Geico's well-deserved slap at suburban life

 

Know how you can avoid situations like this (situations in which you are severely restricted in your decorating, etc. choices on your own property?)  Just don't live within an area of your lily white suburb which is controlled by a Housing Association.  But if you want to pretend that you've "made it" in Capitalist America by having your own Estate consisting of a house that looks like all the other houses on the block and a postage stamp-sized piece of land (which is still mysteriously large enough to convince you that you need a riding mower to maintain,) this is part of the cost of that part of the American Dream.  You are living under a microscope where your progress is being constantly scrutinized and graded by the neighbors who are on the same hamster wheel you are.   Your every move, every choice of car, every new flower planted anywhere, every coat of paint applied or not applied, is being noted on an invisible scoresheet which is not only in the brain of that Housing Association Nazi, but each of your neighbors.  Better keep up with the Joneses, because if you falter, everyone is going to notice.  

And now that you know all this, do you still think you upgraded when you gave up that apartment downtown?

Farxiga's Band-Aid for a much bigger problem

 

Here's another way to control high blood sugar:  Stop eating sugar.  Amazingly, this One Simple TrickTM has ALSO been connected to losing weight.

No number of grams of sugar is recommended as part of anybody's daily diet.  Check out "daily recommended intake of carbs" and you'll find that carbohydrates in any form are not required for good health. And nobody is suffering from high blood sugar because they consume a serving or two of fruit per day (and if I'm wrong, fruit isn't necessary either for health, either.  I can't eat sugar without suffering arthritis pain flares, but I eat berries every day because they have anti-inflammatory properties.  So I get natural sugar, I help control my arthritis pain, and I don't have to worry about high blood sugar.  Imagine that. 

Sugar is ubiquitous in American culture.  It's stuffed into red sauces and dairy products (just TRY to find flavored yogurt that is sugar free.)  It's sprinkled on to French Fries to make them more addictive.  If sugar was classified as a drug, it would be by far the most popular addictive drug in the United States and probably the world, even more popular than Caffeine (which I can stop using any time I want to, I just don't want to, so shut up you aren't my mother!)  It's harder to avoid than any other addictive chemical on the market.  But it can be done, and for your body's sake it SHOULD be done.  Sugar is poison, and I'll take a prescription to Stop Ingesting Poison over a prescription for a drug with all these nasty possible side effects any day of the week and twice on Sundays, thanks very much anyway.

The International Union of Police Associations, GoAnimate, and a check no longer in the mail

 

First- ugh this is so cringe, using GoAnimate to create a pitch for the International Union of Police Associations and how awesome it is at building a team of attorneys to defend its members when they are accused of murdering black people, gassing black people, assaulting black people, or generally just being gangster wannabees who think they have the right to put anyone they don't like "back in their place" because after all check out this badge and, more to the point, This Gun.

Second- these people called me pretty much every day for several weeks, never once being deterred by my quick hang-ups on the rare occasions I even bothered to answer the phone.  Finally, about ten days ago, I gave in and listened to their pitch for donations.  When I explained to them that I don't donate over the phone unless I have made the call myself, I was directed to an operator to get my address so they could send me a contribution pledge envelope.  The nice woman who asked me for my address then asked how much she could put me down for.  I told her I'd figure that out after I received the information she was sending me, and she replied "we can't send out an envelope unless we get a pledge first."

This should have convinced me to just hang up (I have to promise something before they "agree" to send me a pledge envelope?  Exactly who is in control here, again?)  But I was in a decent mood, so I said "fine, I'll pledge $25."  And we were done.

The other day I got the pledge envelope, but before writing the check I decided to do a quick search for the organization online.  Here's what I found on Wikipedia:

In September 2019, well over a year before the elections, the union formally endorsed the re-election campaign of Donald Trump, while stating that the Democratic contenders vilified the police

So sorry, IUPA.  You endorsed Donald Trump?  Then you can ask him for the $25 I pledged to you.  Your check was left unwritten.  Your pledge envelope is in the trash.  And I'm really, really hoping you call to ask about it, because now I'm looking forward to talking to you.  Come on, just one more call.  You have my number...

Ryan Reynolds' weird "Enticement" ad

 

Why would anyone looking for a new phone service be impressed by Ryan Reynolds being the "owner" of that new service?  Does Ryan Reynolds have some kind of experience with phone tech or the management of a large company that I'm unaware of?  Or is he just another Tom Hanks* "I have a trustworthy face so what I say carries unwarranted, unearned weight" celebrity willing to sell his Middle Class Values Down to Earth image** to the highest bidder?

