Congratulations, Apple

 https://youtu.be/65JrtwtTOdc

You managed to create a commercial that gives me a headache no matter how I experience it- if I turn the sound off and just watch= Headache.  If I just listen to it without watching= Headache.  Hell, I'm neither listening to it or watching it right now, and I'm getting a headache from the MEMORY of it. 

No wonder the Comments are turned off on this one.  Just another obnoxious BUY THIS THING ITS SLIGHTLY NEWER THAN THE ONE YOU JUST BOUGHT commercial by one of the most obnoxious companies on the planet (and, yet, maybe not even the most obnoxious company on the planet that starts with the letter "A."  How weird is that?)

Clickbait Garbage that hit home for a few seconds....

 https://www.lifestyle-a2z.com/an-original-copy-of-this-vhs-might-make-you-a-small-fortune/?utm_medium=outbrain&utm_source=296&utm_campaign=201013111527541x0xchrome_002df252195286ef9f57a925d829228b18&utm_term=CNN+%28Turner+U.S.%29_CNN_00e8ca988f7d01a748f9a28d57d69900d7&utm_content=%5BGallery%5D+If+You+Have+Any+Of+These+VHS+Tapes%2C+You+Can+Retire%21&dicbo=v1-ab3b2ce0a157ee27a94ae91df606ccd8-0075a2d8e3bf3f3bf885f890df5a8afbcf-g5sgczlegzrgiljsmfrggljuhbrdoljzge4tiljtmjtdgnlfmjstszbxgm

The title of this nonsense slideshow clickbait BS is "if you own Any of these VHS Tapes, you can Retire!"  But with the very first "slide," you realize that this is simply inaccurate (an inaccurate clickbaity title?  HERESY!)  In fact, the first three examples of "valuable" VHS tapes are reportedly going for $20 each.  I can retire on $20?

I managed a video rental store in the late 1980s, and I recognize probably 90 percent of the titles listed here.  I personally sold dozens of copies of E.T. when it was released on VHS and remember setting up the display stand and taking pre-orders.  When the store closed down in late-1990 we sold our entire inventory and one customer purchased every single item in our Disney collection- probably fifty tapes- for $5 each.  Judging from the title of this nonsensical "news story," he would be in position to make himself a multimillionaire now, right?  

I only looked at the first ten items here, and adding up their value comes to about $3000.  I don't know how long this list is, but unless it extends into the hundreds, or includes one So Rare It Probably Doesn't Actually Exist tape, there's no way it all adds up to money you can "retire" on.  But because the article referenced something that pressed a nostalgia button, it got me to click and give it a partial going-over, so mission accomplished, I guess?

(BTW, I'm sure that if I go through my parents' storage area I can find several of these items- I know, for example, that I got a copy of E.T. for myself when it was released.  But I'll wait until I retire before putting it on the market- after all, it's sure to be worth a lot more than Night at the Movies-level money by then, right?  Like, Actual Retirement-level money?

How to sell $2 for $17.95

 https://youtu.be/p9RGSu8JYn8

Just slap some cheap color "art" on to $2 bills and sell it to the same people who mount Trump flags to their pickups and stocked up on Trumpy Bears and love wearing their If This Shirt Offends You Learn Some History Confederate flag T-shirts and spending evenings looking at their Lock Her Up Commemorative Coins.  

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the gullibility of the American Public- Mark Twain, among others.   I'd add that plenty of the members of that gullible public are perfectly happy to go broke if they can Annoy the Libs along the way to the poor house.  You can bet that when they get there, they'll be leaning heavily on their Social Security, Affordable Health Care coverage, and all those other Socialist programs that continue to destroy America because the China Virus and the Post Office conspired to bring down the Bestest President Ever in November, 2020.

Hey Wendy's, I'm distracted....

 https://youtu.be/Ueqs_u0xT7A

1.  No gloves being used in the handling of the food.

2.  The food is unwrapped as it sails down the bar, past g-d knows how many people.

3.  It passes at least ONE person because that phone it "dodges" isn't sitting there drinking by itself.

4.  It stops at a pack of (also uncovered) French Fries and a soda which I guess was sent flying down the bar ahead of time.  Not sure why that happened.

This would be a stupid commercial WITHOUT taking into account the Illness that Shall Not Be Named.  It's downright criminal these days. 

