And now... a word from our sponsors

Today's pointless photo? It snowed last night. I needed some spring.

Ok, topic. We're going to talk (briefly, I hope) about commercials today. In numbered bullet form, even, because that's what I'm in the mood for.

1. I'm not going to ask is it just me? because I've already been asking around and people tend to agree with me, so I'm just going to say it outright: Stop being so freaking aggressive with your Christmas commercials, advertisers. We get it. In your world Christmas shopping season starts the second after Halloween (if not before), but somehow this year's crop of festive holiday buy-me bulltweedle seems like it's Completely. Bashing. Me. Over. The. Head. I'm finding myself starting to wince a bit at the sound of (albeit, highly commercialised) Christmas carols... and I love Christmas carols. I have a huge collection of Christmas carols. I usually have to force myself to wait until December to start singing Christmas carols (you know -- in order to keep from driving everyone around me completely bonkers). If someone like me is already getting the make-it-stop reflex, I think that's a sign that you should, collectively, rethink your advertising strategy. And speaking of rethinking strategy...

2. Why are Dairy Queen commercials either completely stupid or completely annoying? For years we had to put up with the creepy disembodied mouth, and now we've got a campaign whose designers looked at the success of the intriguingly-weird Old Spice ads (which, incidentally, have now taken a turn for the completely stupid...) and decided that riding the intriguingly-weird train would be a fantastic idea. Well, it might be... if the commercials were intriguingly weird. They're not. They're annoying. And slightly creepy. Maybe they wanted to keep a bit of the creepy strain just in case people missed the mouth? I dunno.

3. Sticking with fast food, I'm kind of wishing that the current A & W ad didn't feature the catchy bad singing. Don't get me wrong -- I've actually enjoyed the ongoing campaign (I'm talking about the ones featuring Allen Lulu as the manager and Ryan Beil as... well, Ryan), which is saying a lot because I have a short attention span for a lot of ongoing campaigns -- but with this latest one I find my brain singing That's enough, that's enough, that's enough in pseudo-mariachi a little too often. Well sold, fellas.

4. All this food stuff is reminding me that I should go have lunch, so let me just mention one more long-term campaign that has somehow managed to not have me beating my head against the wall in NOT THAT GUY AGAIN angst. Thom Sharp. Fountain Tire. Let's face it, that actor is really, really good at what he does. He'd have to be to not be driving me nuts after all of this time.


I suppose in a way that's the main thing I ask from commercials. Just please don't drive me nuts, ok? Is that too much?






Oh all right: that, and don't make me hate Christmas carols.
















Please.