Eliquis presents the fine line between Inspiring and Depressing

               
This otherwise fill-in-the-blank "I'm so glad I found this new drug with horrific possible side effects including internal bleeding" drug commercial caught my attention because of the very first line uttered by the utterly unsympathetic idiot who stars in it.  It's a line that I guess is supposed to be Throw-away inspiring or hopeful or something, but I didn't get that feeling at all.

This old dope tells us that he's "always been amazed by 'Whats Next?'"  I am quite certain that the intention was to show us an adventure-seeking individual who has never lost his childlike fascination and appreciation of the world.  But when I hear someone basically tell me that they are always looking ahead to the next experience, I hear an easily-distracted, never-satisfied, and above all ungrateful dope who refuses to actually enjoy anything because he's convinced there's something better around the next corner.  This guy doesn't appreciate the wonders of life he's experiencing today- he's too busy planning for tomorrow.  This is something we expect from toddlers, teenagers, and (to a lesser extent) from young adults.  It's a natural, healthy attitude for people who are taking in the world and impatient to get out into it.  It's not charming from a middle-aged (retired?) guy to refuse to live in the Now and just wants to move on to the next Shiny Object (never mind that all the shiny objects he encounters seems to involve fishing.*)

In his quest for "what's next," this guy decided (on his own) that maybe the drug his doctor prescribed for him "wasn't really the best for him" (maybe "what's next" is medical school?  Only if fishing is involved) so he took it upon himself to look into Eliquis.  Since he's an American with gold-plated health insurance, his doctor was more than willing to change his prescription and put him on this new drug, so he could walk around with a smug smile confident that NOW he's taking the RIGHT drug that, just like the old one, has internal bleeding as one of many possibly fatal side effects.  Good for you, buddy- now you've created another door- "being rushed to the Emergency Room before flatlining" as a possible "what's next" adventure in what looks like a pretty boring- and unsatisfying- life.

*there is no "what's next" to fishing.  It's just more fishing.  Figure it out, idiot.

I totally endorse this Coventry Ad

The old people in this ad took a walk one day and got to thinking about this big life insurance policy they were paying into.  It suddenly occurred to them that they were gaining absolutely nothing from this policy- in fact, it was having a negative impact on their lives, as it was costing them money in paid premiums every. Single. Month.

To what end?  Well, if they died...then their little grandchildren would cash in.  But what good would that do these nice old people?  If the insurance policy were cashed in, that would mean these nice old people were dead.  Would they be looking down from heaven, watching these little brats rolling around on a carpet covered with insurance money?  Maybe there isn't any heaven- so the old people would never get to see the impact- negative or positive- this hard-earned, long-paid-for insurance money had on those grandchildren.  Maybe their adult children would use the insurance money to buy a vacation in Europe, or a new BMW, while skimping on the funeral costs. 

So when these two nice old people got home from their walk, they made the sensible decision to say "f---k it" to the premiums and sell their policy to Coventry for a nice chunk of cash they can use RIGHT NOW, and the next generation can take care of its own damn self.

In the heartwarming final scene, we see the little grandchildren running happily to greet Grandma and Grandpa.  Clearly, their parents have no idea what just happened to that pot of gold they were anticipating, because they are still on speaking terms with their grandparents and the grandparents are still getting visitation privileges.  If Grandma and Grandpa are smart, they'll keep their very intelligent, sensible decision to themselves, because there is No Wrath Greater than that of a Disappointed Legatee. 

Another totally relatable exercise bike ad

Before we get started- does it bother anybody else that neither of these all-glass apartments seem to have any curtains anywhere?  So the wealthy, beautiful people living in them want to live in fishbowls?  What if these apartments are ever rented to people who AREN'T physically perfect or- and I know, this is kind of a stretch in the year 2020- might actually want some privacy now and then?

Ok, on to the ad- wow, not only do these people have identical apartments each which look into the other, but they residents have both purchased identical exercise bikes which have been placed perfectly to challenge each other, and they choose to exercise at exactly the same time, logging in to the same class.  Now that is a series of convenient contrivances.*

If you thought for one moment that this ad was going to end with the guy winning, well.....you haven't watched a lot of commercials this century, have you? 

A YouTube commenter makes an observation I made the third or fourth time I watched this- as the girl leaves, she gives a little flirty shoulder twitch to the guy she "beat" as they both walk away to enjoy a little privacy in the small part of their ridiculous apartment that is not visible to the rest of the planet.  But then we get a zoom-out view in which we see her giving that same flirty shoulder twitch- is this the same scene from a different POV, or does she do it again?  Either way, it's pretty stupid.  It's like the people who made this obnoxious little nugget just wanted to remind us that these people live in ridiculous apartments.  We got it already.

*Ok, I get that these two people must know each other, otherwise they'd have no idea they were in direct competition, as their screens only show first names.  So are they coworkers who happen to live in identical buildings directly across from each other?   They didn't meet because they live in the same building- they DON'T live in the same building.  Are they dating?  I don't get that vibe- it seems to me that these two people just realized at some point that they were in the same "race" and motivated each other to work out harder.  But how did that happen?  So confused.

