And while we're on commercials...

I was not nearly as critical of the commercials as Gimpy is. I genuinely enjoyed the Pepsuber commercial (and the MacGruber skits that mind-birthed it are well worth a half hour on Hulu). The Cash4Gold.com commercial got some play on the DeadSpin live blog. But it deserves so much more than that; there is nothing funnier than people pointing out their failings, and you can't find many people who are swimming in more failings than Ed McMahon and MC Hammer.

You had your nut shots, your animals acting as people, your talking babies, and even a smattering of really awful local advertising out here in St. Louis. All pretty well-worn territory, but still enjoyable if only for one night annually.

But all of this discussion of commercials has inspired me to write a post I've been meaning to tackle for some time: those stupid fucking Burger King retarded whopper family ads.

They started out ok. "I wish I'd never been broiled" made me chuckle. The spare napkin/condom spot was done well enough to make me uncomfortable about similar past conversations. I think there were one or two more that were good enough not to draw my ire and mediocre enough to be largely ignored.

But then they got terrible in one fell swoop. With the house party. And Spicy Chicken.

Knowing that any of you who might be unfortunate enough to stumble upon this blog probably haven't been consumed by this commercial as much as I have, I'll bullet all of the brain-racking fallacies located therein below:

-We learn that Whopper Jr and Spicy have friends. Human friends. This just feels weird to me.

-We also learn that Whopper has a daughter. She's a human girl. This opens up a wealth of dilemmas. Is burger-dome the recessive gene? Is it sex-linked? Is the daughter adopted or is Whopper's wife a human burger-lover? If she's a burger, what adoption agency would allow two sandwiches to adopt a white girl? If she is a woman, how exactly does a Whopper impregnate a woman? You know what, I don't actually want to know the answer to that question. I just know that my girlfriend isn't allowed to eat Whoppers anymore.

-In perhaps the most infuriating move, Whopper discovers that little bastard Spicy putting the moves on his daughter. I would eat him if I were Whopper. Commensurate with that sentiment, Whopper charges at Spicy - - but he can't get through the fuckin door! What humor! A giant sandwich struggling to get through a door! But, wait a minute. This is his fucking house. That's his fucking door. He is the burger lord of his burger domain and he can't build a door that a burger can fit through? What the fuck?

-But then there's something even more wrong with that scene - - Spicy is already in the fucking room! What sort of black magic does a chicken sandwich possess that allows him to move through walls like Nightcrawler that a burger can't summon from the depths of the Underworld?

I don't know the answer to any of these challenges. I just know that I hate that I care so much.

Super Bowl Stuff

Congratulations have to go out to the Steelers (and a hearty “fuck you” to the Cardinals) for winning last night. Obviously I watched the game, and have a couple thoughts I wanted to share.

First of all, yeah, the Eagles probably would have lost to the Steelers the way they played, so I can’t really get all that upset about things. It was pretty painful watching Roethlisberger lead the Steelers on a game winning drive in the last three minutes of the game when two weeks ago McNabb had the same opportunity and couldn’t get it done. Last night made it pretty clear why Roethlisberger has two Superbowl rings and I’m still hoping Donovan gets traded to the Bears.

I loved the roughing the holder penalty called against Arizona. That was definitely something I had never seen before, though I must admit that I would love to see more teams take runs at the holder on field goals and extra points. Football is getting boring; some unnecessary violence could reenergize it.

Santonio Holmes, during all that postgame stuff, had a great line that I think merits some attention. Channeling the ghost of Freddie Mitchell (he’s dead, right?), Holmes declared that he stepped up on that final drive because “I wanted to continue to be great.”

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Al Michaels said something that really pissed me off. I don’t remember the context, or when in the game it happened, it may have even been after the game, but anyway, Michaels declared that football was the national pastime. No, it’s not. Baseball is. I don’t care about ratings or revenues, football has nowhere near the place in American culture that baseball does. No one writes poems about football, NFL players aren’t in classic songs, there have been maybe three good football movies, none of which measure up to The Natural, Field of Dreams, or Pride of the Yankees. Football is just a sport; baseball is a part of American history.

Even though pretty much everyone watches the Superbowl, other stations still need to throw up something. ABC went with a shitload of Wipeout, which seems like just a more bland, American MXC. A bunch of other stations went with a different approach, showing nonsense like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, What Women Want, and the Devil Wears Prada. I wonder what demographic they were trying to lure away from NBC.

