Inappropriate moment over coffee

Since it's beginning to a look a lot like Christmas at my house with the endless snow, I figure I'd go back in time to Christmas of 2010 with this ad critique.

Christmas is a magical time of peace, love and family togetherness. Sometimes, apparently a little too much "togetherness."

Watch this

Holy inappropriate behavior, what the hell was that!? I haven't seen such an unhealthy moment of sibling sexual tension since Empire Strikes Back. All I can say is I'm thankful the guy who made this glimpse in to West Virginian coffee habits didn't have her unwrap her "Christmas Present."

Merry Christmas, I got you an awkward moment.

If for whatever reason you didn't watch the video, let me fill you in. The brother is back from peace corps or something in Africa. After he hands her a box that I can only assume contains some sort of African sex toy, she takes the bow off the present and puts it on her brother, saying "You're my present this year."

That's a little odd, but maybe they're just close. Then you see the look they share. I've seen less restrained sexual magnetism in adult movies. How did the people making this commercial not see this? Maybe they needed to drink some of that coffee...'

It's at this point that mom wakes up from the smell of coffee (or sex and candy) and comes rushing out just in time to stop a crime against nature. Only one thing isn't harder than trying to figure out how they missed the subtext...

Hope that hug isn't too tight, or mom's gonna get a second surprise.

The Perfect Situp

I was writing my last entry when I just saw this ad for the first time:

The Perfect Situp.

Really?

REALLY!?

Do people really pay for this stuff? Why do you need a goofy machine to lift your feet while you do a sit up? Why can't you just do that on your own?

Oh, there's an audible sound that tells you when you're doing the exercise correctly. Funny, I just thought that audible sound was my spine popping. Or maybe the distant laughter of these people who sold this device to "another idiot." Either way, I'm quite capable of making sounds when doing a crunch without the help of an expensive product.

Do you know how hard it is to not make a "fart" joke here? Keeping it classy.

They say a fool is born every minute, and a fool and his money are soon parted. So it's no surprise that industries have popped up taking advantage of those two statements. Why are we rushing out to buy this machine? Well, we as in someone else. Certainly not me. Oh, it was invented by a Navy seal. Hey, that must mean it's worth it. The guy who is fit and can kill you fifty ways with a spork made this. That either means A)He knows his stuff when it comes to sit ups or B)It's a thinly veiled threat that unless my fat ass buys this thing now, a team of highly trained military assassins will bust in and water board me until I buy one.

This brings up another point...why are we so impressed by products invented by people who wouldn't normally invent things? Do we have an innate distrust of scientists, or are we just supposed to be ecstatic that a teacher invented Airborne? Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for teachers, but I'm not necessarily ready to buy a medical product because it was invented by some lady who was sick of dealing with snot-nosed kids (literally in this case) and made up a tablet versus some guys who went to college for this kind of stuff doing so in a lab.

But seriously, why would I buy this? Why can't I just lift my legs when doing some crunches and get those hard to reach lower abs by myself? Oh...

A university study says it's 180 percent better. Granted, they don't say what university, but hey, universities never lie about anything. Nor do commercials. I definitely need one of these.

Hell, I need one for every room, so no matter where I'm not working out, I can see it sitting in the corner collecting dust, and I can add fiscal irresponsibility guilt to my regular not-working-out guilt.

Whatever happened to truth in advertising

*Let me preface this entry with a disclaimer. I am biased in favor of the product denigrated in this commercial versus the product promoted. Why? I've been using said product for about 12 years.

Whatever happened to truth in advertising?

I'd like to think that as a society we've advanced far enough to at least take advertising with a grain of salt, if not look at it with a critical eye. Granted, this is the same society that somehow manages to watch a bunch of guidos prance around showing their abs and just acting so much like douchebags that Massengil is threatening a lawsuit. [citation needed]

Now I'm not saying those idiots have more product on their heads than brains in it...wait, that's exactly what I'm saying. However, I don't criticize television shows on this blog (all two posts, counting this one). I critique the ads that pay for those shows. So let's look at one touting the next greatest way to watch the glowing box to which I owe so much gratitude.

