And How Do They Wink?

Tis the season when we start to prepare for tax time - which means it is the time for H&R Block's "we have people" ad campaign. Most of these are decent, but I saw a new one last night that left me a bit puzzled. In it, a guy is pushing a wheelbarrow full of cash down the street, and he stops to explain that he got by using H&R Block's second look service where they look at old returns and maybe find additional refunds. But here's the weird thing: all the people are cyclops. Say what? I don't understand the purpose of this. If the guy with the refund had two eyes, or his H&R Block agent was there and he had two eyes, then when the cyclops lady asked how they got the idea for a second look there would be a clever correlation between one look/one eye and second look/ two eyes. But if everyone has only one eye, then it is just people talking about their taxes, just the same as it would be if they all had two eyes. So why the one eye?

Swing Me, Baby!

So, when you are up at 3am feeding a baby, you get a lot of opportunities to see ads you wouldn't otherwise. My current favorite is for Pos-T-Vac, a sort of male enhancement vacuum pump (like Austin Powers!). Now, aside from the sheer ridiculousness of the product itself, there is one other aspect I really enjoy. Like most male enhancement commercials, this one features little vignettes of older couples holding hands in the kitchen or snuggling on the couch, etc. But in one of the first scenes, the guy is laying on the ground underneath a tire swing that his wife is sitting in, and spinning her around. I find this extremely odd. Who lays on the ground to push someone on a swing? Especially someone who will probably have some trouble getting up (besides being of a certain age, the gentleman is also fairly rotund)? Totally strange. Next time you are up in the middle of the night, turn on TNT and try to catch it.

So You're Broke? Then It's Time For New Furniture!

The other night there was a commercial on tv for a local interior design store. Their message was that in this tough economy, it is a really good time to redecorate your home or condo. I find this a pretty ballsy approach, seeing as interior decorating is probably one of the most frivolous and unnecessary things you can spend your money on. I actually found myself torn between being offended that they would try to convince people that when money is tight spending it on new decor is appropriate, and admiring their audacity. After all, if you are stupid enough to think that a slow economy is a good reason to spend what little money you have on paint and wallpaper in order to "upgrade your investment," than you probably don't deserve any sympathy once you're broke.

Guns Don't Kill People, And Apparently Neither Does Stupidity

There is an effective commercial against the children lost from gun violence the features a funeral procession driving through various neighborhoods, and the small children that come out to look vanish. It is pretty touching (at least to a hormonal pregnant woman), but it is diminished by one thing - the commentary keeps talking about "gun crimes." You know, the "x number of children are killed every day by gun crimes" sort of thing. My personal favorite statement is "please think before you commit a gun crime." Now, i get the point, and it's clear they don't want to limit themselves to just armed robbery, or assault with a deadly weapon, but seriously, who says 'gun crime?' It is a ridiculous phrase and it takes away from the gravitas of the ad. I think they would have gotten the same message across if they had said gun violence, or just stuck to asking people to think twice before picking up a gun. Cause honestly, most so called gun crimes are probably other types of crimes that where the gun is incidental rather than the feature. People who are planning to murder someone probably aren't too concerned about the possible casualties since that's the main goal, and the ones who are just planning to car jack someone aren't going to pause and think to themselves "hmmm, maybe I shouldn't commit this gun crime."

Dead Twins Age Slower

So after seeing the previews for the movie The Unborn a thousand times, I finally noticed the inconsistency in ages between characters. Now, all teh information may not be available from a 30 sec spot, but it appears as though the main character (a college age girl whose twin brother died in utero) is being haunted by her unborn brother, who appears to be about 10 years old. Now, i could understand if it was an infant - being unborn and all he never aged - although a ghost baby is really not that threatening, and I can understand if it was a college aged ghost, but what's with the age discrepancy? Creepy kids are definitely great for scary movies (still totally freaked out by The Ring girl), but seriuosly, how are the going to explain this? Maybe you age in half time if you are stuck in the netherworld or something. Anyway, not that I was going to see the movie regardless, but it is definitely off my list now that I've brought this stupid problem to my attention.

Get Thee To Bob's Big And Tall

A new Dexatrim Max commercial has me somewhat amused. In it, a woman says "want big pants" and then goes on to extoll teh virtues of Dexatrim while standing in giant jeans like all the famous weight loss people do to show how much smaller they are. Mostly what amuses me is my wohle reaction to the opening question, which is just " then buy big pants." That seems like the easiest solution to me if you want big pants. Now, if the questoin was 'want your pants to be too big?' or something else that actually indicated weight loss of some sort, then maybe the answer would be Dexatrim (not that pills are ever the way to lose weight, but you get the idea). But as long as the quesetion just involves the size of the clothes, then my answer is going to be go shopping and buy some big pants.


unrelated ps: just want to give a shout out to my husband, whose terribly named first band was called Big pants.

A Deep Breath Of Lame Air

So there's this commercial where a guy gets on an elevator, and then lots of other, presumably annoying people get on after him. It is an understandably frustrating situation, and his response is to pop a Halls cough drop into his mouth, which results in everyone else being flung away and squished into the walls of the elevator. Um, what? I thought the purpose of Halls was to soothe a sore throat or help with coughing, not make your breath so noxious that the people in the immediate vicinity are completely incapacitated and rendered two dimensional. Stupid.

Superstars Of Dance

Pbthbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt! This show blows. I suppose that I should have just turned it off when I saw in the opening credits that the host was Michael Flatley, but I figured it was dancing, and I like dancing, so how bad could it be. well, it turns out, pretty bad. The format was completely lame, the hosting and interludes were stupid, and the dancing wasn't even that good(I'm not even going to comment on the tap dancing guy's outfit which was beyond inexplicable). People who had comepletely impressed me on SYTYCD were entirely uninteresting on this show, and the people I had never seen before were just as boring - the Argentinian solo I think I could actually do right now, and i'm 9 months pregnant. I will not be watching this show again unless threatened or rendered a cripple without access to my remote - and I've seen Step Up 2 the streets twice because the dncing made the terrible storyline and acting worth it.