But the best Superbowl alternative, which was fortunately replayed like six times yesterday, was Puppy Bowl V. Basically, they threw a bunch of puppies in a pit that was decorated like a football field, threw in some stuffed animals, and let the dogs go nuts. Of course when Michael Vick did this he ended up in jail, but when Animal Planet does it PETA is silent. Whatever, fuck PETA. Anyway, there were a couple highlights from Puppy Bowl. First, the puppy named Eli got bitched around a lot, legitimately tackled by some other dogs. Another puppy, Griffey, got ejected for just beating the hell out of the other dogs. Hopefully Bad Newz Kennels had some scouts there. But the best part about Puppy Bowl was the commentary. Harry Kalas was doing play by play! And it was every bit as awesome as you would think. Seriously, it’s February, I’ll listen to Kalas call pretty much anything at this point. Pitchers and catchers still seems so far away.

And there were commercials. Meh. The Doritos crystal ball commercial seems to have gone over really well, winning The USA Today’s prize, but I was underwhelmed. Yeah, a guy got hit in the balls, but that’s hardly groundbreaking. Budweiser disappointed too; the horses were awesome when they were playing football; doing anything else is just mediocre. And can we stop with this Great American Lager nonsense? You’re owned by a Belgian company, and no one is being fooled. Pepsi also came up short: the Pepsuber one was awful, and the side by side generation one was only slightly better. Having Belushi and Jack Black side by side was pretty terrible; I’m pretty much a huge Jack Black fan, and I can’t say he’s anywhere near Belushi’s level. Also, fuck Carlos Boozer. He has time to be in an Overstock.com commercial, but not to actually play basketball and be a worthwhile second round pick for my fantasy team? What the hell?

Some other stuff happened this weekend independent of the Superbowl. Sarah Palin came to DC, but blessedly kept her mouth shut. Rush Limbaugh is still an idiot. Scientists cloned the extinct Pyrenean Ibex, but it died in seven minutes. Spaniards are close to cloning a fighting bull, hopefully they’ll have more success. Michael Phelps got caught smoking pot, and people were outraged. But fortunately nothing is going to happen to him, because NBC set Olympics ratings records when he was swimming. If he wants to, he’ll be back in London, WADA be damned. Seriously, all he did for the last four years was swim; if he wants to smoke every once in a while there’s no reason to stop him.

But the biggest thing coming out of this weekend is the first trailer for the GI Joe movie. Oh man, it’s going to be the coolest movie ever. Honestly, I probably would have bought a movie ticket just to watch the preview. Seriously, Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes going head to head, Duke and Ripcord blowing shit up, the trailer was incredible. And the movie is going to be even better, I just know it. Seriously, I’m so excited for this.

Institutional deaf-ism

I was just watching TV on mute while I was on the phone, which automatically kicks on the Closed Captioning. When the NBA on ESPN commercial came on, there was nothing written in CC except two music notes. Now that's just mean.

"Hey deaf guy, there's some sweet music playing right now. What's that? You can't hear it? Ok, let me tell you about it. Oh, you don't know anything about music because you have no basis for comparison since you've been deaf since birth? And you can't hear what I'm saying right now? Hmmm...do you know what music notes look like? Bingo."

Seriously though, this will sell so well

Prior to November, I used to struggle pretty severely with writer’s block. I would play freecell ad nauseum, desperately trying to distract myself from having nothing to write. Well, with Barack Obama’s election to the Oval Office, this is no longer a problem. I just look at my Obama Plate, and get inspired by his confident smile and kind eyes. And I’m not the only one. Seriously, this whole commercial is ridiculous and staged, but the guy ten seconds in is the worst. Thanks to Jon for the heads up on this one:

Tis the Season...to have a disability and get a gift

I'm going to again harp on Christmas commercials here, one, because they continue to consume me, and two, because it's fun.

My focus in this short post will be the new Best Buy ads. You know, the ones where some no-name deadbeat on the Best Buy floor (who works there during the holiday season solely for the employee discount) talks about how providing people with gifts really makes his Christmas.

Basically, your typical sappy Christmas shit. Until you get to the one about the blind guy...

