And you thought those Volt Owners were full of themselves

Look, I am very careful about what I eat.  I'm a nut for whole grains, don't touch alcohol or cigarettes, and eat very, very little meat.  I get a lot of mileage out of snarking on Golden Corral, Denny's, KFC and the other purveyors of low cost, but essentially poisonous, crap.   So I'm not going to go after the product itself here, though frankly I've never eaten a Kashi product that didn't taste like a handful of Rice Krispies, twigs and nuts held together by honey.

But I can't give this commercial a pass.  Seriously, the Pretension meter broke ten seconds in (around the time where Whistful Obvious Pregnant Woman starts staring thoughtfully out the window.)  Sorry, but the Kashi Will Save The World imagery is just a little over the top, don't you think?

I mean, I think it's great to encourage the Fattest People on Earth to eat sensibly- and to consume more unprocessed foods and less warm, meat-and-white-flour crud- but could the good folks at Kashi PLEASE get the hell over themselves already?  This is a commercial for a line of products pitched primarily to yuppies who want to show well for their neighbors- never mind that most kids would undoubtedly prefer real fruits, veggies and whole grains to the bizarre combinations the mad scientists at Kashi manage to come up with.  So please don't try to sell me on the idea that you are simultaneously re-inventing the wheel and saving the planet, ok?

Nissan Presents the customer of their dreams

Or should I say "the stupid, overeager, Was Never Taught How to Buy a Car customer of their dreams."  Because man is this woman ever dumb, dumb dumb.

She practically sprints from the showroom to the lot, leaving a panting (and probably drooling, with cash signs replacing his pupils) "salesman" in her wake.  She knows all about the cars, and she knows exactly which one she wants.  She knows about the current deal, and she loves that, too.  If she knows how to do the paperwork, the "salesman" is completely superfluous here.  Except, he'll get the credit for the sale and the commission.  For keeping up with this idiot woman, I guess.

What this poor customer really, really needed in her life was someone to explain to her how to go about buying a car without getting fleeced.  You don't rush into the dealership with a manic Please Please Please Sell Me Something Right Now Show Me Where to Sign I Don't Care How Much it Costs demented look on your face.  You look disinterested, maybe a little bored, and your attitude is Maybe I'm Open to buying a car today, but Probably Not.  In other words, you look at what this dope does- and do the opposite.

Oh, and if your busy schedule permits, you take a test drive.  This woman looks like she may well just drive off and forget to leave the freaking paperwork for another day, she's in such a massive hurry to be parted with her money.  Moron.

On the other hand, if this is how it normally works at car dealerships, man do I have the wrong job.  Because this looks like a sweet deal, no heavy lifting.  In fact, every car commercial looks like this- customers literally knocking each other over to hand their money to the dealership, grinning like idiots at all the bells and whistles.  I get that the car companies would love for all of us to act like this clueless mope.  And maybe some of us do.  Me?  I was just walking past and thought I'd pop in to enjoy the air conditioning.   Not really interested in purchasing today.  Unless you can offer me something really amazing, and even then it's not likely.  But give it a shot, I dare you.

An Xfinity commercial seen, but not heard, is still a painful experience

Can someone explain to me the look of triumph on this woman's face at the conclusion of this pointless little nub of a commercial?

But before you do that, could you explain to me why this woman feels compelled to compete with her next door neighbor in what seems to be some kind of contest to achieve superior "entertainment" with her electronic gadgets?  Why does she care so much that she can download brain-numbing television, movies, etc. etc. slightly faster than the guy she seems to be stalking across the street?

But before you do THAT, can you explain to me why these houses have been placed on exaggerated Monster Truck wheels, and why they end up taking part in some kind of "race," complete with screaming hick fans?

(I watched this commercial without sound.  If I had actually listened to it, would it make more sense?  Would I hate this woman's fist-pump at the conclusion a little less?)

Never mind explaining the stuff I mentioned above.  I'd settle for an answer to this question- why, several decades ago, did a number of women go through nine months of illness and discomfort followed by hours of pain just to produce the witless maggots who would grow up to write this horse crap?  Because they knew it would give me a headache, even without sound?

And I'm not even going to bother to ask if there are really people out there who measure happiness in the number of electronic devices they can watch junk on.  Because I know there are.  And it's really sad.  Not as sad as equating watching television with "winning," however.

Could Subway please torpedo these ads, right now?

Ok, so puns are not my thing.  I never said they were.

But please, Subway, enough with the dickwad adults and the oversized sandwiches and ESPECIALLY enough with fake "kid" voices and attitudes.  First of all, this simply doesn't work- adults already act like stupid kids in every other ad for every other product.  These commercials would make exactly the same amount of sense if the people in them just spoke normally.   Adults in commercials routinely talk and act like rude pricks with zero respect for personal space or property, haven't you been paying attention at all?

I guess not, because you also haven't noticed that kids do not speak as if they've spent the last hour huffing on helium-filled balloons.  I don't know what planet you are from, where kids have voices like the ones "humorously" used in your ads.  But could you please go back?  Like, now?

And only on television would it be even remotely plausible that a coworker would just steal someone else's massive sandwich and eat it in the open, without the least concern about being caught.  You know, at least in previous ads, you had the sandwiches being snatched by manipulative women (with little girl voices, to up the creepy factor) who pretended to want to be "friends" with the pathetic guys who bought them.  But now you've got grown men swiping lunch from other grown men.  Unless you are implying that these guys are actually crushing on each other and the lunch theft thing is a juvenile, passive-aggressive way of making contact, this is really bizarre and stupid.

