Roll the dice at Kay Jewelers?

I get that this is supposed to be super-cute and not at all trite or manipulative or drowning in BS g-d forbid.  It's supposed to be just adorable that this guy not only decides he has to ask this little kid's permission before marrying his mom, but feels compelled to show the kid the ring in a way which, if you watch this without sound, looks as though he's offering it to the kid and not to the mom.

Because I'm a commercial curmudgeon, I'm going to point out a few obvious sticking points which make this ad kind of screwed up and certainly nothing that any guy interested in marrying a woman with a young child should take inspiration from.

First, I'm more than a little squicked at the concept of an adult man asking a male child for permission to marry an adult woman, as if that adult woman has no real say in the matter.  He even pushes the ring toward the kid like he's offering payment for his mom.  I guess it would be worse if we saw the guy asking the woman's FATHER for permission to marry her, but this really isn't much better.

Hey, buddy?  This is the son of the woman you want to marry, not her master or her boss.  Did she send you into his room to do this?  I get that you're going to be a family and maybe there's even something a little sweet in getting the little boy ready for his mother to be married again, but how about a little conference with all three of you in the same room in which it's explained to the kid what is GOING to happen?  Because, after all....

Second, this guy has pretty much set this up as the kid's decision to make.  I guess he's been around for a while and he knows the kid very well, and the look on the little boy's face suggests that he really likes the guy and OF COURSE he's going to say "yes," but what if he doesn't?  Is this a decision that ought to be made by a kid who can't get to sleep without his favorite stuffed Porg toy?  What if he kind of still likes it being him and Mom and isn't quite ready to share her with this guy or anyone else?  What if he says "maybe in a few years?"  I don't imagine that the guy is really going to take a negative reaction as the signal to take the ring back to Kay Jewelers and renew his membership with Match.com.  It's a lot more likely that the kid will be informed that umm, sorry, we were just trying to be cutesy and nice by asking, but we're getting married anyway, suck it up, buddy.

The horror of Lexus December to Remember Ads is underway.....

All year, very wealthy people who live in fabulously large suburban McMansions with their trophy wives/husbands and trophy families will enjoy the Lexus someone in that house received as a Christmas present last December.

You know, that Lexus that was ostentatiously wrapped in a giant red bow to let everyone in the neighborhood know that yes, the family living in that ridiculous house is just as obnoxiously rich and willing to be conspicuous with it's consumption habits as you suspected they were.  And that the horrendous performance of the stock market in 2018 did nothing to take the shine off their perfect lives.

All year, this family will enjoy the privileges of owning a Lexus SUV- like parking it right next to the stands at a sporting event instead of in the lot with the lesser cars, for example.  They'll remember that Fourth of July when for some reason they took it to the beach so the kids could run around it holding sparklers like it was the center of a religious ceremony.  Or that time someone was nice enough to invite them to an outdoor wedding so the guests could appreciate their car all day and not just as they arrived and departed.

Not shown: the daily trips to the car wash for the Luxury Detailing which allowed the family LookAtMeMobile to keep that Just Off The Showroom Floor shine.

Want a year like this?  Then take advantage of Lexus' December to Remember offers and get yourself and your family one of these giant middle fingers to decency which make garages superfluous because after all, what is the point of owning a Lexus if you can't remind people you own a Lexus 24/7?

Toyota Jan Presents Holiday Nightmare Fuel

When is this woman's fifteen minutes of career as Toyota's Stupid Spokeschoad going to be over already?  I mean, Toyota isn't going to pull a Progressive on us and keep this woman on contract until she looks like a fat, pale old vampire, are they? 

I was looking for the ad where Jan is descending a staircase in front of a wall festooned with about 200 framed photos, 99 percent of which are....Toyotas....before we find ourselves in the Toyota showroom, suggesting that Jan actually lives above the shop that is the love of her life.  Haven't found that one yet, but man it's weird. 

Anyway, Toyota thinks that we want to see NINE Jans singing to use for a few seconds, probably because Toyota has long since stopped caring to find out what we really want, which is for Jan to just go away already.  Oh, and I'm guessing Toyota thinks that this will remind us of The Brady Bunch,* which will tweak some nostalgia impulse and....make us want to go out and buy a Japanese car?  Huh?

*One commenter was indeed reminded of The Brady Bunch when he saw this ad.  And felt compelled to let us know for Reasons.  So congratulations, Toyota, you managed to accomplish...umm, something.

Another Ancestry.com rant

I guess the only reason why anyone would be interested in visiting The Phillipines or eating Spanish food or experimenting with Lithuanian cooking would be if they discovered that they can trace their ancestry back to these places?

Let's cut to the chase, shall we?  It's time to be painfully blunt about all of this DNA test nonsense.  They aren't about learning more about your background or appreciating the hidden diversity of the population.  They are about further indulging the navel-gazing Upper Middle Class with a new toy they can purchase with the money that seems to be forever burning a whole in it's pocket.

