Another totally relatable exercise bike ad

Before we get started- does it bother anybody else that neither of these all-glass apartments seem to have any curtains anywhere?  So the wealthy, beautiful people living in them want to live in fishbowls?  What if these apartments are ever rented to people who AREN'T physically perfect or- and I know, this is kind of a stretch in the year 2020- might actually want some privacy now and then?

Ok, on to the ad- wow, not only do these people have identical apartments each which look into the other, but they residents have both purchased identical exercise bikes which have been placed perfectly to challenge each other, and they choose to exercise at exactly the same time, logging in to the same class.  Now that is a series of convenient contrivances.*

If you thought for one moment that this ad was going to end with the guy winning, well.....you haven't watched a lot of commercials this century, have you? 

A YouTube commenter makes an observation I made the third or fourth time I watched this- as the girl leaves, she gives a little flirty shoulder twitch to the guy she "beat" as they both walk away to enjoy a little privacy in the small part of their ridiculous apartment that is not visible to the rest of the planet.  But then we get a zoom-out view in which we see her giving that same flirty shoulder twitch- is this the same scene from a different POV, or does she do it again?  Either way, it's pretty stupid.  It's like the people who made this obnoxious little nugget just wanted to remind us that these people live in ridiculous apartments.  We got it already.

*Ok, I get that these two people must know each other, otherwise they'd have no idea they were in direct competition, as their screens only show first names.  So are they coworkers who happen to live in identical buildings directly across from each other?   They didn't meet because they live in the same building- they DON'T live in the same building.  Are they dating?  I don't get that vibe- it seems to me that these two people just realized at some point that they were in the same "race" and motivated each other to work out harder.  But how did that happen?  So confused.

USPS: Check your Priorities

Look, I know the US Postal Service is under attack right now, and is under attack whenever there's been a Republican in office since the Nixon Administration.  I don't want to pile on, but I just gotta say...

When I see "Memorial Day Holiday," I note that the word "day" appears TWICE.  It doesn't say "week," and it doesn't say "days."  It's a one-day vacation for you, USPS. 

So please explain to me why I haven't seen a postal worker dropping mail off at my house at all this week.  UPS has been here.  FedEx trucks are rolling through the neighborhood.  Amazon keeps showing up.  But official, stamped mail from the US Postal Service?  Apparently, you guys are still on vacation.

Again, it's Memorial DAY.  Not DAYS.  Hope you enjoyed your barbecues which closed out your long weekend.  But it's Thursday now.  Can you start delivering mail again, please, before Independence Day arrives? 

"Lily" makes an unasked-for "return" to AT &T

1.  No, you are not "Lily from AT&T."  Your name is Milana Vayntrub.   It took a five second Google search to find that out.  Cut the crap.

2.  "Most stores are still open, but I'm working from home..." you don't work at any AT&T store.  You're a model, comedian, and actress.  You have never worked at an AT&T store, and if you ever do it's because something went horribly wrong in your career.  As it is, you're doing just fine because your income isn't derived from convincing people to trade in perfectly good phones for slightly "better" phones and signing up for long, expensive contracts which don't appear very expensive at the time because they are so long and those monthly payments look so small plus This Phone Will Really Let You Show Well For Your Friends.

3.  Nice house.  Actual employees at actual AT&T stores don't live in houses like that.  Even if they had nice apartments before the pandemic hit, my guess is that they were furnished more modestly than your house is, and that things are getting very tough for them because, frankly, AT&T doesn't need a whole lot of "work from home" sales people.

4.  Seriously, just STFU.

More fun with Copper!!

Not only does this knee sleeve thing give you "targeted pain relief," but it also has the power to "MAKE you go out and do the things you love."  Wow, that's powerful- does it come with little engines that just compel the wearer to go outside?  How does it know what the wearer loves?  Or is that just being a LITTLE hyperbolic?

My absolute favorite line in this entire commercial comes where we are told that the knee sleeve is "infused with therapeutic copper."  What the hell is "therapeutic copper?"  Why didn't the narrator say "therapeutic GRADE copper?"  Haven't the people who make all this copper crap watched enough Young Living and doTerra Essential Oils sales pitches to know the power of the nonsense phrase "therapeutic grade?"  Maybe it's trademarked?

In any case, why isn't my doctor taking me off my $6000-per-month Humira prescription and giving me an Rx for one of these Therapeutic Copper-Infused Knee Sleeves instead?  Oh right- BIG PHARMA, that's why!!

Flex Paste: a very, very dangerous product to be selling during a pandemic!

I'm going to come out and admit it right now- if I knew I was going to be stuck at home for the next few months (that is, I knew I wasn't going to be going to Vermont next month for the summer but instead would be in my apartment in Maryland,) I am pretty sure that this product would cause a major alteration to my life.

I'm pretty sure that as soon as I ordered four or five pails of Flex Paste, I'd head off to the Dollar Store and buy several putty knives, a few bags of plastic greenery, and a few boxes of cheap Chinese toys.  Then I'd walk around the neighborhood looking for a card table someone has put out on the street FOR FREE and carry that home, too.  And I'd pile all these goodies into my little spare room, and wait.

When my pails of Flex Paste showed up, oh man would I go to town building my very own Devil's Tower on top of that card table in my little spare room.  I'd spend hours getting the contours just right before decorating it with my fake moss and little green army men or dinosaurs or whatever cheap Chinese toys I grabbed at the Dollar Store.  I'm sure I'd have to order more Flex Paste because it would never be Quite Right.

