Wait 'til they note the spike in Brie prices at Whole Foods!

Dear Verizon,

This commercial would be slightly more believable if I could buy the idea that anyone in it really gave a damn if their cable bill went up by $20 or $50 or even $100 per month.  I mean, maybe if you showed me people living in an apartment, or a trailer, or even in an f---ing modest home and not a surburban palace (one of these guys is hosting an f--ing POOL PARTY when he gets "blindsided" by a bill increase, for crying out loud!  These people are concerned about cable bills?  Yeah, I'm so sure.)

On the other hand, I'd like to thank you for not being the company that continues to harrass me with DISH IS HOW YOU DO IT ear-bleeding crud ads.  It's not much, but I really do want to make a point of mentioning that you had nothing to do with that.

One more thing- I'd also like to thank you for feeling so threatened by DISH IS HOW YOU DO IT that you gave me a nice discount on MY cable bill just because I called and warned I might switch.  Hey, maybe I should be thanking Dish.  Not going to, though.

Peyton Manning sure has a lot of time on his hands- not to mention a lot of space for more rings.

"Does Peyton ever talk?" Yes, he is talking all the time.  He kind of has to talk, considering that he's the star of roughly 80% of all commercials running during NFL games.

The better question is "Does Peyton ever do anything else?"  And the answer is, "yes, he sure does.  Very often he likes to take a break from starring in commercials to kick back, relax, and watch Tom Brady win another Superbowl Ring."

Which leads us to one more question: "Who is Tom Brady?"  And the answer is "he's the quarterback of the New England Patriots.  You might not know much about him because he doesn't star in a lot of commercials- he leaves that to guys like Peyton Manning, and Aaron Rodgers, and other quarterbacks who don't regularly win Superbowls.  If you want to see Brady playing a starring role on your TV, you have to wait until February.  Then you'll recognize him- he's the guy holding that big trophy."

"Peyton Manning?  He's the guy shilling for pizza when the network cuts away from Brady holding that big trophy."

Another "Old People And Their Silly Problems Sure Are Silly" Commercial

aaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha....

(pause, deep breath)

AAAAAAAhahahahahahahahahhaaha!!

Full Disclosure;  My dad uses a cane.  Well, sort of- actually, he OWNS a cane which he would use more often, if he and it were ever in the same place at the same time.  But that's rarely the case- usually the cane is in the car while he's in the living room, or it's hanging on a chair in the kitchen while he's in the computer room on the other side of the house.  Sometimes it's on the tractor.  Sometimes it's hanging on a shopping cart at the store he visited earlier that day.

And his cane isn't small.  It's a full cane, which means it's more than just a handle.  So though it's always getting lost, it's also always being found.  I love the "fits easily in the glove compartment" line-- yes, of course it does.  Doesn't mean it's ever actually going to be put there.  Much more likely it's going to end up on the floor, where Gimpy Gus can't find it or reach it.

"Mom, why aren't you using that Amazing Not-Cane I got you?"  "Oh, I don't know where it is.  It's somewhere.  Maybe you could look for it if you get a chance, but it's no hurry, really."

If it was just a handle, I think it would be used once and then never seen again.  If you buy this thing for the old person in your life, better buy about a hundred of them- or put one of those tile things on it so you can use your phone to find it every fifteen minutes or so.  And I do mean YOUR phone, because your parents aren't using SmartPhones and have no idea what Apps are.

Of course, I'm being optimistic when I predict that the Amazing Cane Handle will just get lost all the time.  It's more likely it will used again and again and again, each time doing terrific damage to your parent's car as it's left in the door while it's being slammed-- again and again and again. Accompanied by loud curses.  Every single time.

BTW, if you can stand on the cane while it's attached to your car, why on Earth do you need to use one?  Seems to me that's pretty darned agile.  I don't get it.

"Um....the thing is, I'm kind of not interested in thoughtless idiots with moron friends, sorry."

