Late night television is NOT a cure for insomnia. On nearly 100 channels all I can ever find are commercials for Too-Fun-To-Be-Work work-out machines or May-Cause-Intestinal-Bleeding pills to improve my love life. (Unless there are "instant girl" pills -- Just add water! -- I don't think they'll help that much.) On the remaining channels are advertisements for exhibitionist teenaged girls and special interest diet plans. Of the few channels that actually show programming, most only show the really crappy syndicated shows such as Elimidate and Three's Company or low-budget news. I think that some network could really improve its ratings by simply broadcasting a few hours of sheep jumping over a fence accompanied by some soothing classical sonatas.

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As I was waiting for the "Colbert Report," Comedy Central forced the two worst commercials currently being broadcast on me. The culprits? Verizon and Quiznos (again).

In the Verizon ad, some sweaty, air-headed bastard approaches me, the viewer, and puts his sweaty earphones on my head so that I can listen to music that he "gets totally pumped" to. (Fall Out Boy, I think.) First of all, I don't care how big that bastard is, he's not putting his sweaty earphones in my ears. I know where those things have been: in his ears! Secondly, in the commercial, to prove that this asshole isn't gay, he takes his earphones away to talk to "his lady." Yeah, boy, that jerk just put his sweaty earphones in my ears unprovoked, and now he has to go prove that he's not gay for coming on to me? (I'm willing to put myself in the role of a woman here, and I still don't want some sweaty guy putting earphones in my ears. I've never met the chick that liked having man-sweat shoved in her ears.) Sorry, I'm not buying it. Seriously. No Verizon for me. (And yes, I hated the same concept when that ditzy flirt put her music in my ears in the previous version of this commercial. I don't want any stranger to approach me with headphones that were just in their ears. Ever. It's somewhere along the lines of "poo-on-a-stick." Just gross.)

In the Quiznos commercial, two women discuss how great their new prime rib sandwich is with the following dialogue: "It's not lacking any meat. And that's what real women need. giggle-snort." Damn, if they didn't beat some Enzyte ad to that exact line. It wouldn't be half as bad if they didn't break down giggling after the innuendo. Quiznos, giggling airheads making childish sexual suggestions will not lure me back to your sandwiches. Maybe you should consider reducing the price of your product instead of pumping the airwaves full of stupid, insulting commercials if you really want us all to drop in for a bite.

I thought it fitting that at the end of the "Report," Stephen Colbert asked his guest, political theorist Benjamin Barber, if he was a Subway or Quiznos guy. Barber said he was a Subway guy. That's one more vote against you, Quiznos! (Even if it did come from a Howard Dean supporter.)

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This ad was in a comic book from 1991. Please note that though Steven Seagal, star of nearly thirty remakes of the same movie, will take your cash, he will not take your American Express card.

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Sometimes posting to a blog is like being in a food fight: throw enough pie and someone's GOT to get hit in the face. (This column is going Larry King style, baby!)

• Bravo Channel is showing both The Princess Bride and Back to the Future today. Could those be two of the best movies ever made? I say yes!
• Huge underdog University of Georgia today beat (nay, CRUSHED!) the mighty Auburn Tigers, destroying any hopes Auburn had of running for the national title. Go Dawgs!
• Television advertising execs just don't understand: the current Bellsouth ads use the song "Stuck In The Middle With You" to promote that product. The song was written about sitting between recording executives. Can telecom execs be that different?
• Of all the cars I've ever owned/driven, the one I miss most is a 1985 Ford Crown Victoria LTD Country Squire Station Wagon.
• Recent studies say that happy people are sick less often than people who are optimistic or active. That means that a cynical asshole like me will likely outlive the rest of you bastards so long as I'm happy being a cynical asshole. Hooray for science!
• Julia Roberts' single sexiest film role was as Tinkerbell in Hook. Does that say worse things about her or me?
• The National Football League has a patent on confusion; it is simply impossible to tell who is any good from week to week. Some may call this parity or equality but I call it exciting. Chicago: undefeated. Dolphins: incompetent. Final score: Dolphins 31, Chicago 13. I say this, I sure look forward to December 31, when the Dolphins play the currently undefeated Colts.

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What with an election coming up in a few days, I'm being bombarded by advertisements telling me how lousy all of my leaders are. Is this sort of negative, petty message, condoned by our collective social passive acceptance, really indicative of how Americans wish to interpret the world around us? My innate cynical response is, "yes, and we deserve it."

On a related note, I found the following panel in the Fantastic Four story "The Skrull Takes A Slave," originally published in issue #90 in 1969 while a "police action" was ongoing in Southeast Asia. I think it sums up a lot of what you see debated on CNN these days. (See? Comics can be topical, even prescient.)

How can you argue with a guy named Mr. Fantastic? If you like your messages well mixed, please note that the "savage"-ly interrogated Mole Man makes his escape just 3 pages later in that same issue once the powerful Thing stops paying attention. (Stan Lee always loved his morality in shades of gray.)

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On October 2, Emerson Electronics sued GE because NBC showed a person's hand being chopped up from being thrust inside a running InSinkErator brand garbage disposal on the show Heroes. Emerson manufactures the InSinkErator and claims that NBC's parent GE, also a manufacturer of garbage disposals, was trying to sully the InSinkErator brand name by showing the damage it could cause to a human. Money.CNN reports the lawsuit, including the plaintiff's argument that "according to data from the government's Consumer Products Safety Commission, you are actually ten times more likely to get injured by your dishwasher than your garbage disposal."