USPS: Check your Priorities

Look, I know the US Postal Service is under attack right now, and is under attack whenever there's been a Republican in office since the Nixon Administration.  I don't want to pile on, but I just gotta say...

When I see "Memorial Day Holiday," I note that the word "day" appears TWICE.  It doesn't say "week," and it doesn't say "days."  It's a one-day vacation for you, USPS. 

So please explain to me why I haven't seen a postal worker dropping mail off at my house at all this week.  UPS has been here.  FedEx trucks are rolling through the neighborhood.  Amazon keeps showing up.  But official, stamped mail from the US Postal Service?  Apparently, you guys are still on vacation.

Again, it's Memorial DAY.  Not DAYS.  Hope you enjoyed your barbecues which closed out your long weekend.  But it's Thursday now.  Can you start delivering mail again, please, before Independence Day arrives? 

"Lily" makes an unasked-for "return" to AT &T

1.  No, you are not "Lily from AT&T."  Your name is Milana Vayntrub.   It took a five second Google search to find that out.  Cut the crap.

2.  "Most stores are still open, but I'm working from home..." you don't work at any AT&T store.  You're a model, comedian, and actress.  You have never worked at an AT&T store, and if you ever do it's because something went horribly wrong in your career.  As it is, you're doing just fine because your income isn't derived from convincing people to trade in perfectly good phones for slightly "better" phones and signing up for long, expensive contracts which don't appear very expensive at the time because they are so long and those monthly payments look so small plus This Phone Will Really Let You Show Well For Your Friends.

3.  Nice house.  Actual employees at actual AT&T stores don't live in houses like that.  Even if they had nice apartments before the pandemic hit, my guess is that they were furnished more modestly than your house is, and that things are getting very tough for them because, frankly, AT&T doesn't need a whole lot of "work from home" sales people.

4.  Seriously, just STFU.

More fun with Copper!!

Not only does this knee sleeve thing give you "targeted pain relief," but it also has the power to "MAKE you go out and do the things you love."  Wow, that's powerful- does it come with little engines that just compel the wearer to go outside?  How does it know what the wearer loves?  Or is that just being a LITTLE hyperbolic?

My absolute favorite line in this entire commercial comes where we are told that the knee sleeve is "infused with therapeutic copper."  What the hell is "therapeutic copper?"  Why didn't the narrator say "therapeutic GRADE copper?"  Haven't the people who make all this copper crap watched enough Young Living and doTerra Essential Oils sales pitches to know the power of the nonsense phrase "therapeutic grade?"  Maybe it's trademarked?

In any case, why isn't my doctor taking me off my $6000-per-month Humira prescription and giving me an Rx for one of these Therapeutic Copper-Infused Knee Sleeves instead?  Oh right- BIG PHARMA, that's why!!

Flex Paste: a very, very dangerous product to be selling during a pandemic!

I'm going to come out and admit it right now- if I knew I was going to be stuck at home for the next few months (that is, I knew I wasn't going to be going to Vermont next month for the summer but instead would be in my apartment in Maryland,) I am pretty sure that this product would cause a major alteration to my life.

I'm pretty sure that as soon as I ordered four or five pails of Flex Paste, I'd head off to the Dollar Store and buy several putty knives, a few bags of plastic greenery, and a few boxes of cheap Chinese toys.  Then I'd walk around the neighborhood looking for a card table someone has put out on the street FOR FREE and carry that home, too.  And I'd pile all these goodies into my little spare room, and wait.

When my pails of Flex Paste showed up, oh man would I go to town building my very own Devil's Tower on top of that card table in my little spare room.  I'd spend hours getting the contours just right before decorating it with my fake moss and little green army men or dinosaurs or whatever cheap Chinese toys I grabbed at the Dollar Store.  I'm sure I'd have to order more Flex Paste because it would never be Quite Right.

Meanwhile, I wouldn't notice that I'd grown a beard, was getting super-pale, had 300 unanswered messages in my voice mailbox and hadn't hosted a Zoom Class for weeks and didn't notice the semester had ended.  And that I was wearing the same clothes I had on when the pails of Flex Paste appeared at my doorstop.

And who could blame me?  I don't know if this stuff really seals holes in the wall or fixes roofs or you could build an entire waterproof boat with it, and I don't really care, because why would anyone use this for those purposes when you've got nothing but time on your hands, you have to stay indoors anyway, and there are iconic mountains to recreate in your little spare room?

Alas, I will be gone in a few weeks so I can't really do this stuff justice until this fall, when we get the second deadly wave of COVID-19 because millions of people decided that they were done wearing masks and not going out and that if they just refused to let a deadly virus push them around, they could will it to just Go Away.  So I'm guessing I'll be holding off my order until late October or so, and this will be my winter passion project/obsession.  I just have to remember to make my Flex Paste mountain large enough to be a base for my vintage King Arthur's Castle from West Germany.  And to order more toilet paper between outbreaks.