Apple's iPhone 11 Commercial reminds me of Lost Opportunities

In the winter of 1978, I was sledding on a hill near my house at night and went straight into a partially snow-covered barbed wire fence.  Part of the fence cut into my neck.  If I hadn't been wearing a heavy collar, I might have bled to death that night, at the age of 14.

In the fall of 1983, I lost control of my grandfather's Volkswagen Beetle and rolled it four times before crashing into a stone bridge.  No seat belts.  If I missed the bridge, I would have plunged into the creek, maybe being crushed by the collapsing chassis of Germany's Finest in Engineering.  That was the day after the Orioles won their last World Series.  I was 20.

In the summer of 1990, I almost drowned off the coast of New Jersey.  If I hadn't managed to find an emergency rescue rope stretched out into the ocean, I might not have been able to pull myself out of the water.  I might have drowned that day, at the age of 26.

What I'm saying is....several times in my life, I had the opportunity to permanently avoid being subjected to this commercial, and I blew it.  No one to blame but myself.

Awesome fun with As Seen on TV's "Tac Visor!"

First, let's all celebrate that the Tac Visor was "inspired" by the flight helmets used in AMERICAN fighter planes; if I'm going to buy something from a company which regularly uses an American Flag and an American Bald Eagle as its logos, I want to be sure that whatever that flimsy joke piece-of-crap item wasn't inspired by some flight helmet being used by some Commie flying missions over Syria or Vietnam or wherever!

Second, if I watch this ad without thinking too hard, it appears that the Tac Visor is actually a really cool super-thin HDTV you strap to your car's standard visor.  When you get sick of driving toward that nuclear blast, you can pull down the HDTV and watch a movie about a truck blaring its horn as it drives by.  I suspect that it's not a good idea to get too into that movie, though, because that seems to be the only scene available on the Tac Visor.  Maybe there are other scenes available just pay Extra Shipping and Handling?

Then I see the scene where we have a big truck surrounded by - chains, cables?  Seriously, what?- and facing a big white screen.  A woman is asked to look at the white screen, and she sees nothing.  Then the Tac Visor is pulled down and for once its not showing that scene with the big truck blowing its horn.  Instead, it's showing an advertisement for the Tac Visor.  Mind. Blown

So I guess if you are driving toward an H-bomb testing site and you have really bad timing, you should definitely get one of these Tac Visors so you can shield your eyes with part of a movie about a truck blaring its horn- maybe a digitally remastered version of  1971's  Duel, or something.  Seems like you'd be better off just avoiding that area, or maybe putting on a pair of sunglasses, than making yourself more distracted by watching TV while driving, but that's just me.

So Basset Hounds are Racist?

I am not a dog owner.  In fact, I'm not a pet owner at all.  And I will never understand the attraction of owning a pet.

But I know a lot of pet owners, including dog owners who own several dogs of different breeds.  As near as I can tell, they all get along with each other just fine.  Which is something I never thought about until I saw this ad, which suggests that basset hounds only run with their own- or, maybe, that other dogs are bigoted toward basset hounds and won't run with them?  I'm just trying to figure out who the ridiculous snobs are here.

My guess is that the bigoted jerk in the ad is the basset hound owner and, by extension, all basset hound owners.  This guy sees that there are no other basset hounds in the park so he goes to Facebook and either starts or joins a page dedicated to the interests of basset hound owners.  Before you know it, we've got a wonderfully exclusive, segregated party going on at the beach featuring a large number of basset hound owners and their dogs who I'm guessing are running around barking and making messes that their owners will let the tide take care of.   Can't be sure because comments are blocked for this video, something I find completely unsurprising because wow this is stupid.

Yet Another Perplexing Indeed Ad

1.  If this guy is regularly losing jobs ("they have to move again..") why does he keep buying houses instead of renting apartments?  How often have they had to move, anyway?  That little girl looks awfully frustrated and angry, like it's a regular thing.  So what's with the constant purchase of houses?  Maybe if they just rented a nice two-bedroom apartment, they'd have enough financial stability to stay in the same area during a prolonged period of unemployment for dad?

2.  Somehow both the dad and the little girl know that the chirping noise on dad's phone twenty feet away means that dad's going to be employed and they don't have to move after all?  How do either of them know what that chirp means?  How did the little girl even HEAR the chirp through the door?

Charlize Theron walks into a bar...

...and proceeds to interrupt everyone else's fun by showing how awesome she is when she's the star of a commercial and she- and everyone else- is following a script which requires her to be absolutely perfect at everything while balancing a beer with one hand.  A beer which, by the way, she either never drinks or keeps having refilled between shots.

I just don't understand commercials at all, I guess.  But know what I understand even less?  The triggered white male losers who go insane over ads like this and let us know they've lost their minds by posting comments on YouTube.

Actually, Mets and Yankees fans probably deserve each other anyway

So this woman is a married to an over-the-top Mets fan even though she "secretly loves the Yankees?"  So they never talked sports during the entire time they were dating, though those dates must have included Mets games if he's such a huge Mets fan?  Why has she kept this secret to herself until suddenly deciding to share it with anonymous neighborhood kids showing up for Halloween, anyway?  Oh right- that house.  That's a nice house.  And this is going to sound mean, but...this woman isn't what I'd call TrophyWife material.

You're doing the right thing, lady.  Keep that Yankees love to yourself.

BTW, why the heck is this kid wearing a Yankees uniform as a Halloween costume?  Is this Boston?  Because if that was the joke, it doesn't work anymore.  Through most of this century, the Yankees haven't been especially terrifying to the Red Sox.

Selena Gomez, iPhone, and other stuff I really don't give a damn about

Some years back a little girl named Selena Gomez was in the right place at the right time with the right look when the Disney Channel was casting for a stupid tv show about a family of wizards.  I'd say the rest is history, except that I teach history and I have way too much respect for the subject to go there.

And because Ms Gomez had- just barely- enough vocal range to be turned into a salable musical commodity with the right tech support, she's able to sell out the KFC Yum! Center and other high-end venues and "perform" in front of audiences of teen girls who have yet to develop any taste in music or anything else.  Fine, I'm not one to knock anyone's hustle- but for chrissakes, who cares if someone whose entire career is looking good can be made to look good by the new iPhone?