First of all, I should think that InSinkErator would be pleased to demonstrate what it can do to a human hand. If it can destroy bone, it damn well should be able to take care of a few apple cores and potato rinds. Secondly, why does the government track and study how likely you are to get injured by a dishwasher? Are we in imminent danger of invasion from insurgent dishwashers? (Well, I guess possibly so if you count Mexicans.)

So the lesson here, NBC, is that next time you should show a person's hand being chopped up from being thrust inside a running GE brand dishwasher. You'll save yourself money in the long run.

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It wouldn't really be Batman and Football month without a reference to that 1990 -- has it really been that long? -- Snickers commercial which combined Batman and football, now would it? Take a look at the video replay here as an .asf file.

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I'm really, really looking forward to the release of the movie Pulse this weekend. I'm hoping that once the movie is actually released, I won't have to see so damn many commercials for it.

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McDonald's is out to brainwash America (and then the world -- Bwah-Ha-Ha-HA!) to eat their crappy hamburgers. I know that this is not exactly breaking news, but have you noticed the recent trends in McDonald's commercials? In order to dig the company out of the horrible publicity pit they have found themselves in recently, they have decided to simply try to pressure us back up to the counter.

First they tried to convince us that our grown friends would really love McDonald's gift cards for Christmas. Ask yourself, have you ever, even once in your life, wished that your wife or parents (or Santa, whoever) had given you a gift certificate to McDonald's instead of cash? "Gee, I sure wish that I could have nothing but tasteless, fattening meals everyday instead of paying my rent." Even as a child, I would rather have had the cash than a Happy Meal toy. (And yes, I do remember the first time I chose a Big Mac over a Happy Meal, and it was indeed because of peer pressure. >Shakes fist!<)

Then they tell you that their food is good for whatever meal you would next be having. In a commercial, one man serves double cheeseburgers as hor d'oeuvres despite his friend's objections. When the rest of "the gang" find the burgers served as finger food and approve, the lone dissenter, also known as "the voice of reason," is forced into compliance with his friends lest he risk defenestration or some such other fate as commonly befalls the malcontents of society. Certainly, McDonald's has no patience for traditions, mores, or manners so long as you can still stuff your face at their trough.

Just like the communists, they next attack the arts and the intelligentsia. In a commercial where "the gang" are going to a football game in face paint, the one fellow who actually makes an attempt at creativity and team spirit is ridiculed, emasculated by his friends. And this occurs after the artist has been demonstrated to perform due diligence: attempting communication with his friends about the planned demonstration. Apparently, to be an individual in Ronald McDonaldland is to risk constant belittlement and ostracism. (As I recall, "the gang" is represented by minority racial groups and women, and the "outcast" is a white male. This means that the peer pressure to conform is being issued by traditionally oppressed American ethnic groups, an insidious paradigm shift designed to subconsciously cow the skeptical viewer into compliance with the message to prevent the outward appearance of political incorrectness and the accompanying social consequences.) I don't suppose it's a coincidence that Ronald McDonald wears the same colors as the soviet flag!

In another ad, a married man conscientiously contacts his distant wife to ask if she would like a meal from McDonald's. She fails to define her desires to him, and he is left in the uncomfortable situation of having to buy her dinner without offending her. Clearly, McDonald's would have us believe that the failure to memorize both their menu board and the fast-food eating habits of our friends and lovers will result in relationship difficulties. According to the company of the clown, we must eat at McDonald's or we risk dying both alone and hungry.

Finally, in the most shocking of all, a red-headed young man sits on a park bench beside a statue of cross-legged, smiling Ronald. As the seconds pass, the young man finds himself compelled to assume the same pose as the statue. McDonald's peer pressure tactics are so great that they'd have you believe that you must conform even with their statues!

It's not 1984 anymore, McDonald's! Wake up and smell one of the 1.3 million cups of scalding hot coffee that you sell every day! Make good food and we'll come eat it. If your best idea for convincing me to come into your store is to hypnotize me with a constant stream of blipverts, you've got even more problems than Morgan Spurlock suggests that you have.

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Earlier tonight, I was flipping channels on TV as I was eating sardines and saltines. I had stopped surfing to watch two guys on the Howard Stern Show engage in a trivia contest with a porn star. (Some television is just great. Really, really fantastic.) I was playing along at home. The only question that I missed was Jimmy Carter's middle name. (I'm from Georgia, and I didn't know Jimmy Carter's middle name. I should be both tarred and feathered, I suppose.) During a commercial break, Pat Boone came on my TV and tried to sell me gold. To quote Pat from the Swiss America Trading Corporation website promoted by the tv spot:

Stocks, bonds, real estate, cash, or gold? Which do you think offers the most potential to investors in the next few years? Well, according to Swiss America, the answer is... ALL OF THE ABOVE!..IF you have a truly diversified portfolio that includes U.S. gold coins.

Re-read that to make sure that you got it. That's Pat Boone's advice: stocks, bonds, and property are worth just as much as gold, but only if you own gold. (That's not even English, Pat.) If you can figure out how to follow that golden nugget of wisdom, I'm sure that you'll be just as successful as Pat Boone.

Now, I wasn't around in the 1950's, to be sure, but I think the fact that Pat Boone is never mentioned anymore by anyone in any context should give you some kind of hint about his importance to American music and popular culture. His white bucks and dulcet tones may have managed to repackage black r&b music for white America, but I have sever doubts about his ability to pitch anyone on gold futures 20 years after he stopped being a household name. Please note that the commercial does not run during Hee Haw or some other old folk's fare where Pat's name may spark a faded memory, but in the middle of a Howard Stern episode where the younger blue-collars lurk. Strikes me that it is a TV commercial for fool's gold, and you know what they say about fools and gold.

By the way, the porn star lost the trivia contest. And Jimmy Carter's middle name is Earl.

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