Kelly Ripa gives us more reasons to hate Ancestry.com

So finding out you are 24% Italian increases the likelihood that you'll become an insufferable navel-gazing douchenozzle twat roughly 100%?  That your odds of being bearable around actual human beings drops roughly 75%?  Can someone explain to me how this commercial "sells" Ancestry.com as anything more than an opportunity to become more impossibly self-absorbed than you already are?

"Want to never, ever be invited to parties again?  Want people to scream in terror at your approach?  Get your results at Ancestry.com!"

Oh, by the way, here's Kelly Ripa's complete genetic breakdown, hacked from Wikileaks:

24% Italian

22% All My Children

54% Botox*

*I'm sorry, but this woman is 48 years old.  She does not look like this in real life.  The reason why she's constantly smiling in this ad  is because her face is permanently frozen in that position.  I don't think she is physically capable of blinking at this point. 

Discover Card doesn't want our opinion of this bit of soft racism

I'm not at all surprised that comments are blocked on YouTube for this ad.  Almost 60% of those who have responded with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down have rendered a negative verdict on it, and I suspect that a significant number of those thumbs-up are robo-generated.  I have no evidence for this, just a faint level of faith in my fellow humans.

This woman....I mean, jesus.  I know that she's probably just getting started in her acting career and is hoping that just maybe this will be the start of something bigger somewhere down the road, but....I'm sorry.  There is such a thing as a price too high to pay, lady.  When the director of this ugly little nub of awful told you to start shimmying while chanting "I got my mon-ey!" you really should have just given him a dirty look and walked away.  You should have just said "no, this just isn't worth it, I'm sorry."

Instead, you agreed to put on a five-second minstrel show and behaved like a braying jackass in front of millions of people who, as it turns out, probably never want to see your face or hear your voice in anything ever, ever again.  I hope it was worth it. I kind of doubt that it was.

The Mysterious, Sad World of GreenDot

I get what Green Dot cards are- they are a way for people whose credit rating is in the toilet so they can't get a standard VISA card from a standard bank to carry money around using plastic anyway.  They are for people whose finances are such a mess- or so meagre- that they can't go down to the nearest bank and open a basic savings or checking account and get a debit card.  They are for people who lack identification or the most rudimentary knowledge of how banks work.  They are for the people who live on the margins of the economy, and they for sure don't include this screeching nutcase making blood money by singing of the joys of using buggy, unpredictable plastic cards to electronically store cash in between trips to the Dollar Tree.

But I really hate the fact that these cards are being promoted as a PREFERABLE ALTERNATIVE to those "big banks" which are probably not an option to the target audience.  This woman sings about the joy of avoiding "bank fees"- but Green Dot cards come with fees that are actually higher than some credit cards, and MUCH higher that Debit Cards (because Debit Cards typically come with NO fees.)  Read the fine print and check how much you'll pay for the "convenience" of having your paycheck direct-deposited on to one of these things if you don't believe me.

She suggests that using big banks is a royal pain, but when you have a dispute over a purchase or an account balance, which would you rather deal with- an automated phone bank featuring an endless loop of recorded "options" followed (if you're lucky) by a conversation with someone who barely speaks or understands English and who is sitting in an Indian boiler room, or that awful big bank down the street which has actual people you can discuss your problems with face to face?  Seems like a pretty obvious choice to me.

And what I hate most of all is that these things are just another element in the sub-economy that includes Dollar Stores, Rent A Center and CashStop "services."  Just another industry aimed at the most vulnerable, being sold as some wonderful innovation that "spares" it's audience the "hassle" of conveniences and protections the rest of us enjoy.  Really disturbing, and very sad.

Hyundai Kona joins the male-bashing parade...

This guy is married to an astronaut. She's got a PhD in Engineering and another in Mathematics, and she beat out more than 5000 applicants to land this extremely delicate job on an orbiting space station which might just make scientific history.   He's a stupid shlub who can't remember where he put the keys to their crappy little compact car, so he has to keep bugging her to unlock it from space using her SmartPhone. 

She does this, grudgingly, wondering why on Earth (no pun intended) she's a brilliant, talented scientist who settled for a worthless loser who can't find his ass with both hands and a flashlight and can't keep stop losing his car keys. 

And don't even get me started on how the signal from her phone even reaches that car from space.  I'm not at all sure that this is possible, whether the phone is using terrestrial cell towers or satellites to transfer that signal.  Or how Inept Moron  Married to an Astronaut (oh, the power of that MRS Degree!) can talk to someone in space using a cellphone while my calls from Barre to Orange- 5 miles apart- fail to connect or get dropped regularly. 

