Oh My Aching Head

There is a new migraine medicine on the market, Treximet. In the commercials, women suffering from migraines are standing around holding their heads - at waist level. Apparently migraines are so awful you would prefer being decapitated, presuming of course that you could still go about your day of shopping and hawking drugs on tv. Not being a migraine sufferer myself, I feel like I would rather deal with the headache and keep my hands free for other things. All I know is this spot is bad enough to make me need some heavy duty headache medicine myself - which on second thought might be a really clever ad campaign.

I Knew There as Reason I Wanted More Kids

I love the commercials for the Volkswagon Routon with Brooke Shileds begging people to have babies for love rather than German engineering. Very funny. And since I'm currently in the market for a minivan (just can't squeeze three carseats in an SUV), I wish that just being pregnant could guarantee you'd get one.

Must Sigh TV

I have to say I have been pretty disappointed with the new shows this year. There weren't very many I was even interested in to begin with, but now that I've seen all of those at least once, I have to say I probably won't be sticking with many (if any)of them. Eleventh Hour looked like a neat show, right up my alley, what with a socially awkward genius solving crimes, but I have to say I think it stinks. The main character is not quirky enough to merit the special treatment he gets, nor does he even appear to be all that miraculously smart. I have only seen one episode, but it was so predictable, dull, and lacking in cool new scientific revelations, that I doubt I'll make a point of tuning in again. Plus, the bad guy got away, which I don't object to in general, but for that to really fly the enemy has to be really interesting and introduced as a true nemesis - when that doesn't happen (like it didn't on Eleventh Hour) the good guys just look stupid. Not a great basis for fan following. The other new show I just gave a shot to is The Mentalist. Despite (or maybe because of) its resemblance to Psych I thought I might enjoy it, so I gave ti a whirl last week. So far I'm on the fence. I like the sort of easy going joie de vivre of the main character, but it isn't played up enough. Is he just a trickster like Shawn on Psych, or is he supposed to be more off kilter and unusual like the Charlie on Life? Also, I can't decide if I like that he just knows things by looking at people but the show never explains what clues he's seeing, or if I would prefer to be given the clues myself so I can bette runderstand how he catches the criminals. Because of this I feel it plays kind of uneven, but I think it bears watching at least one more time. In general, I guess I'm glad that there aren't more shows I feel the need to really get into, but it is still annoying when something that looked cool turns out to be lame. My only hope for redemption is Dollhouse, the midseason offering from another of my favorites - Joss Whedon. Neither he nor JJ Abrams has let me down yet.

I've Got Dumb In A Bottle

Because there was a comment on this ad - I want to talk about the Zyrtec commercial which says "I've got time ina bottle." So stupid. You don't have time in a bottle, idiot, you just have allergy medication. Medication which apparently makes you think in lame metaphors related to old songs. Maybe Zyrtec works faster than Claritin (seriously, what medication takes 2 hours to work? Can that be right?), but it doesn't give you any time you didn't already have. Perhaps you would sit at home doing nothing at all until your meds kicked in (if so, buck up, loser, its just a runny nose), but my assumption is that most people can still manage to function while suffering from their allergies. And if you can't do the kind of math involved to figure out when you need to take your pills so that the effects never fully wear off in between doses, than you have bigger problems than hayfever my friend. By the way, since Zyrtec supposedly makes you drowsier than Claritin, have fun using your two new hours to nap.

Wendy's Gets Off The Short Bus

I have some hope for Wendy's commercials yet: their latest ads feature comments on the economy as compared to the value menu. The best one features two guys sitting around eating the $.99 cheeseburger and one says to the other that his burger has already appreciated in value. To make his point he asks for a dollar from the second guy, who complies. Then he asks if he can have the second guy's burger, and when he won't give it to him, he says that proves his point. Pretty clever. So either Wendy's has ditched the dingbats they previously had in charge of their marketing campaign in favor of smarter, more clever folks, or the stupidity of earlier ads was just a temporary affliction. Regardless, when the ads are better the viewers win. Yay!

Don't Track Dirt Onto My Dirt!

Last night I saw a commercial for the Woolite RugStick - a cleaning device for carpets. it featured a woman who wouldn't let her friend come in out of the rain because she suffered from "dirty carpet anxiety." This would have been an effective example of someone being such a paranoid clean freak they won't let anyone walk on their carpets, except that the commercial had already shown the carpet to be very stained and dirty. And that makes no sense to me. If your pristine white carpet is already stained with tracked in dirt, then what's the big deal? Shouldn't you have made your friends stand on the porch before they got your house all dirty? Doing it afterwards seems like a pretty stupid plan to me. Especially when, according to the timeline on the ad, you are planning to clean right after your friend leaves anyway. And of course there is always the common sense fact that if you suffer from dirty carpet anxiety what you need is not the RugStick - it's hardwood floors. And maybe a psychologist.