No, I take that back.  This is really bizarre and stupid even if that was your intention.  Honestly, I didn't think it was possible that you idiots could make me miss Jerad, but a few more of these ads might just do it.

All is forgiven if they burn up during re-entry

Know what the worst thing is about these commercials?

It's not the ridiculous display of pointless, showy bells and whistles nobody with two brain cells to rub together would ever actually need.  Use, yes- but not NEED.   Hey, Lincoln?  The reason why most cars don't come with all this crap is because they AREN'T space vehicles.   And they aren't going to BECOME space vehicles, no matter how much fragile crap you jam into them.

It's not the graphics- I'm used to dumb graphics dominating all commercials these days, and at least ads for Lincoln don't show the damn things pushing buggies up sand dunes or saving passenger jets from crashing.

No, the worst thing about commercials for Lincoln, Audi, Lexus etc. is the strongly implied message that people who can afford to buy such cars really ought to be given their own lanes along with them, if not their own highways.  Because really, where the hell do we, the great unwashed masses with our Hondas and Toyotas and Volkswagens, get off being on the same road with these Better Cars for Better People?  At the very least, we should have the good sense to get the hell out of the way when our Betters are trying to pass us with their Well Equipped Superiormobiles. 

Eventually- once every highway in the United States has been privatized- I'm sure that this sad situation will be rectified, and the pampered class will have those exclusive lanes and highways, so they can cruise along at 110 MPH while adjusting their seat temperature and chatting with their brokers without worrying about one us yokels getting in the way.   When that happens, the Professional Driver Closed Course Do Not Attempt disclaimers can be yanked and it will be all gravy for the One Percent.  As if it isn't already.

Off to Hersheypark!

My June Ritual:

1.  Grade Advanced Placement Essays in Louisville, Kentucky for six days.
2.  Come back to the DC area and give my students their final exams.
3.  Get my report cards and other paperwork done, and say goodbye to school for the summer.
4.  Take in a few Orioles games with my niece, then head to Vermont via Hersheypark.

This morning, I'm off to Hersheypark for the eighth straight year.  I'll spend two days walking from one ride to another, holding my niece's purse and soda as she goes on all of them, several times.  The only ride I go on is the one in Chocolate World- the one with the singing cows and the free sample when you are done.  After the insane g-forces of that wild ride, I'm pretty much spent, and spend the rest of the day recovering.  My niece has a stronger constitution (she's the only person I know who is younger than I am ;>) ) and is just getting started after the Chocolate Ride.  Ah to be even younger again....

This is a nice, family-friendly place, and the crowds are never too intense.  The people are friendly and the price is reasonable and the noise level is more than acceptable, even to a curmudgeon like me.  I need a new lapel pin, and I need to get a certain someone a souvenir, and I need to buy my dad some sugar-free chocolates, but otherwise it's just a lot of walking around watching people being happy.  Which I kind of like, in small doses.

The only reason I'm posting this is to let everyone know that I'll be away for a while- we expect to detour to Mystic, Connecticut to check out the Maritime Museum after we leave Hersheypark on Wednesday morning, and should arrive at my boyhood home in Vermont very early Thursday morning.   So enjoy the week, everybody, and look for my next post on Thursday.  I'll be having fun at the Sweetest Place on Earth :>).

Skinnygirl, Pizza, and a society which still has a long way to go

Here are two ads I saw BACK TO BACK while watching a high-quality movie on cable Sunday afternoon.

Well ok, actually it was Blue Lagoon: The Awakening, on Lifetime.  Look, there was nothing else on, ok?  And I was cleaning, so it was more like "listening to background noise" than "watching."

The first commercial is obviously aimed at America's female population.  A skeletal model-type with pipe-cleaner arms, sunken cheeks and pronounced cheekbones (seriously, she's just screaming "FEED ME") sends a shout out to all her sisters who have made a line of alcohol products called "Skinnygirl" a success (I wish I was kidding.  I wish this had turned out to be a parody.  I really do.)  These alcohol products are low-calorie, so women who like to drink can continue to do so without worrying that they might gain weight and therefore be unattractive to the highly selective Males.   So we have a breakthrough in alcohol technology.  Now all we need is a breakthrough in stupid, sexist "when it comes to women, less is more" technology.

The second commercial is obviously aimed at America's male population.  It's an ad for take-out pizza.  No, the pizza is not low-carb, low-fat, or low-anything else.  In fact, it comes with cheese sticks and dipping sauce.  There's no mention of calorie counts, and why should there be?  Men don't worry about stuff like that.   We can be as disheveled, unshaven, slovenly and soft as we want.

Skinny?  That's for the chicks.

Maybe I'm being a bit oversensitive here.  But it strikes me that in the year 2012, we should be able to do a little better than this.  Do we REALLY need to continue the hideous, destructive message that women are more attractive if they cast a smaller shadow?  Would it be so horribly wrong to show women drinking the same damn alcoholic beverages as guys do, and maybe even scarfing down a few slices of pizza along with them?

Would it be so damned awful if every woman in every commercial featuring food didn't look like she was a prototype for the next Barbie doll (there's a Katniss Everdeen barbie now, which I find especially heartbreaking; it's cool to be a tough survivor and a huntress, girls, but it's even cooler if you can fit into slinky outfits and turn the heads of the boys.)  We almost elected a female President four years ago- but women can't drink the same vodka as the guys because if they do, they might not be stick figures who could make SI's Swimsuit Issue?

What the hell is the matter with us?