And I'm not even going to bother to mention that other commercials for this ugly little car do little more than advertise it as a place to charge your cellphone and check your social media, like an uncomfortable, cramped version of your freaking living room.  No time for any of that when the real message is the old familiar one- women are beautiful, brilliant and ultra-competent beings who inexplicity but with numbing regularity hook up with stupid, clumsy, barely-functional males of the same species Because Reasons. 

Duracell and Santa Claus: The Annual Mugging Begins

Ugh, we are still weeks away from Thanksgiving and we are already being ssaulted by commercials featuring "Santa Claus" and his reliance on some stupid product?  That's not very promising. When I was a kid, Santa Claus sold razors and Coca-Cola.  Now he sells everything from batteries to luxury automobiles.  And when I was a kid, the commercials whoring out Santa Claus didn't start until we were digging into the turkey sandwiches.  Now we're lucky if they are held in storage until after Halloween.

And oh, by the way, why are the people in this ad using objects that look like they belong in commercials from the 1980s?  Everything here looks clunky and totally retro.  Maybe because this is an ad for batteries that aren't the shape of matchbooks or the size of dimes- you know, the thinks most kids think about when they imagine "batteries" these days?

Oh, and one more thing- how the hell could this woman find the gall to blame Santa Claus for her inability to look up before she walks into the Christmas tree?  I mean, seriously, WTF?  "Oh look, I crashed into the tree and it's all your fault because you used crummy batteries in this plastic piece of crap and I was struggling with it and was totally distracted?"  Would that really fly with anybody?

This Verizon Fios creep brings out the worst in me

1.  So JD Power hands out awards to crappy truck companies AND internet cable systems?  Well, isn't that something.  And it turns out that two people pay attention to JD Power's rankings- the scruffy Eurotrash douchenozzle whose entire acting career involves pretending to keep Real People Not Actors in suspense about the make of the truck he's showing them, and this squishy little creep.

2.  Why is this blob of protoplasm congratulating the installation guy on a reward "won" by his employer?  Why does he think the installation guy gives a flying damn?  What is this kid going to do next- head down to McDonald's and high-five the guy cleaning the windows because McDonald's is the world's largest fast food chain for the 40th year in a row?

3.  If I turned around and saw this smear of molecules standing next to me, I think I'd jump out of my shoes, not respond with a a calm, casual "hey."  Once I got over my morbid curiousity, I might ask him why he's so obsessed with a cable company- seriously, shouldn't this creep be back in his house playing video games?  I mean, it DOES look like a nice day there.  What is he doing outside?

4. "Want me to watch the van?"  What the hell?  It's easy to imagine that this -- umm-- "person" engaged in conversation with the cable guy as a ruse with the ultimate goal of stealing installation equipment to put under his pillow or perhaps hang on the wall of his bedroom to swoon over in private.  This is really getting disturbing, Verizon.  Not as disturbing as that kid, all by himself, but disturbing.

Before it ruins TV, Hulu is out to ruin society

Actually, society was ruined by the stupid electronics that allow us to "enjoy" brain-dead television everywhere quite some time ago, so maybe it does make more sense to argue that Hulu is going to "ruin television."

All I see in this ad are idiots wasting their lives staring at small screens no matter where they are or what they are doing.  Laying on your bed, sitting in a restaurant, actually "socializing" with fellow human life forms, whatever- keep staring at that streaming video, keep consuming this crap and when you get done binging on whatever swill Netflix shoveled into your vacant brain last season, get to "work" binging on the next pointless crap Now Available On Your Electronic Device.

And I'm not going to shed any tears over the final two seconds of this noxious crud, where we see that Hulu will ruin the experience of flying Business Class as loathsome wastes of organs like this wretched woman (I don't care who she is, so don't bother to tell me.  Seriously.  I DON'T CARE) laugh out loud at whatever they are watching without headphones, startling you away from your book or nap or thoughts or conversation with the person next to you.  Because the real message of this ad is identical to pretty much every ad featuring cell phones made over the past ten years or so- the only reason to exist on Earth nowadays is to watch stuff on TV and "share" that experience with the people around you with your reactions to the brain candy you're "enjoying."  That's it.  That's all there is.

I won't be "ruining TV" by getting Hulu-- because TV was ruined forever ago by Netflix and Amazon Prime Video and multiple other Garbage Delivery Systems which allow the zombies to watch it wherever, whenever.  TV isn't a way to unwind after work - it's the Be All and End All for more and more people.  Hulu isn't the problem- it's just part of it.  This commercial is all about Hulu trying to be a BIGGER part of the problem.   What a great goal, Hulu.  If you get there, it will be without me.