Did you catch the glaring error in this GoodRx Commercial?

 

I did, on the very first watch.  And it's not just this GoodRx Commercial- it's an error that shows up in every single commercial featuring a pharmacy.  And it takes me out of the ad every single time because I feel like I've been projected into an alternate reality where nothing at all makes sense. 

Here's the mistake:  Never in the history of the universe has anyone simply walked up to a pharmacy to find someone at the counter waiting to fill their prescription.  Yet in all these ads, not only is there never a line but there's someone in a white coat making eye contact while the customer is still ten feet away, as if the pharmacist is just standing there waiting to be Activated by a customer.   We who live here in Reality know full well that pharmacists are NEVER at that front counter when we finally get there- if we're lucky, they are visible in the back looking at screens or putting stuff into bags.  If we're really lucky, they are using one of those cool pill sorting machines that news channels feel the need to show us whenever mentioning anything to do with prescription drugs.

If we're not really lucky- and it's a typical day and not a reality-bending dreamscape like we see in these GoodRx ads- what we see instead is at least three people in front of us on line, no clerk in sight, and eventually a promise to have that prescription that we were told by an automated voice message was ready two days ago ready in another fifteen minutes to two hours Would We Like To Shop For Awhile And Come Back ThenTM?

A pharmacist just waiting for a customer to casually approach the counter?  Yeah, right.  

What money can buy, brought to you (this time) by Verizon...

 

I mean, come on.  This weird, ugly creep is concerned about the phone bill being too high?  Checking out the trophy wife, who dutifully gave this guy two trophy kids, and that house, I don't believe it for a minute.

Don't tell me that there isn't a Lexus or two in the driveway of this suburban mansion.  And don't EVEN try to tell me that this woman saw something in this guy approximately twenty years ago (when she was in her early-20s and he was in his mid-30s) that didn't involve a LOT of money.  Good-looking women marry good-looking guys...or they marry guys who look like this who also have great jobs and big fat wallets.  

I'm not being cynical.  I'm being Real.   Unlike this stupid ad.  

This SoFi commercial with Justin Herbert certainly deserves to be red-flagged...

 

...I mean...if you believe that Shaq buys car insurance from The General and Joe Namath is excited about BS "insurance" to add to his Medicare, maybe this ad works for you, but seriously....

Justin Herbert signed a four-year, $27 million dollar rookie contract with the San Diego Chargers in 2020.  In 2023 he signed a five-year extension for just over $260 million- about $52 million per year. $200 million of that is guaranteed.   In 2025 his salary will be one hundred million dollars.  His estimated net worth is currently $25 million.  But in one version of this ad, he holds up his phone to reveal that he has a whopping $37,000 in his SoFi account.  I know he was complaining about high fees, but come on!

But again...if you think that Patrick Mahomes is concerned about his insurance rates, or Samuel L. Jackson is super-interested in getting the very most out of his credit card rewards points, you are probably exactly the kind of consumer who buys into someone like Justin Herbert being "frustrated" with bank fees.  So go for it, I guess.  Being a Boomer, I like brick-and-mortar banks myself.  And maybe I'm smarter with my money than this guy- I'm no multimillionaire quarterback, but I've got more than $37,000 in MY bank account. 

TurboTax's "Free" version- because it's that time of year again.

 

If you 

1.  don't care that Turbotax will not keep any of your records on file, 

2.  need absolutely no help at all- not even any clarification on terms, 

3.  are willing to print up your returns when completed and mail them yourself,

4.  own absolutely nothing but are just filling out a 1040EZ form for your taxes, well, then...

the Turbotax "free" version may be for you.  If you are the kind of person who "gets excited to read a disclaimer" and also must read things out loud for them to appear real to you, well, again- the Turbotax "free" version may be for you.

I've been using Turbotax online for almost twenty years.  Personally, I'd rather pay about a hundred bucks to have someone online to clarify something, e-file and set up direct deposit payment of my refund than take the "free" version and be completely on my own, but I'm kind of weird that way- I don't even get excited by disclaimers, and I can read without moving my lips.  

Oh Oh Oh stop whining about Ozempic already!

 

(I agree with one contributor to the comment section:  these people are having an awful lot of very old-fashioned cellphone-free fun in this ad.  Although the kid with glasses looks like he's more of a kidnap victim than an actual member of this family.  I wonder which employee of the ad agency he's related to.)

