If I had money, I'd start hoarding diet soda, because I suspect that it's going away....

There are days when I think that I really don't have enough friends.  Then I watch commercials like these and think "If I had more friends, they might be like this."  And then I realize, I have plenty of friends, and attempting to expand my base of friends is just too risky.

As to this commercial- I don't get the logic being used here.  "If you can pack this much drama into ten seconds, then yes we can pack this much flavor into ten calories...?" Huh?  I like Diet 7 Up.  I think it's always had one calorie.  I can't see how adding another 9 calories is going to add a lot of flavor, or why I'd want a lot more flavor anyway.  Come to think of it, I like Diet Coke too, and that also has one calorie.  I don't like Coke Zero, because it tastes too much like Tab (actually it tastes exactly like Tab, which means it tastes like diet soda tasted back in the 60s, when they didn't know how to make diet soda yet- jeesh, they had chocolate diet soda back then. I can still taste it.)  Isn't my life interesting?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the trend of adding a few calories to Diet Soda- in fact, I should be more surprised that it took so long, since we've been adding fat, salt and sugar to pretty much everything else for decades now.  Portions have been getting bigger, burgers have been getting greasier, and we seem obsessed with finding new places to stick more empty calories.  Double Stuff Oreos seem downright quaint.

So welcome to the show, diet soda.  Why do I suspect that in a few years, the average can will have about 70 calories and will come with a hot buttered biscuit or at least a bag of Fritos?

Warning: This Chevy Ad may be used to induce vomiting

1.  Rugged, unshaven Manly Man who wears a cowboy hat and lives on ranch equipped with barn: Check.

2.  Hokey, cliche'd country music song about lovin' one woman and one dog and one truck and don' what needs to be done and bein' proud to be an Amerikun and shoutin' somethin' or another from the mountainside:  Check.

3.  Shots of sunsets and Real Western Landscapes and Trucks bouncin' along said landscapes and kickin' up dirt:  Check

4.  Generic Hallmark Movie Family sittin' in truck bed starin' over cliff while hokey, cliche'd country music song comes to merciful end:  Check.

5.  More shots of truck haulin' and pullin' with chains 'cause that's what maybe 1 percent of people who actually buy these trucks do with them (the other 99 percent don't haul anything other than kids and groceries and don't maneuver anything more challanging than the speed bumps in front of Hunter's preschool)- Check.

Does the final product look like a Re-Elect Reagan ad from 1984?  Does it look like you could switch out all the dialogue and use it to sell Viagra?  Then you've got yourself a truck commercial, son.  Congratulations.  Go pop yourself a beer an' sit by the fire an' swap stories while gettin' a good scorch on steaks the size of saddle blankets.

Dominos Health Insurance doesn't cover repetitive stress injuries- oh, did we forget to tell you that?

I couldn't find it on YouTube (if I do in the future, I'll replace this clip with the actual ad) but anyone who has watched any football or baseball this fall knows that Dominos is running an ad "celebrating" the fact that one of it's underpaid minions is actually taking pride in the fact that he can give himself carpal tunnel syndrome in the service of his corporate masters (I really like the "pretty good" this guy gets from the choad with the stopwatch- excuse me, iPhone with stopwatch app.  Warms the heart.

Seriously- Advanced Box Folding For The Cameras has become something of a fad for the Dominos ad people, and you can bet they couldn't be happier.  "Look, everybody- our Pizza Artists make minimum wage and work rotating shifts and are learning no skills that will make them more marketable in other endeavors that DO pay better- but check out how fast they can make boxes, ain't it cool?"

Maybe they should ad sound effects- like a whip cracking, or a manager warning "hey, Bob in third shift makes boxes faster than you are-- and he's got a cousin looking for work...just sayin'......"

But in the meantime, let's all "enjoy" watching Dominos employees working for slave wages frantically proving to the Boss that he really doesn't have to invest in that automated box-folding machine 'cause See I Can Go Faster I Promise.   Or rather, you all feel free to enjoy it.  I'll be too busy mourning the death of shame at the hands of Capitalism.  Again.