This is so subtle, I didn't even realize it for the first several viewings. But here's the premise: a humble, benevolent Best Buy worker (aren't they all?!) decides to stop smoking weed in the stockroom and service the people on the floor. Turns out the latest customer is a blind man.

So, filled with the holiday spirit, our lowly floor representative decides not to ignore the man who can't see him and aid in his holiday request.

Quick! What would a blind man be shopping for?

Is it a new toaster? No, it's not a new toaster.

Is it a new iPod dock? No, it's not a new iPod dock.

Is it something that will restore his power of sight? No, it's the opposite!

It's a new plasma screen TV! Of course! The first thing any blind man would want is a new high definition screen! High definition is the only kind of TV that blind people can watch! (They're kind of needy...)

I understand the need to watch TV. I've been doing it for most of my life. But don't you think our friendly, neighborhood blind man could have gotten away with a tiny, black and white TV with a killer radio?

Oh, no you're right. We should probably sell him the 48" plasma screen TV and the parakeet with its head taped back on.

Every Kiss Begins with "Fuck Off"

In many ways, the Christmas season really is the most wonderful time of the year. In other ways, it's fucking infuriating.

For instance, I'm currently a Secret Santa at work. Today I had 3 Quizno's cookies waiting for me at 7am. Most wonderful! But at the same time, I have to track down Christian literature to give to my boss as his Secret Santa. Not so most wonderful.

But what has to be the worst part is the commercials, which start in October and suck the whole way through. And this year I have to give props to Kay Jewelers for coming up with by far the worst commercial of the season.

It should not be shocking when I say that Christmas commercials lie. That's their job, to tell you an over-priced product is worth the price they charge. They want you to believe that the newest Swedish Ab ball will make you look like the Hoff with little to no effort, that those friends who never return your calls will suddenly come over and play if you get the new Wii party pack, and that something shiny will make up for the fact that you are a shitty lover.

The Kay commercial in question centers on this last variety of propaganda. Allow me to please debunk the lies behind this bullshit.

The commercial begins with a douchebag and his ladyfriend scampering towards the Christmas tree to sit Indian style. I wonder what the surprise is!

Douchebag: (Struggling) I'm sorry...my signing...still...isn't very good.
Woman: (Subtitled and silently mouthed) You're doing fine.

Oh yeah, something I forgot to mention: broheim's dating a deaf girl. The chick can't hear.

This raises two interesting questions.

1. How the hell did these two meet?
Other than your local American Sign Language Convention, which every 20-something guy stalks for fresh snapper (obviously!), I'm thinking bar. He didn't notice she couldn't hear because it was loud, she didn't notice he had nothing to offer because she can't hear - - bada bing bada boom. To be honest, I can't really fault either one there. Shit happens at bars.

2. Why are they still together?
This question is much harder to get my head around. My first guess is guilt. Dude hooked up with a deaf chick, felt bad about it, and decided that he believed himself to be too good of a person to break up with a woman simply because she couldn't hear him yell BAGAWK while he climaxed. And now, he finds himself in too deep.

So what do you do now? Try and make the best of it! Let's learn some American Sign Language!

I will be operating under the assumption that our male protagonist has gotten himself in way over his head and cannot admit that "not being able to hear" is a deciding factor for him in the 1 or 0 binary system of dating.

Douchebag: I learned another sign today.
Woman: (subtitled, silently mouthed, but excited. Well, at least I think she's excited. Tough to tell without any intonation) Really?
[Douchebag grabs a package from beneath a likely fake tree]
Douchebag: (struggling, oh so hard) Merry...Christmas.

Chick opens a box to reveal a Bulova watch. We later learn that she likes it ("Read my lips" she says with a kiss. Get it?! She can't speak so she lip reads! But kisses involve lips, too! Ah Ha!).

So, here's the message that Kay hopes the simple-minded American will take with him/her:
True love exists! Look! A moderately attractive young man is fighting to overcome the biological and environmental constraints (namely, the ability or inability to hear) that have for so long separated him from his true love, and now that they are together he is expressing his love for her by buying her something nice! OOH! I should buy something nice for someone close to me!

And here's the story as it really happened:
Our friend got drunk and fucked a chick in closed captioning. And now that Bulova watches are 25% off at Kay, he has bought her a flashy pity gift.

I have 2 to 5 odds he's out the door before Christmas Eve. And the best part is he can slam that door and she'll never know...