There are a lot of "the problems with Ozempic" videos out there on YouTube and Tiktok, and they all make the same really stupid argument:  that the drug was not made to help people lose weight, but to control blood sugar and manage diabetes symptoms.  As if "losing weight" and "managing diabetes" are somehow mutually exclusive.  But here's what really gets me about this idiocy:  Diabetes is just ONE of the more than ONE HUNDRED potentially fatal diseases powerfully associated with obesity.  If Ozempic can help people lose weight- and therefore decrease the likelihood of developing any one of those MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED POTENTIALLY FATAL DISEASES - then what exactly is the problem again?  

Meanwhile, I'd really like to visit that retro arcade.  That looks really cool.  I hope it becomes a franchise and they open one near me.  

Taco Bell, and a simple but vital New Year's Resolution for 2024

 

We don't say that people "crave" cigarettes anymore; we've universally agreed that cigarettes are addictive.

We don't say that people "crave" alcohol anymore; we've come to understand that alcohol is addictive.

Let's do something for ourselves in 2024:  Let's stop using the word "crave" when describing the desire of millions of Americans to consume ultra-processed fat, carb and grease-infused life-shortening junk on a regular basis.  Let's start being more honest- and accurate- and call a spade a spade.  Americans pump 700 billion dollars a year into the Fast "Food" industry not because of low prices (the prices aren't low) and not because of quality food (the only quality here is Low.)  It's not because of convenience ("we work so hard, who has time to cook?") and it's not because of ignorance (if you don't know what this sludge does to your arteries, you've gone out of your way to avoid the science.)  

No, it's because the industry has invested billions in experimentation to turn the population of the world's richest nation into the fattest and unhealthiest people on the planet by getting us hooked on dopamine-releasing poison wrapped in packages which are attractive, easy to hold, quickly digestible and properly devoid of actual nutrition, assuring that we'll be back for more before we know it.  

It's not "craving."  What you hear isn't "food noise."  It isn't "hey, this is your body- we need to eat before our next scheduled meal."  It's ADDICTION.  "Intuitive Eating" is a nice, quaint idea that was possible when our diets consisted of food with few ingredients, all of them natural.  It doesn't work when most of what we eat are chemicals designed to force us back for another Hit again and again and again until we are cruising around on mobility scooters, with plastic oxygen tubes jammed up our noses, wondering if our shoes are untied (or if we are even wearing them.)

It's bad enough that Taco Bell keeps hitting us with these seizure-inducing ads showing young people having the grandest of times shoving Diabetes Helper into their stupid faces- yeah, it's amazing what young people can get away with eating- for the time being.  It's even worse that they are constantly peddling these "cravings boxes" like the sleazy guy on the corner offering a deep discount on his heroin, knowing that a steady customer is worth the bargain and at any rate you've got to soak him for everything he's got while he's still young- because he ain't getting old.  Not on the stuff you are pushing to satisfy those "cravings."  But then, you aren't concerned with your customers getting old- as long as they live long enough to pass their HABIT on to the next generation.  And judging from what I see in the world outside my house, you are accomplishing this goal only too well.  

I just needed a 15th Anniversary Commercial, and this one has a song, so....

 

'twas fifteen years ago

I started on my quest

to watch a lot of tv ads

I gave myself no rest

I had to find out for myself

if anyone shared my thought

that 99 percent of all the spots

were giving us all brain rot

I figured in a while

I'd run out of spots to mock

of commercials that just made me ill

and suffer from writer's block

but slowly it started to dawn on me

that no matter how long I waited

the ads, they just got worse and worse

the pain, it never abated

in fact, as hard as it was to believe

the stench it only got stronger

as the decade closed my sanity took its leave

or surely would not last much longer

Well, today it's been fifteen years 

and now I've accepted my fate

with burning eyes and bleeding ears

I know its now too late

to start a blog starring the cats 

(which in fact I don't live with me)

or recipes for food I don't cook

or political commentary

So here's to another fifteen years

with Fansville, Lilly and Flo

with Peyton and Pat Mahomes

raking in the dough

with Jamie Foxx and Kevin Hart

selling you a dream

they make gambling look so much fun

it makes me want to scream

and Auld Lang Syne to FTX

and scams that came before

they've been replaced but not forgot

by the newly christened poor

there won't be another fifteen years

(It isn't me who'll go)

as commercial tv joins the heap

with print news and radio. 

All this being said- today really is the 15th Anniversary of this blog.  Thanks for reading, please subscribe if you really enjoy it!