Quick Tips about Buying Trucks! And Pardon the Exclamation Points!

1.  If you find yourself chattering excitedly with the salesperson about the truck you just took on a test drive, try to remind yourself that only one of you is being asked to commit to shelling out $30,000 or more over the next four years to pay for it!!

2.  In the same vein- try to remember that the guy you are getting all giddy with over the stupid truck will be making a commission if he can translate your childish excitement over buying a showy ManMobile into your actual purchase of said machine!!

3.  Meanwhile, try to remember that if you actually took this truck on a Test Drive through a shallow stream, kicking up enough rocks and dirt to cover it with 1/8th inch of mud, that mud is hiding scratches and maybe even a few dents!  And since in your heart of hearts you know you'll never actually being doing this with a truck again, maybe you'd like to demand a brand-new, unscuffed truck instead of the one you just damaged!!

Or maybe you are just so determined to prove yourself another Alpha Male to the Total Stranger Salesguy You Will Probably Never See Again that you'll slather mud all over your hand before you use it to shake on the deal, and you'll insist that the mud stays on the truck until you drive it off the lot, already worth at least a grand less than what you paid for it!!!  In which case, you probably won't pay the slightest attention to the tips I've listed above!!  Ok, I tried!!

No matter how you look at it, nobody condescends and panders like Verizon

This commercial shows nothing more effectively than the willingness of camera-hungry idiots to subject themselves to pandering crap in order to score a few moments of screen time.  The Verizon spokeschoad here does everything but use hand puppets to make his blindingly obvious point- that according to Verizon, no phone company offers more coverage than Verizon.

He starts off with a graph and asks the eager focus group if they are capable of reading it.  Somewhat surprisingly, they all are.  Or at least, they all do a pretty good job faking it.  Then he shows basically the same chart, presenting the same material from a different angle.  Not only do they get it, but they are starting to get the joke, too- they are being spoon-fed Verizon-approved data in a pedantic, ponderous and painfully self-serving package which would make Rachel Maddow proud.

Anyway, this insulting mess ends with one of the participants actually speaking up and giving us the closest we are going to get to "ok, we get it, shut up now."  "It doesn't matter how you present the figures...." well, quite right.  And the fact that Verizon thinks it does shows us that

A)  Verizon thinks we are really, really stupid and doesn't mind letting us know that it thinks this way, or

B)  Verizon thinks that it's superiority is so obvious to anyone with the IQ of a dung beetle, it's a little pissed that it even had to make this ad.

Samsung continues to make this just way too easy

Some of us destroy zombies, some of us just feed them.  And some of us just Are Them.

And sometimes, the punchlines just write themselves.

Since there's really nothing else to add, I'll throw in two points that occurred to me on third viewing:  First, these chuckleheaded overgrown children are playing their pointless, witless little zombie game while sitting in a public place- and neither are using headphones or even earbuds.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again- when are people with portable radios or these idiot boxes ever going to re-activate that tiny, shriveled-from-lack-of-exercise part of their brain which governs consideration for other people?

Second, I'm not a big fan of violence on television, but if the guy here wants to slap the meddling old woman across the skull after she makes her unsolicited comment, that would be fine with me.  Totally different opinion if she wasn't also playing with her phone- if she were reading a book, or just sitting quietly, attempting to enjoy a little solitude but unable to do so because these two infants were blathering about their dumbass game, I'd say she was completely justified in speaking up.  But not if she's just f--ing around with her own brain cell vampire.  Since that is what we see her doing here, feel free to slug away, buddy.  Then go invest in a brand new phone, tossing aside the one you have now, which was perfectly functional until you realized you couldn't use it to win at zombie games.

"I like to win."  At video games played on your phone.  Mom and Dad must be Uber-proud.

"Moron" just doesn't cut it here, but I'm pretty tired, so I'll just leave it at that.

How sick does this make me, GEICO? I'm so glad you asked....

You get the idea that the suits over at GEICO got sick of someone's complaining about the stupid lizard, the insipid cavemen, and all the rest of the army of spokeschoad gimmicks that make up the company's advertising strategy.  (No, this does NOT mean that I am taking responsibility for this latest atrocity.)  So they decided to unleash this horror on us- a potentially unlimited basket of "Happier Than ..." commercials guaranteed to leave us constantly diving for the remote roughly 800 times per NFL game and at the conclusion of every inning.

Over at GEICO, the guy who came up with this campaign (burn in hell) is being congratulated for making it possible for anyone over the age of eight and the brain power required to tie his shoelaces to "create" a GEICO commercial without even trying (as if this weren't the case already.)  Think you aren't going to see eighty or ninety "How Happy is that, Jimmy?' commercials over the next two or three years?  How long have you been an incurable optimist?

Our only real hope now is that the company goes under in the Depression of 2013, which I am now rooting for.  Because I can live with 25% unemployment and soup kitchens.  Stupid ugly dicks picking at banjos and bleating terrible "punchlines?"  I'm not sure.

Oh, and BTW, GEICO- nobody under the age of forty knows who the hell Gallagher is, and nobody over the age of forty gives a damn.  I know you don't care, but I thought I'd let you know, anyway.

The word "No" would work here, too, Samsung.

Right off the bat- do you believe for one minute that this group of disgustingly rude camera hogs- the black guy, the fat white guy, the Asian chick, and the rest- are actually friends?  I'm sorry, but I can't imagine why these people would be standing on this pier, or anywhere else, together.  This is a problem created by the world of Advertising Political Correctness.  It would be much more realistic if the group were five teen-aged girls,* but we can't have that because someone, somewhere would angrily complain that...ummm, that....ummm, something.**

Ok, let's set that point aside and pick up another one- exactly what is preventing the "victim" here from telling this group "you know what? I think that's enough photos for now- I'm in kind of a hurry?"  That's if he wants to be polite.  He could also go with "sorry, but I can't stand here all day taking pictures of you idiots making asses of yourselves."  But if he's going to be a dishrag willing to be jerked around by half a dozen idiots he doesnt' even know, I don't see how he has any business rolling his eyes or mentally bitching about it.   Hey, buddy- you aren't being a martyr here.  You are just being a spineless loser and if you don't grow a backbone, you'd better get used to being treated like this.