Which of these ads is more offensive?*

If you were a kid watching the Orioles-Tigers game this afternoon, you were treated to both of these ads, sometimes back-to-back, at least half a dozen times over the course of just about three hours.

I'm no prude, but if I were a dad watching the game with my son, I'd be pretty irritated that I was being compelled to jump for the damn remote if I didn't want my kid being inundated with mental images of guys achieving (or failing to achieve) erections, their drug of choice being Viagra or a LookAtMeMobile.

This kind of crap makes me long for beer and Be A Man Drive A Truck commercials.  Ugh.

*As it turned out, neither of these ads was the most offensive part of TBS' presentation of the playoff game.  That honor goes to it's decision to go right to an episode of American Dad instead of the postgame press conference.  Way to keep it cheap, TBS.  Tools.

Yeah because your life looks so exhausting as it is. ...

I'm going to assume that the guy in this ad who is asking Google* something is at the zoo with his family; how depressing is it that he thinks it would be "the life" to sleep 18-22 hours a day?

I mean, seriously?  You'd actually want to do that?  Low T much?

*To get an answer from Google, do you really have to start by saying "Ok, Google?"  Does that activiate the search engine, or what?  I've said it before and I'll say it again- I really hate this century.

Oh good, 'cause I wasn't dying fast enough!

Not only did I not think that this qualified as "big news," I was actually kind of surprised that Pizza Hut hadn't already been stuffing bacon into the crust.  I mean, it seems a pretty obvious idea to me.

I also don't get why it's a big deal because we've always been able to get pizza with bacon as a topping.  Why is stuffing it into the crust an improvement- all it means is that it's harder to pick out once you remember that Oh My God This Is Poison I Don't Want To Eat This What Was I Thinking?

And I guess I'm supposed to know who the spokeschoad is- this Youtube posting has his name and everything.  But- I don't have a clue.  Oh well, I'll try to feel bad about it later.

(Oh, and I included the Taco Bell "I'm Ronald McDonald" Taco Bell Stuffed Greasy Crap in a Waffle Commercial just in case the first one didn't make you want to punch someone in the face, hard.  No need to thank me.)

I don't know what the little girl in this Sprint ad is complaining about

She looks to be about eight years old, maybe seven, maybe nine.  I don't know- but surely, she's old enough to know that there's no point in complaining when her parents don't use their phones to film her little recital thing because their data plan is reaching it's monthly limit.

I mean, she grew up with her parents owning cell phones.  Which means, her entire life has been spent watching her parents scrolling and texting and yakking away instead of paying attention to what she was doing.  When she took her first step, it went unnoticed because Mom was checking out text no. 146 for that day.  When she wanted her dad to watch her on the slide, she had to beg because dad was checking the football scores on his iPhone.  And she's probably seen countless near-accidents from the back seat of the SUV while the driver kept glancing at the phone instead of paying attention to traffic.   My guess is that until she was four or so she thought that people just grew phones on their hands and wondered how old she had to be before hers showed up.

In short, she's spent her entire young life with the phone as a rival for her parents' time and affection- and data minutes.  Everything she's done has been an effort to win out in the struggle for Quality Time with the phone.  I'm sure she's lost out a LOT of times before now- so why does she take not being recorded while dressed as a tree as anything but par for the course?

When I was growing up, phones were attached to cords inside the house.  In the house, sometimes my parents were interrupted by calls and I had to wait to ask for something or tell them something.  Outside was the land without phones- where my parents were my parents and they kind of had to pay attention to me because there were no IMs and no football scores and no Google to ask inane questions to- there was just me, and my siblings, and Mom, and Dad.  I can't help thinking that was better.

Oh, and when we did something like this recital?  Still shots taken on Polaroids (you may run out of film, but not Data Minutes.)  Movie cameras (same thing.)  When where they shared?  During family get-togethers.  Again, I can't help thinking that was better.

Back to this little girl: You actually do have one legitimate  complaint to make to your parents, you poor thing.  They had you too late.  If you had been born 20 years earlier, you wouldn't be in this nonstop competition with a little glowing box.  Sorry.