pic of Courtney having fun on the beach without you.

I think Nice Guys can do better, Courtney.  Get back on Match.com when you're actually available for a relationship.  You're kind of cute but you need to look at things a bit more realistically.  Right now, any "boyfriend" you think you've met on Match.com is spending an awful lot of time with other girls while you're gone posing by jet engines and having fun on the beach.  Doesn't seem worth the membership fee from where I'm standing.

RedFin- Property for People Much, Much Better than You

The young couple in this ad visit one impossibly enormous suburban castle after another but find each lacking in some way (maybe the bowling alley in the basement isn't quite up to their standards, or there's only two man caves, or the peacocks strutting around in the back yard just arent' quite right somehow.)  Sure they look big enough to house several families each but surely, through the magic of Redfin, they can do better, right?

I know I'm sure pulling for them.

And in the end, the female side of this pampered pair of entitled, spoiled-rotten asshats is totally sold when she walks into a kitchen twice the size of my apartment.  She doesn't need to see any other rooms in the house, thanks anyway RedFin Agent, this is where she's going to be spending all her time anyway!  All she needs now is a good pair of roller skates and a GPS to help her navigate her way from the stove to the sink to the fridge.

I hate everyone so much right now.

More preying on the elderly, courtesy of the Funeral Insurance Industry

"If you are 85 years of age or younger..." considering the channel I saw this on, the following pitch is directed to approximately 40% of the viewing audience.

It's a Senior Life Plan from the Senior Life Insurance Company, a company which I'm guessing sells insurance to Seniors.  I'm not sure of this, I'm just taking a stab in the dark based on the fact that the word "Seniors" is mentioned just under three hundred times in this stupid ad.

Specifically, it's another one of those ubiquitous ads for Funeral Insurance.  The "average funeral," you see, costs OVER $7500.   But the MOST government benefits pay is $255, which isn't even enough to cover the caterer for the wake for chrissakes!  I wonder if that "OVER $7500" number will be inflated before the ad is over, since I've seen commercials using the much scarier phrase "$30,000 OR MORE!"

"Leaving your loved ones to pay your debt..." first, what a sleazy way to reel in potential customers- "if you don't buy funeral insurance, it may mean No College For Your Grandkids or Someone Gets Evicted, even if none of that stuff happens Do You Really Want To Be Remembered As a Burden?"  Second, there's no "debt" unless someone goes through with the ridiculously overpriced Party Featuring You In a Box.  And if you don't leave money to cover it, why would anyone pay for an elaborate going away party for someone who has already gone away?

This Senior Life Plan for Seniors will pay up to $30,000 (I KNEW that phrase would show up!) for funeral expenses and "any other end of life expenses."  And we all know what "Up To" is worth, don't we?  It means they might come close to paying that amount if you buy none of the policies they're about to list as Available at an Unbelievably Low Price.

And like all of these ugly Expensive Insurance for the Easily Manipulated Elderly commercials, this one reminds the viewers to "ask about our Free Prescription Discount Card."  I don't know what part of that scam is all about, except that I'm 99 percent positive that it's either just another bit of bait on the hook that provides nothing of value not already provided by AARP or Medicare or it's a way of sticking a "small" extra fee to the cost of the "insurance."  I guess they ran out of those credit card-sized magnifying glasses and Magic Ear hearing aids?