Let the station do all the "Playing"

Remember when the park was the Best Place to Play?

Remember when it was the woods, or the beach, or the batting cages or the local baseball diamond?

Remember when, a night or two every year, it was the county fair?

Remember when it was the hill behind your house on the weekends and during those magical times called Snow Days?

Well, now that it's the 21st century, the Best Place to Play is the couch in the Room Where The TV Is.

Enjoy your atrophied brains, obesity and juvenile diabetes, you morons.  The sun is still shining, the parks are still there, and on snow days that hill still beckons.  Not that you give a damn.

What the hell, Allstate?

Ok, as near as I can figure, here is the story behind this ad-

Once upon a time- all the way back in 1971, in fact- this guy was in an Allstate Commercial for a few seconds.  Some years later, this guy died.  Even more years later, one of his kids became engaged to be married, and another one of his kids decided "hey, it's really sad that dad isn't here to share this very special day so wouldn't it be cool if we could find that Allstate Commercial he was in back in 1971 and show it to everyone before the wedding?"

Because nobody in this family has any common sense or taste, nobody said "well, actually, no, because while we all miss Dad and everything, the day is going to be about the couple actually getting married and it's supposed to be joyous- not sure how showing a grainy, washed out old commercial featuring Dad shilling for insurance before the ceremony is going to do anything except detract from the reason we're all together. 

I mean, we all miss Dad and wish he could be here.  I want to make it clear that I totally understand that.  But we've got old home movies featuring Dad we could show.  We could, and certainly will, spend at least some of the day reflecting on our best memories featuring Dad.  Are you suggesting that we should try to replace all that with a ten-second clip of Dad in an Allstate Commercial?"

Nobody said that.  So while other people were doing things like arranging catering and fittings and booking the church and renting the hall and sending invitations and doing all those things that are normally part of the preparation for weddings (I assume.  I was just a groom after all, I didn't do any of that stuff.  I just showed up) this woman was writing to Allstate and asking the company to find a copy of the old Cheesy 70s Commercial With Dad Wearing Ugly Clothing.  And because of her exhaustive efforts to carry out her plan to do this rather pointless thing that no one had the guts to tell her was pretty stupid and kind of a waste of time, everyone got to spend a few minutes of the wedding day pretending to appreciate a rather maudlin look at Dear old Dad, and then pretended to laugh because Hey Her Heart was in the Right Place.

But don't tell me that the message of this ad is anything larger than "Allstate is totally shameless when it comes to pretending to care about it's customers, especially when an eight-second YouTube search can find the video clip one of those customers desperately wants to see for some reason, and when Allstate can later use it in a modern commercial."  Because I'm not buying it.

Hope this family enjoyed the trip down memory lane, though, and that it didn't put too much of a pall on what was supposed to be a happy event.  Sort of.  Actually, I don't care.  Don't have to be nice, just have to be honest.

Oh give me a break, NFL

None of these coaches needed to go "undercover."  Not one person in 10,000 has the slightest idea what they look like, and even less care.

Hell, they could walk around wearing name tags and nobody would know who they were.  We'd all just be wondering why they were wearing name tags.

What kind of insane ego trip is this?  Nobody is watching football to see the coaches!  I mean, I might recognize one or two NFL quarterbacks on the street.  I MIGHT recognize Bill Bellichick.  That's it.  THESE guys?  Come on!

Hyundai and Red Sox Nation can go to hell in the same car wreck

I'm a Red Sox fan.  I am NOT a member of "Red Sox Nation," because "Red Sox Nation" is a cheap marketing gimmick created by the current owners of the team in order to sell more caps and jerseys.  I am not buying in, and neither should any Red Sox fan whose support for the team predates 2004.

I am a proud Pre-2004 Red Sox fan.  NOT a member of "Red Sox Nation."  So we've got that out of the way...

The people in this ad, the people who wrote this ad, and the people who put this ad on television should all be locked into a room and forced to listen to this ad until they go insane (or ten minutes, whichever comes first.)  In real life, I'd like to see both of these shmucks dragged out of their car and beaten to death by Yankees fans.  They'd totally deserve it.

I bet neither of these idiots were Red Sox fans before 2004.  They probably own red and pink caps and jerseys with their own names stitched on the back.  The very first Sox t-shirt they ever owned was the one which said "2004 World Series Champions."  They are disgusting posers and I don't want to see them on my tv anymore.  How do I know they are posers?  Well, this may seem repetitive, but- only posers would sing this god-awful Neil Diamond song because the corporate overlords of Fenway told them to during the 7th inning stretch- and only pond scum uber-posers would sing it at top volume in their freaking cars (the freaking cars that I hope they are soon dragged out of and beaten to death by Yankees fans.)

