Blinkist: Orwell would be so proud

 

If you're in a hurry, please just scroll down to the asterisk for the Blinkist version.

This woman brags that she reads "one hundred books a month" with Blinkist.  She can do this despite having a full-time job and all kinds of other things in her life.  She's super-proud that with Blinkist, she can read a hundred books a month.

So what exactly IS this amazing Blinkist thing? Well, I've been hearing radio ads for Blinkist involving a guy telling a girl all about the stars, and having the girl ask a perfectly human question that goes kind of like "gee, where'd you pick up all that learning?  Are you a magician or something?"  He responds with a commercial for Blinkist, a service which takes books and cuts out all the boring stuff like background and nuance and development (I know, you're nodding off already) and gets to whatever the program thinks the "most important points" are.  

Wait a minute- what if you think that other parts of the books are more important and/or interesting?  Well, who cares?  You want to enjoy reading, or do you want to get it over with?  You want to appreciate a book, or do you want to brag about how many you read?  I mean, seriously.  What's important here?

Well, the woman in that radio ad- and this YouTube ad- are super-impressed with the focus on quantity  over quality.  Especially since there are Netflix shows to binge-watch and other things that take up so many hours who has time to read, really?  Come to think of it, I bet there are Netflix documentaries about stars.  I can just watch one of those.  And so can this girl with dead, vacant eyes who is so proud to be living a Life By Cliff Notes. 

*Reading doubleplus ungood, Blinkist plusgood buy.

Lincoln Presents: The Worst Woman on the Planet

There's a whole series of Lincoln commercials featuring this horrible woman and they all have the same storyline:  She drives her $100,000 car up to her multi-million dollar suburban mansion, opens the door, sees something mildly irritating, sighs in despair, and runs back to the perfect world of her $100,000 car.

I'm sorry, but seriously- what the hell?  We've seen this woman horrified at finding her parents in her living room, her husband playing with her kids, and now her kids playing in an inflatable snow globe which (gasp, horrors!) knocks over a few ridiculous trinkets on the (no doubt imported) coffee table in her Just-For-Show-Don't-Touch-Anything "living room."  And she never reacts any differently:  horrified at seeing people she feels like she should recognize for some reason doing something other than sitting like porcelain figurines in a china cabinet, she turns right around and seeks the shelter of her One True Love:  Whichever version of Lincoln she happens to own THIS Christmas.

This woman has zero to complain about in her life, so the sight of other people enjoying themselves in HER house will have to suffice as a reason to have a minor nervous breakdown and a case of the vapors that only her Lincoln truly understands.  And she can use it's Bluetooth to call the Au Pair and ask why she isn't supervising those kids (only to find out that Au Pair had just stepped into the kitchen for a moment to baste the capons and open the wine to let it breathe.) 

I don't say this very often unironically, but:  check out the Comment section.  You know your commercial is bad when the great majority of YouTube commenters agree with my cynical, nasty take on your ad, Lincoln.  This woman is gross.  Her attitude is gross.  You're gross.  I'd say you are really giving Lexus and Audi a run for their money, but you'd probably take it as a compliment.  

My final word (no promises) on State Farm "Rodgers Rate" ads

 

Let's admit it.

None of us would be surprised if one of these Rodgers Rate ads included Aaron Rodgers stepping out of the shower and being handed a towel by his Not Personal Nothing Special Going on Here Just Happened to be Hanging Around State Farm Insurance salesman.  Not because he's Aaron Rodgers, of course, but because....um, all State Farm customers get this....um, service.  Right?

Personally, I think it's only a matter of time.  So before we get there....how about we move on from this particular bit, ok, State Farm?  Please?  

Oh, and on the off-chance that this is a slice of real life in some way: Jake, get some help. You're a grown man, not a starstruck teenaged girl. Stop acting like a Lifetime Movie villain. This is getting seriously creepy.