Fidelity to your own Gain

 https://youtu.be/1qGOvQrSY8s

I'm sorry, but if you need to jump on some "Fidelity Investments Dashboard" when you get up every morning, then your life has become one endless obsession with money and you really need to reassess your priorities.

I remember reading somewhere that the people who have the happiest lives and comfortable retirements are the ones who use an established brokerage firm to put away money every month, ignore the dips and rises of the market, and don't inquire into the balance until it's time to draw from it.  These people don't spend their lives obsessing over money, don't experience sleepless nights during selloffs....they just go about the business of Living.  They remember the reason why they hired a broker in the first place- so that they wouldn't have to do all this fretting and juggling. 

Oh, and what about all those people who did panic and sell this spring?  Well, they didn't do it because they had this Dashboard or an App on their Smartphones which sent them into a desperate frenzy.  The people who freaked out and sold were the people who are already retired and using those investments to supplement their laughably small Social Security checks, or the small investors who never had any faith in the market and got spooked by bad advice and gave people who DO use things like this Dashboard and investment Apps.   And who bought those stocks at a bargain?  I just answered that question, didn't I?

No Evidence Google Knows What It's Doing

 https://youtu.be/jQWrmxsQIM0

At the only blog I visit daily which is not my own, I am confronted- constantly- by a visually disgusting ad for a product I've used before but do not want to be reminded that I had to use and don't need color photographs reminding me of why I used it. 

Every. Single. Time.  

So I click on the "Feedback" tab and let Google know "I Am Not Interested in this Ad."  Google couldn't care less.  I keep getting versions of the same ad.  Still gross.  Still not interested. 

So I take another tack and click "Have seen this ad multiple times."  Google couldn't care less.  I've seen it multiple times?  Well, I guess I should get ready to see it even more times.  Does Google think that "Have seen this ad multiple times" is a thumbs-up from me?  Well, that would certainly explain a few things now, wouldn't it?  "This ad is on hundreds of times a day" translates to "people love our ad" in Google World, apparently.

To add insult to injury, Google always responds to my clicking with "Thank You.  Your Feedback Improves Google Ads."  Oh, does it?  After several weeks of this, there's no indication that Google gives a flying damn about my response.  Unless, again, it thinks that because I responded it means I liked the ad, and never mind that my responses would be seen as Negative by any human being.  And the fact that I've responded multiple times would scream STOP SHOWING ME THIS CRAP to any human being.

Google...seriously.  Stop this.  I've even started to click other advertisements at other sites hoping to convince Google to try to sell me something else, ANYTHING else.  I'd like to think that Google was just trying to harass me into complaining about their Amazing Ad Tools here.  Well, mission accomplished, Google.  Can we move on now, please? Please?

Rocket Mortgage is Just Weird

 https://youtu.be/wsm6uQrfnmg

Apparently, a group of geniuses at some ad agency was hired by Rocket Mortgage and told to come up with a commercial featuring a young family deciding that they needed a bigger house.  This group of geniuses put their heads together, racking their brains in an attempt to pick the very best reason why any family would want or need a bigger house.  Because they don't live in Reality and have zero experience with the Real World, this is what they came up with:

When do you realize you need a bigger house?  When one of your children....um....uses a magic marker to decorate his own face.  Yeah, that's it.  That's a good enough reason.  Let's pretend it makes sense, because we're useless, it's getting late, and if we don't get back to Rocket Mortgage within the next few days they are going to dump us and hire another ad agency.

So here we go.  This family has a small house- so small that 75% of them have to sit around a table in the same room together as they Still Don't Actually Interact.  It's ALREADY cramped, you see.  Then the fourth member of this group shows up with marker on his face.  And that's it- time for a bigger house, so we....um, don't have to sit in the same room together?  Don't need to see this kid anymore?  Won't feel compelled to KILL OUR KIDS if one of them does something mildly annoying/completely innocent but has to be portrayed as annoying because we've got that deadline with Rocket Mortgage?

Anyway, you can just respond to this...um....red flag....by whipping out your phone and applying for a Rocket Mortgage inside of thirty seconds.  Life-altering decision made....based on....this.  

I just....seriously, what the hell is going on, Rocket Mortgage?