Amazon's interesting take on Honest Reviews

Your review could not be posted. Thanks for submitting a customer review on Amazon. Your review could not be posted to the website in its current form. While we appreciate your time and comments, reviews must adhere to the following guidelines: http://www.amazon.com/review-guidelines

from John F. Jamele on September 21, 2017 Came in three parts, no instructions and after struggling ... Came in three parts, no instructions and after struggling for a while couldn't figure out how to put it together and will be returning then (I bought two to "save money on shipping"- doesn't save me any money if I have to send them back.) I see I am the second customer of the 12 to review this item with this problem. Seems to me that sending instructions would be more helpful than just replying "sorry, return it," especially when you are selling an item specificially to people with mobility issues.

We encourage you to revise your review and submit it again. A few common issues to keep in mind: Your review should focus on specific features of the product and your experience with it. Feedback on the seller or your shipment experience should be provided at www.amazon.com/feedback. We do not allow profane or obscene content. This applies to adult products too. Advertisements, promotional material or repeated posts that make the same point excessively are considered spam. Please do not include URLs external to Amazon or personally identifiable content in your review. "Your review should focus on specific features of the product and your experience with it." I explained how it came in pieces and I was unable to assemble it. Check. "We do not allow profane or obscene content."  Nor did I include any.  Check.  "Advertisements, promotional material or repeated posts that make the same point excessively are considered spam."  Didn't include any of this.  Check. "Please do not include URLs external to Amazon or personally identifiable content in your review."  Check. Someone please tell me how my review violated Amazon's guidelines.  Or just assure me that I am not crazy in suspecting that Amazon has decided that poor reviews are simply not going to be made visible to potential customers because Amazon doesn't make money unless people buy the stuff advertised on it's site.

Ameriprise: Be Brilliantly Entitled

Oh please spare me the wistful musings of entitled rich white people who, having experienced a life which would seem like a magical fairy tale to 99.9 percent of the planet, "finally" get to start living their real dreams thanks to their financial counselors.

Check out this woman.  She's been "fortunate" that her work has allowed her to travel around the world, in the process aquiring artifacts from interesting, exotic and very, very poor nations which she can then display on her 12-foot walls (I can hear the dinner party conversations already- "Oh yes, I picked that one up in Kenya, it's hand-painted teakwood, I think the woman with five starving children asked three dollars but I got her down to $1.25, you know me and my nose for bargains!"

But now, she's done with all that traveling (she looks like she may be pushing 60, after all- what, is she expected to work forever?) and because she's managed to sock so much money away (see the previous paragraph) she can start Living for Herself (she comes pretty close to telling the audience that she sees this as Giving Back, but I guess even she wasn't capable of getting those words past her lips without gagging, so she uses "sharing" instead.)  So she's opening a Bed and Breakfast (the most cliche'd dream of Upper Class white people who are afraid that not enough of us lessers realize how awesomely huge and beautiful their house is- not enough dinner parties...) so she can show off her foreign bauble collection and not incidentally continue to make money as she rides her wings of self-important douchery into old age.

Here's hoping that nobody shows up to stay at her mansion full of appropriated culture artifacts and that she spends the last few years of her ridiculously pampered life sitting on her wraparound porch sipping herbal tea and petting the cat who is the only creature on the planet she hasn't bored into insanity with her pretentious blather.  Which was probably Plan B anyway.

Dr Pepper, Redefining Sad

Even if I were willing to pretend that this fat, loud, disgusting blowhard is carrying around ten pounds or more of Dr Pepper instead of a tray of empty cups, I would never be able to get past the fact that if Larry The Moron Dr Pepper Choad really did work at some stadium he'd have the easiest job on the planet, because nobody in the history of sports held in stadiums has ever, EVER purchased a Dr Pepper from a vendor.   Sorry.  Meanwhile, the guy selling beer doesn't have time to shmooze and bleat slogans at the fans- because he's too busy actually selling beer.

I'd say that this guy has the easiest job on the planet except for two things:  First, Toyota Jan has that gig already.  Second, staving off suicide on a daily basis must tax this guy's energy way more than walking around hawking soda nobody wants to drink.