Just look at the people in these ads.  They aren't all white, but they ARE all obviously well-off financially and they all carry this obnoxious level of smug piety while absolutely oozing liberal suburban "values."  They all adore everyone and "don't see" color or sexual differences and loudly condemn racism every chance they get, slapping "We Love Our Muslim Neighbors" on their front yards (which almost universally exist in neighborhoods with zero Muslim neighbors.)  They are way, way above the concepts of bigotry and intolerance.

And yet, they are also obsessed with their own bloodlines and convinced that DNA is Destiny.  How else can we explain the fact that they not only went through the effort to send a vial of spit to Utah along with $59, $99 or whatever (as if the amount matters to these people) but also instantly respond to the results by seeking out cheap, surface-level ways to advertise their newfound "roots?"  Kelly Ripa reacts to discovering that she's 24% Italian by spitting out catchphrases in that language as the cameraman and her loving cultists follow her around a bakery.  The nobodies in this ad simply MUST visit the Home of their Ancestors or at the very least learn to cook some of the stuff they had to eat before they escaped to America (if I find out that I'm 24% Mississippian, does that mean I should learn how to prepare chicken-fried steak with greens fried in lard, or can I just visit The Golden Corrall after church every Sunday?) 

So you tell me- how does "embracing diversity and recognizing that we are all part of a rich tapestry of cultures" jibe with "I need to find out what percentage Lithuanian I am so I can adopt a new diet and jet off on a vacation to visit places that have no actual meaning to me but which I intend to look at teary-eyed and wistfully for the camera?"  How does any of this "you are what your blood says you are" get us any closer to breaking down tribalism?  Seems to me that as these kits get cheaper and more and more of us learn exactly what percentage Albanian Orthodox we are, the level of race-and-origin obsession is just going to become deeper and more dividing. 

But hey, at least these bored, pretentious, bloodine-obsessed twits have something to talk about at the next dinner party beyond the next farmer's market and how Tolerant they are.

"God Friended Me." He's right behind Justin Bieber in Twitter followers, too

As usual, G-d as portrayed by television producers has all the time in the world to f--k around with Upper Middle Class people in highly advanced Western societies.  Now he's on Facebook, suggesting that G-d hasn't been keeping up with social media trends lately.  If he was better informed, he'd know that Facebook is kind of old school and he'd be doing his communicating through Twitter or SnapChat, not Facebook, which is so Your Mother's Social Media.

Meanwhile, that kid sitting by a river in Kenya waiting for the worm that is boring a hole through his eye to leave him blind before he reaches his teen years- well, sorry, kid, but G-d is too busy contacting pretty people in the Upper 10% tax bracket to help you out right now.  Too busy making friend suggestions to those people, too.  Maybe if you got yourself an iPhone and Verizon you'd rate a little assistance.  Sucks to be you, but that's how G-d rolls.

According to American television producers, of course.

Discover the Courage to ask for what everyone else has already

So I guess the guy in this ad is visiting from the year 1980, because he feels like he has to psych himself up in order to work up the courage to call Discover and

1.  Apply for a card, and

2.  Demand that there be no annual fee attached to that card.

And of course he's going to end up looking like a total idiot because it's 2018 and the only credit cards that carry annual fees are those Platinum things which also give you free sky miles and allegedly awesome hotel deals and a free ride through security at airports and the opportunity to sit in a plush easy chair in some airport bar rather than along the dregs in those uncomfortable plastic seats at the gate where you have to deal with listening to everybody else's "personal device" and scramble for space at the phone charging station.

Not to mention that he's trying to get a DISCOVER card, the favorite card of first-year college students with maybe $500 to their names and no credit history- in 1982.  Holy crap, I bet this guy spends the entire weekend chanting "you can do it you can do it you can do it" before heading off to Starbucks and asking for extra foam on his caramel latte.

'Tis the season to be brutal to your pets, according to Walmart

Because nothing says "Christmas" like torturing your house pet by making it wear stupid crap which makes it hot and will probably end up injuring it's paws by slipping all over your hardwood floor.  Whatever, it's hysterical and great for "sharing," so it's all good, right?

Before the holidays are over, this dog will respond to the doorbell ringing by whimpering, wetting all over the place and hiding under the bed, because by then it will associate every ring with a new horror that's going to be wrapped around it's already suffering, cringing body.

Oh, but the YouTube Gang just adores this ad.  Check out the comments- one of them is "What is this song?"  No kidding.  Never mind that the name of the song is the only part of the song we actually hear.  Someone has to ask that question in every YouTube comment section, and this one will be no exception.  And as for the other comments- well, let's just say that there are a lot of stupid people out there.  Stupid people willing to share their stupid on YouTube.