Watch an ad.

I can't find the one I've been seeing lately, but they still make the same claim: if it rains or snows, you lose your signal. Interesting. Well, right now, it's raining so hard and has been for so long that I've got animals beginning to line up in gender-specific pairs in my yard. I was going to build an ark, but got distracted when I was googling just what exactly a "cubit" is. (I ended up finding a site where I could play QBert and spent many hours on a nostalgia kick. Oops. Hope no one was really that fond of zebras. How long can I drag out this joke?)

Throughout all this nasty weather, I haven't lost my signal once. Living now in the mountains and before in the desert where it doesn't rain much, but when it does, it's a deluge, I have yet to lose signal because of rain. Light drizzles, fog and mist, torrential downpours accompanied by fierce winds that made me think the house was going to fly away, my satellite signal carried on like a trooper.

Now that I live in snow country, I do lose my signal when it snows. But you know why, because the snow is sitting on the damn dish, not inefficient signal strength. All I do is when I snow is coming, spray some Pam on the thing and voila, I never lose my signal.

I do have friends with cable. I've seen their signal. It's fuzzier than government logic. Maybe Xfinity is great, I don't know. But I have yet to hear from someone who likes their service all that much. But I do know people from all sorts of cable providers and their cable goes out more Tara Reid during spring break.

So, I ask, are we as a people that easily swayed by an admittedly clever ad that has singing buffoons? Apparently, if they keep doing these amusing ads and making the same claims. It's obviously getting them customers. Hmm...this started out as an impeachment of advertising...maybe I should be criticizing the malleable will of the average television viewer....

That said, the commercials are amusing enough. I just often wonder what documentation an advertiser must show to prove the veracity of their claims? I mean, does "Well, I knew this one guy who's cousin had a friend that said their dish went down in the rain once" qualify as verification? Or maybe my experiences are special. I have to admit, there is a nice feeling knowing I could be special.

Angel Soft: Can you toss me a roll

As you'll soon see, I really over think the ads. Why? Because it's what I do with everything really. You could try to come up with some psycho-analytical reason as to why, but I once read that lefties make everything more difficult than they need to, so I'm going with that.

This little trait of mine leads me to our first commercial: Angel Soft Toss Me A Roll.

Have you seen it? I'm sure you have, it's been on constantly. Apparently Americans poop a lot. Could have something to do with our meat-heavy, fatty food-laden diets. But hey, we're number 1! Winning! Duh! (Obligatory Charlie Sheen reference: Check)

Anyway, here's the ad in case you get Internet under the rock beneath which you're living if you have yet to see this ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYZMlOFU4zM

First thought: Okay, we've all done it. Walked in and realized only too late that oops, the roll is empty. HELP! That's fine.

But after he was either tossed a roll of toilet paper (or bath tissue as they call it, which somehow is apparently supposed to soften the thought that we wipe our butts with this stuff) or was grazed by a high-powered elephant round, you'd think he would be a bit more careful about asking someone to lob an apparently lethal weapon at him. But no! We see he hasn't learned from this incident, and again asks for someone to toss him the TP, mangy looking head wound notwithstanding. This time the off-camera throwmeister apparently chucked a snowball at the guy. Nice.

In a living example of Einstein's definition of insanity, the guy once again asks someone to "toss him a roll." This time, we see the scamp has been his wife. However, she took pity after nearly killing him and then pelting him with fluff, and tosses Angel Soft. Aaahhh.

Here's my question: After the second time, don't you think he would have, oh, I don't know, gotten the roll himself rather than risk his life? Maybe his wife really is trying to kill him, or at least get him to leave. After all, every time we see this guy, his wife is apparently doing laundry, since that's where she is, throwing him another roll. Perhaps if he pitched in around the house, she'd be a bit nicer.

All this said, it's still not the worst toilet paper commercial out there. If I never see those charmin bears with the pieces of toiler paper on their bear buts, or as I call them, The Dinglebearies, I'll be a happy man.

I really don't like these bears...