Meanwhile, I wouldn't notice that I'd grown a beard, was getting super-pale, had 300 unanswered messages in my voice mailbox and hadn't hosted a Zoom Class for weeks and didn't notice the semester had ended.  And that I was wearing the same clothes I had on when the pails of Flex Paste appeared at my doorstop.

And who could blame me?  I don't know if this stuff really seals holes in the wall or fixes roofs or you could build an entire waterproof boat with it, and I don't really care, because why would anyone use this for those purposes when you've got nothing but time on your hands, you have to stay indoors anyway, and there are iconic mountains to recreate in your little spare room?

Alas, I will be gone in a few weeks so I can't really do this stuff justice until this fall, when we get the second deadly wave of COVID-19 because millions of people decided that they were done wearing masks and not going out and that if they just refused to let a deadly virus push them around, they could will it to just Go Away.  So I'm guessing I'll be holding off my order until late October or so, and this will be my winter passion project/obsession.  I just have to remember to make my Flex Paste mountain large enough to be a base for my vintage King Arthur's Castle from West Germany.  And to order more toilet paper between outbreaks.

CopperWear Mask: What took so long?

 

             
 This has got to be brilliant snark, right?

I mean, this is too easy.  Someone made this just for me to comment on- or to test the gullibility of the American public, which at this point is like testing the ability of ants to tear apart a cupcake on a hot summer's day.

But just in case....let's take a look at the "claims" made by the makers of the CopperWear Mask:

"Disposable masks are now a limited commodity.  That's because you usually have to use a new one every day."

Hate to be a pedant, but actually we usually never have to wear one at all.  We are wearing masks now because of a pandemic.  When it passes, we won't be wearing masks so much anymore.  Unless, of course, our jaw muscles get sore.  Because We All Know how awesome copper is at healing sore muscles....

But here's a Reusable mask with "the properties of copper."  Other than being....ummm....copper-colored, what exactly ARE those properties, anyway?  And even if this ad is specifically aimed at the mouth-breathers who believe that copper has "properties" that are valuable for health reasons, I hope they at least note that the commercial doesn't even claim that these masks CONTAIN copper, just "the properties" of copper.  Whatever those are.

Oh wait, copper thread is "woven into the fabric" using "fiber matrix technology."  I'm guessing that means by using the technology we call a Modern Automated Sewing Machine because...wow.

"The best news is that these masks are available now."  Not that they work to prevent illness, just that they are available.  And look, they can be shipped directly to your door, and placed right there, in front of your door-- just like everything else you order.  And you can use it while you are working on your computer, alone in an office, which either means that not only are you a stupid, frightened sheep and an easy mark for scammers like this, but you also don't know how viruses are transmitted.  You really don't need to wear a mask while typing on a computer all by yourself, dear.

"It covers you nose, mouth and face!"  And now we're all done talking about copper (done before we even got started, in fact, because at no point in this two minutes of Dumb are we told what "properties of copper" are supposed to be important here.)  We've moved on to it being washable/reusable (like plenty of other masks out there) and it's woven (like every cloth mask out there.)  "It can create separation"- will it?  No claims made here, either.  It just CAN.

Plus, it's got the properties of copper.  Not sure we've mentioned that in the last eight seconds.

It's super-comfortable, so you can wear it all day as you stand in front of the most obvious green screens ever.

The rest of this ad is just a repeat of scenes of people dramatically dropping those incredibly expensive (and probably unavailable now anyway) disposable masks into trash cans and then taking their reusable, washable copper-property masks out of dryers, so the only reason to watch the second minute is to get the outrageous price- $29.99 plus shipping and handling.  For a piece of cloth with the undefined properties of copper (I figured it out- the properties it shares with products which claim to contain copper is the inflated expense.)

And here's the punchline, from the ad description on Spotify:  "the mask is said to be infused with the properties of copper and is machine washable."  Talk about an ingenious use of the English language:  not only is there no claim that the mask contains copper, but it's not even claimed that it for sure contains the properties of copper.  It's not even claimed outright that it's MACHINE WASHABLE- it's just "said to be."

Again, this has got to be snark.  Right?  RIGHT?

Get your own Spot the Robot Dog Today!

Look for these improvements to be included in the private-purchase version of Spot the Robot Dog:

1.  It will automatically run up to strangers and knock them down.  Owners will be able to record a message to be played when (not if) this happens which announces "he's just being friendly, he loves people."

2.  It will leave "presents" consisting primarily of oil clumps and just enough digestible fiber to attract insects all over your lawn. 

3.  It will bark repeatedly at falling leaves, passing cars, and basically everything else.  It will respond to your "hush" with up to thirty seconds of silence before repeating its "bark at everything" loop.

4.  It will run around the dinner table at family gatherings barking at a special High Volume to remind you exactly where it is at all times.  The "hush" feature is automatically turned off during these times.

5.  Planned obsolescence is built right in, to provide you with the Full Experience of being a pet owner.  Expect to spent at least $1000 per year on replacement parts.

The very best thing about your Spot the Robot Dog is that when it finally does break down for good, you can just throw it in the trunk alongside your dead lawn mower and bring it to the recycling center for disposal.  No messy vet fees or sad backyard funerals!