And I really don't get the commercial's punchline at all- apparently, the message is that if everyone just gets these new Samsung phones, innocent bystanders won't be put out by constant demands for group photos.  But the people in this ad get all their photos.  Wouldn't this make more sense if the jogging guy refused to accommodate their insatiable demand for photos, and the group couldn't find anyone else to take more than one photo, so were, ummm.....stuck having to deal with the painfully complicated problem of sending that photo to the other phones?

As near as I can tell, this is the embedded message of this ad- it's a pain when a group of people keep asking the same guy to take multiple photos with different phones.  The solution- everyone gets a Samsung Galaxy III phone, so one picture can be shared among all the phones.  But the Samsung-less people here aren't suffering- so why are they investing in expensive new phones?

Oh and BTW, if the posing pustules are going to demand a hundred photos, how does using one camera help the hostage taking the pictures, anyway?  "Ok, stand there for the next twenty minutes taking pictures of us doing stupid things.  It's more convenient now, because you can keep using the same phone."  Um, what?

*Please don't attack me for using teen-aged girls as an example.  I've been a High School teacher for 18 years, and I've been on enough field trips to know all about which groups of people like multiple photos taken.   I've experienced the joy of standing in place with a camera in my hand and half a dozen lying at my feet.  But those were CAMERAS.  If you can send photos from phone to phone already, why do you need phones that can instantly share the photo through touching? It just makes my head hurt.

**I like the way the Group that is Superior Because They Have Samsung Phones twenty yards away on the same pier is just as diverse as the group with cameras- black girl, white blonde girl, Guy of Uncertain Ethnicity, Scruffy Fat White Guy.  Maybe I just live in the wrong part of the country, but around these parts, people simply do not travel in bands like this.

Of MommyWife, Creepy Husband, and Cold Cuts

Anyone else have a hard time buying the idea that this glowing-white, dust-free, polished-to-gleaming house comes with a SHED?  Seriously, this woman must have an army of Guatemalan wage slaves working ten hours a day, picking up lint with tweezers.  Weird.

I generally don't like the "MommyWife as Disciplinarian" bit, but it does become easier to take when the guy is depicted as a totally clueless, "I'd be in jail or dead in five minutes without you hon" doofus, like this guy is.  No, adding the girl you hire to babysit your kids as a Facebook Friend is not a good idea.  Most adult males get this on their own (not all.)  But it's probably a good thing that he ran it past MommyWife first.

(Most adult males who are interested in being "Friends" with their kids' babysitter won't run it past MommyWife, seems to me.  So I at least give this guy that much.)

And no, those jeans don't work for you, buddy.  Again, this is something you should have been able to figure out yourself- but heck, I guess that's why you picked out this particular MommyWife.  You needed someone to guide you away from stupid decisions because somehow you never acquired this skill on your own.  Which begs the question- why did MommyWife pick YOU?  Oh yeah- there's that big, gleaming house.

Naturally, the ad ends with kind of a fail- Having prevented her husband from inaugurating an inappropriate relationship with the babysitter or buying way-too-tight jeans (think there might be a Mid-Life Crisis brewing here?) she proceeds to give her thumbs-up to packaged cold cuts.  Preservatives or No Preservatives, those things are filled with salt and fat, not to mention being just about the most expensive way imaginable to buy meat.  But she says Yes.  Which leads me to believe that maybe MommyWife has had enough of doofus creepy husband.  I bet the "I want to get to know the babysitter better" thing was the tipping point.

Samsung gives me a brilliant idea for a Bond Movie

I'm a reclusive multi-billionaire with an irrational hatred of civilization.  Despite my many houses, private jets, gorgeous secretaries and army of minions, my principal goal is to wreck frightful havoc on the population.  I don't really have a motive- but if Barbara Brocolli and Michael Wilson insist, I want another billion dollars or I'll carry out my evil master plan, I swear I will.

Here's my master plan:  I've created a cell phone with a feature so repulsive, so antisocial, so downright rage-inducing that using it will trigger massive, uncontrollable violence whenever it is used.   This device will allow the phone's owners to seize control of television screens in bars and at sporting events, and to project any image they want on to those screens.

Now, I know that society's ability to absorb the stunningly thoughtless, selfish actions of electronics-armed asshats has been repeatedly tested over the years, and may seem to have no limits.  We've moved on from personal stereos that leak "music" throughout buses and subway cars to ridiculously loud ringtones followed by even louder "personal" conversations to streaming video accompanied by even more noise.  Not to mention the ubiquitous Bluetooth blathering and zombie texting during what is supposed to be a date and you are supposed to be talking to me, the person who bought the lunch you aren't eating, not whoever is at the other end of the phone....

Sorry, rant over. Back to my post.

I'm convinced that my evil new device is the proverbial straw that snaps the camel's back.  Unless I get that billion dollars, I'm going to drop several thousand of my phones over every major city in the United States, where they will be picked up and used by every witless jerk who will instantly think that they are the Coolest Things Ever, until they are righteously pounded into slushy pudding by people who were just trying to watch the game or carry on a quiet conversation (I think this still happens, somewhere.)

Better yet, I won't drop them randomly on to every major city.  I'll make a commercial and sell the damn things.  That way I'll get a billion dollars and instead of being labeled an evil megalomaniac, I'll be interviewed on MSNBC as an innovative genius.