Nasty, yet totally necessary, observations concerning this Kaiser Permanente commercial

1. This woman and her daughter obviously don't live in this house. How do I know this? Well, there's a "baby don't touch that"moment featuring what looks to be a heavy, expensive vase that's almost within reach (and certainly very breakable for this nasty little girl if she manages to swat it out of its place.) If this woman and that child actually lived in this home, that vase would either be someplace else, or not exist. I mean, mom isn't watching this horrid little thing 24/7, is she? 2. Yay, her shoulder- probably injured by her demon spawn- is healing nicely. Good to know. 3. "But how are YOU doing?" to me translates into "have you gotten over your overwhelming urge to murder that kid of yours?" or at least "how are you managing with your stressful not-parenting of that ridiculously badly-behaved, out of control little cretin you share DNA with?" 4. Seriously, what an awful little kid. What an awful mom who is clearly incapable of handling that awful little kid. I hope this woman has a full package with Kaiser Permanente, because it looks like Mommy's Little Accident is going to be the cause of a lot of phone calls and a lot of paperwork before Mommy can legally boot her out of the house.

eTrade's bizarre "compromise" commercials

 

Here's a heartwarming commercial for eTrade featuring a jackass who is so obsessed with his freaking portfolio that he totally forgot that it's kind of his turn to take care of the kids he chose to create with his spouse.  So while they are so bored from total lack of interaction with their dad - and so desperate for his attention- that they are literally throwing (salt?) into the air while in the same room with him, he's still not going to be more than slightly distracted from his mad pursuit of money.

It's so bad, in fact, that the tagline "you've compromised enough" is included in this ad and, presumably, his thoughts.  I seriously don't know what this could possibly mean other than "your kids are crap pains in the royal ass, you can't even get your TrophyWife to take care of them while you are busy fulfilling your proper function in the home by managing your- excuse me, the family's- vast and growing fortune.  And you thought you had a deal!  I suspect that the next scene features this guy joining Trophywives.com to start arranging for an Updated version.  After all, You've Compromised EnoughTM. 

What?  Is there another way to interpret all this?

Burger King invites me to indulge in my mean side

You may call the following comment mean, but I prefer "to the point." Except for that first young woman, none of these people have any business being excited about getting two Whoppers for $5. Instead, they should be wondering why the universe (or, just Burger King) is conspiring to keep them morbidly obese future diabetes/heart attack victims. Because you know darn well they ain't sharing that extra thousand calories with ANYBODY and all that just happened is a slight improvement on the odds that there might be a little bit left by the time these land whales pull into their driveways and a slight decline in the odds that any of them will live to see their grandchildren. 

Healy: A TENS Unit with 50% more Woo

 

 I was in a car accident 17 years ago (hit from behind by a drunk driver.) Part of my physical therapy involved using a TENS unit on my back. At the time, TENS units were only available directly from licensed therapists- to get mine, I had to put down a refundable $200 deposit and pay $20 per month for the three months I had it. It was pretty easy to use, and I got good at placing the sticky electrode things just right to send pulses into my back and ease muscle pain.

Some years later, I found a TENS unit available through a pharmacy in England, where they let you buy them off the shelf because, after all, it's not medication, it's not addictive and it's not all about making the company that owns the TENS trademark rich.  It cost me $40.  It still works more than a decade later, though I've purchased a new one recently (from America, because times change) so I can have a set at home and in Vermont for when I visit (it can be a pain to get these things through airport security.)

Anyway, what about this thing which uses "vibrations" to "solve" (not cure) all kind of "issues" we can have with our bodies?  Well, the people who made this thing are being both super-clever and super-sleazy at the same time.  This item is, in fact, FDA Approved- as a TENS unit.  It doesn't read your chakras (because you don't have any) or align your feng shui (because that's nonsense, too.)  It just sends electrical impulses into your body.  Because that's what a TENS unit does.  But this thing runs upwards of TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS.  That's something your everyday TENS unit does NOT do.  It doesn't cost you an arm and a leg.  This thing costs an arm, a leg and probably one of your ears.  For a TENS unit.  Come on!!