Cirkul is the ultimate in First World Products

 

Look, pretty much everyone needs to drink more water.  The great majority of Americans walk around every day dehydrated, and we tend to react to our thirst by misinterpreting it as hunger and consuming excess calories (yes, Dehydration is strongly linked to the obesity epidemic.)  A large percentage of headaches, body aches, muscle pulls, etc. are also caused by dehydration.  Every day millions of Americans respond to a headache by taking two pills and a glass of water- when all they need is the glass of water.  Americans (including me. Especially me.) drink way too much coffee, which contributes to dehydration, which again we respond to by eating and/or taking drugs.  

In short, this is a real problem that calls for a real solution.  But because this is the year 2022, the solution "drink more water" isn't good enough, because water is "boring" (and if it doesn't taste good out of the tap, you aren't going to drink it no matter how aware you are that you should.)  Bottled water is expensive- it has not been spared by inflation, believe me.  Brita filters are expensive.  I'd LOVE to have one of those water delivery services deliver 20 gallons or so of water to my own personal cooler systems every month, but that's not going to happen.  So anything that encourages people to look beyond the inconveniences and consume more water is going to get a pretty strong pass from me.

This is just weird, though.  It's a water bottle with a little flavor filter that can be adjusted to make the flavor being added stronger or weaker by turning a plastic dial that I'm sure breaks after a dozen or so uses and even if it doesn't, the fruit flavor powder stuff doesn't dissolve properly and starts clogging it- again, after a dozen uses or so.  And then you've got another addition to the landfill that won't break down for a few million years.  And for some reason- I suspect there's a "cool/hip/trendy" factor here- this is superior to just adding a squirt of flavoring to your regular water bottle or getting a bottle with a wider mouth so you can add a few slices of fruit...I suspect there's also a "convenience" factor here, and as we all know Americans Are Way Too Busy To Do Anything These Days, including handling a water bottle that isn't cool/hip/trendy/convenient.

I'm not going to be purchasing this stupid gimmicky nonsense.  I like flavored water, but I can buy flavored water or add my own flavor, I don't need a special bottle with a dial and a special set of flavorings I'll have to be ordering all the time because I know Me, I'll stop doing that and this will just become another water bottle with a stupid dial on the top.  But you do you- and if you're a typical dehydrated American, you'll get caught up in what this ad suggests is the Super Awesome World of Exciting Flavored Water.  At least you'll be less dehydrated, and maybe a bit less likely to try to treat your thirst with a two-for-$5 special at Burger King or a grease bucket from KFC.

Burger King's offer to people who feel like life takes too long to wrap up?

 

I mean, really.  This ad seems to be aimed at viewers who are frustrated with the slow pace of their diabetes.  If you "need 2" give your journey toward bad health- and the grave- then this is for you; for just five dollars, you can consume 1500 calories of grease, salt and sugar inside of ten minutes.  And bonus:  you'll be stripped of all that nagging ambition to take a walk or get some other form of exercise, as this carbohydrate loading/blood sugar spike  is all but certain to leave you exhausted and wanting nothing more than a nap once the crash comes.  Just to be safe, I'd wash it all down with a large Coke or maybe a milkshake.  Carpe Diem like this and you'll cut back on the number of Diems you will have to Carpe.

What's next, Insomnia Coffee? Paper Cups and LIDS?

 

I'm posting on this completely inoffensive commercial for two reasons:

First, I just came back from a week in Ireland, Wales and England and visited Insomnia Coffee several times and found each one a clean, well-maintained, attractive shop with decently-priced food (I had a very nice cheese panini and fudge brownie in Dublin- hey, I was on vacation, which meant that every day was a cheat day) and polite, efficient staff.   The coffee is much better than Starbucks, though that's not saying so very much- everyone who takes their coffee black knows that Starbucks is more of a last resort than a first choice, unless you care more about your cup being hot for three hours than how the coffee actually tastes.  For taste, it's Dunkin Donuts, McDonald's, and then Every Other Place in a distant third.  

(Except that 7-11 Coffee is even worse than Starbucks, for the opposite reason:  If Starbucks is too bitter and excessively hot, 7-11 is too weak and never hot enough.  Ok rant over, back to praising Insomnia Coffee.  I'm entitled to use this space as a Shout Out now and then, right?)

Second, I thought this ad was funny in its presentation of a Drive Thru as some kind of amazing Game Changer in the world of retail, probably because I live in the United States where pretty much every food establishment catering to people in a hurry already had Drive Thrus before 2020 and the outliers are scrambling to catch up now.  Where these things rare in the UK before the Pandemic that Shall Not Be Mentioned?  

Another nonsensical Taco Bell ad

 

"When you need a taco..." you go to this shop that sells warm poison and eat what they call a "Burrito?" Sense this does not make.