1.  The guy in this ad has a lot more guts than I could ever hope to have, if he's calling the day after a date using a tablet.  The Next Day phone call is hard enough- to do it with actual, visual contact?  Pretty damned impressive.

2.  This woman is an absolute idiot to want to take this call in front of her friends.  She has no idea what this guy is going to say, first of all.  Second, is she going to let the guy know that their conversation is not private, but is being shared with her idiot friends?

3.  This guy gets a great red flag at the end, finding out exactly what kind of friends last night's date has.  Run away, buddy, run away.

Almost makes going to church seem like a good idea

How does any of this brain-dead crap contribute to society?  Between Chris "I comment on baseball for two weeks out of the year because World Series" Berman's Done To Death By The End of the 90s irritating noises schtick to Jim Crow-level shucking and jiving, this commerical just left me depressed, with a slight headache, and more determined than ever to just leave my television off until 1 PM Sundays at the very earliest.

(In fact, I am beginning to discover the joys of listening to the one game broadcast over XM/Sirius on my old non-NFL XM package as I walk.  Exercise, fresh air, and no Chris Berman or badly-disguised racism in sight.  Perfect.)

SimpliParanoid

"Your connection to emergency services can't be cut because SimpliSafe doesn't rely on landlines."

Seriously?  I thought burglars just waited for you to leave the house before breaking a window and stealing your stuff.  I didn't know that they were elite squads of terrorists who did things like cut landlines before invading and holding your family hostage.  And what good does cutting landlines do anyway in the age of cellphones?  What am I missing here?

Isn't this all about striking terror into the hearts of freakishly skittish suburban white jackasses who can't believe they own big houses, know damn well they don't deserve them, and live in a constant state of guilt that Those Other People are going to hit back hard some night in the perhaps not-to-distant future?  I mean, if you find yourself investing in a home security system that is immune to having your landline cut, you are one step away from investing in a Safe Room and Glenn Beck Collapse of Society Survival Kits.  My guess is that you've probably watched too many Die Hard movies and ought to just invite Stephen Seagal to sleep on your couch.

"In this same universe, at a time which now seems far, far away..." Walmart gets Star Wars wrong

"You see, there were these knights called Jedi.  All they needed to be Jedi was to dedicate themselves to protecting the Republic and undergo serious training at the hands of Jedi Masters.  Those Jedi Masters had a habit of insisting that the potential trainee was 'too old to begin the training' no matter how old they were, but were also proven wrong on every occassion...

"This for example allowed a simple farmboy with a lust for adventure and a yearning to find purpose in his life to become a Jedi very late in life (in his early-20s) after meeting a self-exiled Jedi Master in the desert, rescuing a princess, and completing that training with the help of another self-exiled Jedi Master, finally confronting his dark side in a climax featuring a battle with his fallen father.  In the meantime two Death Stars are destroyed, friendships are forged, and the Empire is brought down by the forces of Good."

"Afterwards, there are three horrible films you need not ever watch, and are by no means recommended unless you want what I just taught you to be totally and horribly retconned.  For example, you'd learn that determination and pluck and devotion have nothing to do with becoming a Jedi after all-- it really just depends on how many 'Miticlorions" you have in your blood.  If you don't have enough, sorry- doesn't matter how pure and big your heart is, or how sincere your determination is, you are out of the club because you don't have the right blood type.   You would also learn that in the age before the original Star Wars films technology was BETTER than it would be later, people moved and acted in a bizarre wooden manner, Jedi didn't do anything more strenuous than sitting around in semicircles pondering their own awesomeness until it was way too late to do anything else, children were called 'younglings' and R2D2 could fly (never mind that that skill would have come in handy several times during the first three movies.)"

"And never forget this important lesson, my child:  R2D2 and C3P0 do not have an 'origin story,' because machines don't need origin stories, Han Solo fired first (just as you can see on my original VHS tape, don't watch the DVD version because it's non-canonical,) and there is no such thing as a Jar Jar Binks."