If I worked at Best Buy during the Holiday Rush....

"Here's my list- I wrote it out on a register slip from 1975, don't ask me why....my daughter.  She's getting into gaming."

Me:  "Ok, let's nip that right in the bud.  Why not head over to Barnes and Noble and ask what's big this month in the Young Adult genre?  Because you don't want to feed that particular passion.  I mean, unless you WANT her to be a fat, housebound, socially isolated tribble."

"But she really likes games...."

Me:  "That's great!  Maybe it's not too late to get her on the neighborhood hockey team.  Or ask her if she prefers non-contact ice skating.  How about signing her up for skiing lessons?  And keep an eye out for softball and baseball tryouts when spring comes.  Fresh air, exercise, and new skills...no downside there!"

"Um...ok.  Now, for my husband...."

Me:  "I was told to tell every female who comes in here that guys are really into drones.  Since drones have only been available gifts for maybe 2 Christmases, I'm not sure how anyone could possibly know that.  So I'm not going to tell you that your husband wants something that is insanely dangerous to use unless you live on an isolated farm somewhere.  Since you're one of the 90 percent of Americans who live in an urban area, a drone would be a really stupid, senseless, and as I just mentioned dangerous toy, I suggest the hottest video game."

"I thought you didn't like video games...."

Me:  "I fight the battles I can win.  If your daughter is 'really getting into gaming,' you probably already have a nice gaming system, which means your husband is an overgrown child who likes to waste his life staring at a screen.  It's probably too late to save him.  So here's the latest Pretend to Be What People Who Have Never Seen Combat Think A Soldier Is game...."

A Good Day to revisit this classic from Folger's, with more questions....

1.  How far did that Volkswagen go to bring Peter home for the holidays?  It's caked with frost when it drops him off.  I know that Volkswagen heaters were notoriously bad, but jeesh...at least the back should have been clear of snow after twenty minutes or so.  That's where the engine was, after all.

2.  Does Peter just assume there isn't already a can of coffee open?  I mean, he starts right off by opening a new one.  Maybe he brought that one? 

3.  Why does Peter set out the glass coffee pot with no lid on it instead of leaving it on the heating plate until people begin to wake up?  That coffee is going to get cold in about five minutes.  And it's already Folger's- the only thing nastier than Folger's coffee is cold Folger's coffee. 

4.  Why is this family drinking the coffee out of those stupid tiny teacups?  Oh, right, because it's a commercial and it's important to show the coffee as much as possible.  Doesn't seem at all important today- generally in modern ads we see people carrying around huge mugs.  Maybe today it's all about the consumption level.

5.  Why is this family drinking Folger's in the first place?  Oh, right- because it's the 70s, before gourmet coffee was a thing.  I bet the only place to get a good cup of coffee in this town is the local diner or maybe McDonald's or Dunkin Donuts.  So Folger's is the standard for this family at this time.  Which is probably why nobody is nostalgic for the 70s. 

Warm Holiday Exchange, brought to us from Portal

They aren't having an "ugly sweater" party.

She isn't having a "burnt cookie" party.

They are both having a "stupid, passive-aggressive party."

They are both better off being hundreds of miles from eachother during the holidays.

They only own Portal so that they can continue to be stupid and vicious to eachother even while hundreds of miles away.

And in keeping with television commercials in general, the woman with the burnt cookies has a kitchen larger than my apartment.  Happy holidays to you, too, Portal.

I remember when Stouffers and the Holidays were inseperable

This hilarious throwback to the glorious 1980s reminds us of the time when every holiday party simply had to include plate after plate of toasted bread topped with cheap cheese, tomato sauce and something that at least looked like pepperoni.  I can remember every party being pretty much over as soon as the Stouffer's ran out.

But until it did.....wow, such awesomeness.  Big smiles, laughter, and gathering around the piano with friends to sing in between scarfing down flavored toast from the freezer aisle.  Everything was so perfect back then.  I'm pretty sure President Reagan had a lot to do with it.

As a sidenote- notice that nobody in this ad is texting or taking photos with their phones, because nobody- except the owner of the house- has a phone.  Yet, they all seem to be having a good time, despite the fact that they are totally unable to take photos of their chunks of crunchy bread or anything else and where forced to socialize with the people in the room rather than people not in attendance.  They couldn't even update their Facebook pages back then!

We were so weird back in the 1980s.  Better, but weird.

These Febreze Commercials are all really, really weird

The woman in this house can't understand why her gleaming-white house doesn't smell as good as it looks despite the fact that she clearly spends 99 percent of her time polishing it to a high gloss.  She can't understand why it smells bad because in all her cleaning she totally forgot that she owns a dog that she lets stink up the couch.

Now that she's been reminded by her eyes than she owns a dog, she's put two and two together and figured out the whole Cause and Effect thing, and it's time to reach for the bottle of chemicals and start spraying it all over the place.  The problem is, as soon as she's done spreading House Deodorant she's going to forget that she owns a dog again, and if she does that often enough that dog will probably die of malnutrition. 

Then she'll have a dead dog, which will start to stink, and then more chemical spraying until the nice people from the state show up to remove the carcass and take the woman to another gleaming-white building filled with nice people wearing lab coats. 

Maybe you shouldn't be a Lert, either.....

In both of these ads, A Loof is brutally murdered by a bus or a train, a horrific event which has zero impact on A Lert, which goes about it's perfect, everyday life of using the still getting Back2Good Metro System as if absolutely nothing has happened.  So either A Lert is deaf and blind (in which case, he ought to have a dedicated series of Metro Safety Ads) or he's some kind of bizarre Sociopath who simply doesn't care that the train he's happily getting on just ran over a fellow sentient creature.

What a sad world we live in.  When I was a kid I remember Gallant being a goody two-shoes perfect little boy and Goofus being a (much more relateable) jerk, but I don't recall Goofus ever being punished for his behavior by getting maimed by mass transportation while Gallant celebrated his Obvious Superiority by whistling softly to himself and being totally oblivious to the horror that unfolded fifteen feet away. 

We should at least be seeing A Lert crying out in terror and calling 911.  Isn't he supposed to be A Lert?  If you see something, say something!

Heineken's "Holiday" ad: Sorry, but I just don't get it.

And I don't get certain YouTube posters concerning this ad (which is showing up twice per commercial break during bowl games today)  either.

What exactly is non-traditional about this ad?  There's a Dad here.  There are twins. There's a stepdaughter, and a "reveal" that mom- who I guess is either divorced or widowed- has a boyfriend.  Is it that the stepdaughter isn't wearing a pretty dress, or that she' swearing "untraditional" makeup?  Is it that mom's new boyfriend is an artist, and he's not wearing a cardigan or smoking a pipe, or that he has long hair and a beard?  What is it about any of these people that makes them "untraditional?"

Is just that the ad features a blended family?  Does Heineken think that this is a 21st century phenomenon?  Is it even possible that anyone could think this?

I can't get the answer from the YouTube posters who think that this ad represents "degeneracy" and "the breakdown of the nuclear family"- no kidding, check it out.  So can you help me with this?  What am I missing here?