Then again, why should the punchline make any sense when the lead-up features a woman putting her cap on, one of her teammates deciding that it would be Uber-cute to do the same and then exchange a shy "we're on the same team but we really don't know each other, that's kind of strange but never mind" glance with her?  Why should the punchline make sense when we see the batter respond to the "rally cap" bit by hitting an obvious pop fly?  Why should the punchline make sense when it's a freaking Taco Bell ad and we all know it's going to end with someone hearing a bell and responding like an Eloi by dropping everything and marching to the nearest Suicide Center and ingesting poison?

By the way, I'm only even commenting on this stupid nothing of an ad because I couldn't find a commercial for Insomnia, an awesome Dublin-based coffee chain I found on my first day in Ireland and visited four times over the course of the week.  Just before posting this I DID manage to find one, so that's coming next, assuming the ad is stupid and I really hope it is because there's little I hate more than having to be positive on this blog.  Very good coffee, good and reasonably priced food, too- with any luck, sold through at least one stupid marketing campaign.  We'll see. 

Here's a commercial I saw in the UK. Imagine the hand-wringing it would attract here

 

Whenever the television was on anywhere in Ireland, England or Wales, I could count on seeing this commercial or some version of it 30 or 40 times an hour.  Most of them start with the simple line "wine defended by the devil" and every time I heard it I wondered how it would play in the Not Very United Fundamentalist Christian States of America which became considerably more Fundamentalist while I was away.

Good to see that Wonder Woman 1984 didn't destroy Mr. Pascal's career though.  He looked like he was having fun in that movie, and he looks like he's having fun here, too.  Maybe he just likes to act.  Meanwhile, I didn't have any of this wine while over there.  Maybe the devil was protecting it from me?

Where I'll Be until I get back!

 

I'll be traveling abroad for the first time since The Illness That Shall Not Be Named came upon us, and the stars have aligned to make my journey as stress-free as possible- this week, the negative COVID test requirement for re-entry into the US was rescinded.  I was already going to carry a letter certifying recent recovery, but it's still a plus that I will only have to carry my vaccination card to get back into the country.

So I'll be off to Ireland on the 18th and will return on the 28th via London, looking forward to finally getting out into the world and using a vacation I paid for way back in 2020.  Enjoy the archives while I'm away (and do it a lot, my visitor counter to this page has REALLY gone down in the past few months, this isn't monetized but I still need the engagement for inspiration.)  Take care and see a few of you when I get back!

Can we please stop praising Daniel Craig's Bond films? (Conclusion, thankfully)

 

(SPOILERS AHEAD!)

I just finished watching No Time To Die on Amazon Prime.  In the past- like, before the dawn of the 21st century- it would have been unthinkable of me to wait for a Bond film to be released to video (as us old-timers used to say) before viewing it.  I saw every Bond adventure, no matter how crappy (and the Roger Moore films were mostly pretty crappy) on the big screen soon after they were released from 1974 to 1989.  I was never a fan of Brosnan so I waited to watch his films at home (they are bad) and saw only the first Craig Bond films at the theater.  

Anyway, what a slog the last Craig "adventure" was.  It took forever to get going, as it attempts to drown the viewer in pretention and foreboding and gloom etc. etc.  We figure out pretty quickly that this is the last Bond Girl's back story and man we don't care.  Whatever happened to having a Bond mission make up the pre-title sequence?  Instead we get one that is all about his relationship with this woman and it ends with a breakup, wow such high stakes I'm on the edge of my seat again.

This movie quite literally never gets started.  I think a plot is introduced about a half hour in and then we are on an island with an evil guy who is Evil Because He's Evil- no wait, he's evil because he's obsessed with the Bond girl from long ago and again this is all very personal and angsty and BORING.  I guess he's going to release a deadly toxin and do a planetary reset like Stromberg wanted to in The Spy Who Loved Me and Drax attempted in Moonraker but it's really not clear because we never get to see the villain explain it, but jeeesh the story isn't told in any kind of compelling way.  We get half an hour of Bond this other secret agent who is kind of in the film as the new 007 but not really killing everyone on the island except the bad guy who apparently just remains in hiding till he's the only one left....I really don't know.  I was just bored.

Then Bond dies and we are supposed to care.  Frankly, I was more than ready to see this Bond die.  He's been dying since Casino Royale anyway, going through life with a grim pout on his face carrying personal baggage like a cross on his back and trying to convince us that his personal life is compelling but sorry it just never was.  I don't want to see Bond as a loving husband and I sure don't want to see him as a daddy.  I don't want the villain to be his stepbrother or in love with his girlfriend.  This isn't Twilight for crissakes.  I want to see a lone killer saving the world from a lunatic, not a lovelorn sap.  

So goodbye, Mr. Craig, I guess you'll be missed by millions who inexplicably loved your Bond but I am not one of them.  And when this series resets again- in 2029 or so, based on the franchise owner's ineptness at putting out chapters- I may or may not sign on.   It really depends on if we get back to basics or not.  If we are handed another round of this Human, Personal Bond, I think I'll give it a hard pass and watch You Only Live Twice again.  That one has an evil villain, a cat, and a coherent Plan.  And a Bond who doesn't give a damn about anybody or anything except the Mission.  You know, as G-d -- and Ian Fleming- intended.