I'm sorry, but just because you are talented enough to survive playing a superhero in Green Lantern to go on to play another superhero in Deadpool doesn't mean I'm going to trust you to provide me with decent mobile coverage.*** Besides, it might be your agent who pulled that off, not you. 

*Did you know that Tom Hanks is not actually a veteran of World War II?  I just looked it up. 

**I thought Reynolds was relatable and fun to watch in Just Friends.  And that's about it. 

***If I were interested in decent coverage, I wouldn't be with T-Mobile now, would I?

Another 15-second dollop of dumb from Folgers

 

The only good thing about these Folgers "zoom" ads is that they are mercifully short.  Not short enough, but short.  There's still plenty to snark on here:

1.  Who goes on a Zoom call without checking their camera angle and background before joining on video?  For this commercial to make any sense, we have to believe this guy is sitting so far away from his laptop that he'd have to get up to type anything, or that he intentionally tilted his screen to show his bare legs.  In other words, this guy WANTED his female coworkers to catch a glance at his legs, but also wanted to avoid a call from H.R. by making it look as much like an "accident" as possible.

2.  It looks for all the world like this guy is in a breakroom, not his office.  What's with the enormous pot of coffee for one person?  Even I don't drink that much coffee.  And what does he think he's covering up with that coffee?  Does he think this is going to make his coworkers forget what they just saw?  

3.  This guy's "whole team" (consisting of two people) has no reaction to this guy's Zoom faux pas. They just don't care.  

4.  And again, one of his coworkers turns her video off, leaving a giant Folgers logo on the screen instead.  Ok, I get it.  These people work for Folgers.  

The best part of waking up might be bitter, otherwise bland coffee in your cup.  The best part of Folger's ads are when they are over.  Again, I'll give Folgers credit for at least making these short. 

Folger's joins the Apple Down With Remote "Working" crusade

 

First of all, who is the artist singing this song?  She sounds like she was hired because she's the out of work sister of the producer.   Her voice is AWFUL.  And was she also left responsible for writing the lyrics, too?  Because, come on- nobody in this ad looks like they are "trying hard not to snap."  They just look comfortable, if half-asleep, and perfectly fine in their new reality of waking up a little later every morning, avoiding the commute, and making showering optional.

Second, why is this woman so determined to keep her little kid off the screen?  The brat just wants to know what's going on.  He'll take one look at these boring ugly choads and lose interest, I promise you, mom.  You don't have to wave that hot coffee pot around his face and then move your mug from side to side for fear that your coworkers will realize that you have a kid.  This is just dumb.  

Why can't this woman give that kid something to do so he isn't "preventing" her from blathering whatever bland nonsense she is blathering into her screen without manipulating coffee pots and cups?  Oh right- because she isn't used to this whole "parenting" thing and doesn't know what to do with this kid because usually he's in the care of professionals and she is  at the office drinking coffee in front of another screen.

Finally- one of her workers switches his camera off, leaving a Folger's logo.  This tickles some of the people in the YouTube comments.  It suggests to me that these people all work for Folger's and that's the official camera-off default screen they are required to use.  And now I have to rethink this entire ad and wonder if the woman wasn't trying to shield her kid that whole time but was instead just trying to hypnotize her coworkers by waving coffee in their faces and her kid just happened to be standing in the background.

Liberty Mutual lets Geico know they aren't going to let the gekko Own the Dumb

 

I get that the Statue of Liberty is in the public domain so Liberty Mutual can't be prevented from using it in all of it's advertising, but the thing is-- they DON'T use it in ANY of their advertising.  It's just a stupid backdrop for commercials that are becoming increasingly brain-dead and pointless.

I mean, it wasn't all that long ago that these ads were actually talking about INSURANCE- how Liberty Mutual allows you to "only pay for what you need" (as if any of us "know what we need" before the fact- if I'm a "safe driver," I guess I only "need" the bare minimum required by law...until I hit a kid dashing across the road in front of me and put him in the intensive care war, at which point I "need" considerably more coverage that I don't have because, after all, I'm a "safe driver.")  Then we started to get stupid "hey, Liberty Mutual has a cool App" nonsense featuring a kid in a cell phone suit jumping into piles of rice.  Those weren't informative in the slightest (are there any large insurance companies that DON'T offer apps these days?) 

And now, we've hit what I hope is rock bottom with an ad featuring a guy selling...wet teddy bears.  Because maybe that's "what you need?"  What does this have to do with insurance at all?  Absolutely nothing.  Just a big neon "we've run out of ideas" middle finger from Liberty Mutual.  One that I didn't ask for or want, let alone "need."