Let's take a moment to talk about television commercials. As someone who doesn't own a Tivo or any other type of DVR, I have to sit through commercials when I watch TV. It's not such a bad thing, because I get to learn about all types of exciting new products that I can spend my money on, and also, doing so gives me ample time to sniff glue and play with my G.I. Joe action figures. However, there is a downside to watching commercials, which is that some of them are incredibly depressing. Take, for example, the latest series of ads from the Liberty Mutual insurance company. You probably haven't seen them because you're rich and you do indeed have a Tivo. MUST BE NICE. As such, let me explain these commercials to you: they feature people doing "good deeds", and each time a good deed is committed, some douche bag sees some other douche bag doing said good deed, and then s/he decides to do a good deed him/herself, and it just keeps going on and ON AND ON, like Days of Our Lives and/or the career of Mary Hart. So, for example, a lady helps an old man with his shopping bags, and then a dude sees this and so he returns his library book early, and a different dude sees this and decides to tip 12% at his next meal at Applebee's instead of his customary 10%, etc., etc.--these things don't really happen in any of the ads, but they're like the things that happen. You get the idea. The depressing part comes in one of the actual commercials, wherein a lady's good deed consists of slowing down her car in traffic and not hitting a dog that's crossing the street. I'm not making that up: her good deed is not running over a dog with her car. I mean, seriously--how far have we sunk as a society when not obliterating a dog with your monster SUV is considered to be an act of kindness? Pretty low, I'd say: lower than an old man's balls, if you know what I mean. No wonder most Americans don't give a shit about the military's non-policy policy of torture. I don't who's to blame for this, but I'm pretty sure that Paris Hilton is somehow culpable. All I'm saying is that it's bullshit, and if I didn't have such a long list of products that I need to go purchase based on all of the great commercials that I saw last night, I would do something about it.
The only type of commercial worse than a depressing one is a lazy one. Actually, the only type of commercial worse than a depressing one is one that doesn't feature any nudity, but a lazy commercial is a close second. For example, there's some cell phone company that's running ads wherein a guy will talk about all the different cities/states that his family and friends live in, and then he'll combine all the names of these places and say that that's the place that he himself lives, because I guess that's the area that his cell phone network has to cover, or something like that. If it sounds confusing: it is! In one of these ads, a dude lists Philadelphia, Delaware, Prague, and Chicago as the places that his friends/family are located; he then combines these places and says that he lives in "Phila-ware-Prague-icago." Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the better way to combine all of those place-names be "Phila-ware-Chi-Prague-go"? Not only is that cheeky and more clever (or "cleverer") than the original ad, but it rolls right off the tongue, like a tiny ATV driving around on your taste buds. I mean, COME ON. It's not that hard. Lazy commercials: what's the deal? That's all I'm asking here.
And now, since we're getting close to Halloween, I figured I would post a video that I found the other day on YouTube. It purports to be surveillance footage of a ghost, and I must admit that it's pretty convincing. But don't take my word for it, watch it for yourself. A word of warning, though: this footage is pretty intense, so if you scare easily I would advise that you not watch it:
