Persuasion

There we were, peacefully watching the season finale of SVU, when we were bombarded yet again with a pharmaceutical commercial.

Pharmaceutical commercials airing during SVU tend to be for one of the following types of medications:

1. Anti-heartburn (or other digestive ailments);
2. Sleep aids;
3. Genital herpes treatments; or
4. Viagra, Cialis, or Levitra.

I find this all rather amusing. I mean, SVU can be creepy, but it's never upset my stomach, kept me up at night, given me STDs, or prevented me from getting it up. Never mind the fact that I don't have an "it" to get up. Although I can see how post-SVU sex could be a little, um, difficult.

So there was this Viagra commercial about midway through, with this woman seducing her man away from a baseball game.

I guess Viagra makes you less interested in someone else's stick and balls and more interested in your own.

But what would have made this commercial so much better is if it went like this:

MAN
Hey, honey, will you get me a beer?

WOMAN
Get it yourself.

MAN
But it's the bottom of the ninth and the bases are loaded! Please?

WOMAN
Okay, whatever.

CUT TO kitchen, where woman is pouring non-alcoholic beer into a glass. She drops a small tablet into the beer and stirs it with a spoon. She walks back to the living room.

WOMAN
Here's your beer, sweetheart.

MAN
[gulping beer] Thanks!

WOMAN
[in a sultry voice] Sure thing.

MAN
[looks down at pants] Baby, this game can wait.

In the actual commercial, the voiceover goes, "They say in life there's room for one great passion... unless you're really clever."

I'm so glad I don't need to deal with erectile dysfunction, much less be clever about it. Outside of blogging, that is.

Bad slogan! Bad, bad slogan!

First of all, I should state that I absolutely love Target. Because I do.

But here's the thing about Target: Their current slogan ("Expect more, pay less") sucks.

It is, however, sometimes exactly true.

Often I go into Target to find a specific item. Often they have this item. But sometimes they do not. I indeed expect more and pay less, but it's because I expected to buy something they didn't have.

Other times I go into Target to find a specific item, and they have it for quite a nice price, but it's not of the quality I wanted. Like my favorite pair of khaki pants. In general, I have a hard time buying pants because I (a) have no butt, (b) have a short waist, and (c) have longer legs than the average short person. But I found this pair of khaki pants in an Ohio Target about a year and a half ago that were absolutely perfect in terms of fit and price. I love these pants. No, let me rephrase that. I loved these pants... until the legs shrank after a number of washings, and way too much of my (cute) socks started to hang out. I expected more out of these pants, but at least I paid less.

Sometimes I expect more parking, and I end up paying less because I'm frustrated and want to leave as soon as possible.

Or I expect more checkout lanes to be open, and I pay less because I put stuff back on the shelves so that I meet the criteria for the express lanes. (I have large problems going to the grocery store alone because I get so overstimulated that I have the urge to leave my cart in the middle of the store and run away. So I have to make myself wait in line, and by the time I get out, my cognitive functions are on a par with someone with mild dementia. I am totally not making this up. Ask my wife. She has to do most of the grocery shopping.)

Oh well. At least it's not Wal-Mart, where I expect less and pay nothing. Political issues aside, I will not patronize an establishment that fries my brain more than the grocery store does.

Thanatos

I watched The Sixth Sense for the fifth or sixth time yesterday. I love this movie. I don't like spooky movies as a general rule, but this one rocks my world. And oh, the Phuludulfian accents! Music to my ears. I have no desire to put down my roots where I was born, but the accents are like home, yo. I swear, what little accent I have has gotten stronger since I moved to California.

So I'm watching this glorious movie, letting the accents (or damn good imitations thereof) wash over me like the wudder of the Dullaware, and I realize that there's something very off about the very beginning of this movie.

See, when Bruce Willis gets shot in the beginning, it's cold enough that he and Olivia Williams have the fireplace going. Then we fade to the THE NEXT FALL, and the leaves look quite perfect for early October. It's usually too warm by April for a fire back East, so at least six months must have passed since the dropping of Donnie Wahlberg's trou.

And Bruce Willis is thinking he's got an appointment with Haley Joel Osment that very day.

I mean, I know I should suspend disbelief. It's M. Night Shyamalan, you know? I can suspend disbelief where M. Night Shyamalan is concerned. M. Night Shyamalan decided that my little hometown needed diagonal parking spots with parking meters for the filming of Signs, which was pretty ridiculous given the actual width of State Street. But the Book and Record Exchange got a complete facelift out of the deal, Mom's Bake-at-Home Pizza (which doesn't serve or bake, only assembles) got a table and a placque that says "Mel Gibson Sat Here and Pretended to Eat" or some such, and the Advance of Bucks County got to publish photos and tidbits about Mel and company for weeks. And this was all great and fun and put Newtown on the map for something other than the Law School Admission Council, whose mail once came to my mom's office by mistake and they all but scanned her retinas when she tried to redeliver it herself.

So anyway, Bruce Willis tells Haley Joel Osment that they were supposed to have had a session that day. Haley Joel Osment does not seem bothered by his apparent no-show. And I started thinking, you know, if Bruce Willis really were Phuludulfia's son, this eminent child psychologist at this famous clinic, the clinic must have a receptionist. And since Bruce Willis couldn't exactly call in dead himself, the receptionist would have canceled all of his appointments.

But even if he didn't have a receptionist, at least six months have passed since he became dead and didn't know it. Psychologists who do weekly therapy aren't known for scheduling intakes six months (or more) in advance. Plus, Bruce Willis appears to have written some notes already, in September. (I love the pause button.) But he and Haley Joel Osment don't actually meet for the first time until this scene.

So the question is: Who referred this kid to a very dead psychologist, and provided enough information in the referral that said very dead psychologist could formulate an initial diagnostic workup?

I can only suspend disbelief for so long. There's got to be something in HIPAA (which came out four years later, but whatever) about your personal health information seeing dead people.

This product may be hazardous to global health

Been around the world and found
that only stupid people were breeding
Harvey Danger, "Flagpole Sitta"

I've always enjoyed looking at the items in the Impulse Purchase department of the grocery store. All the candy, magazines, horoscope scrolls, sodas, and other things you can't possibly do without, all laid out nicely in the checkout aisles... I confess I've bought a handful of things from the Impulse Purchase department--a box of Tic-Tacs, that issue of Redbook a few months back with Mariska Hargitay on the cover--but I was taught from a very young age that We Buy What We've Come In For, And If We Buy Anything Else, It Can't Come From The Display At The Register; and I'm quite good at upholding that one.

Today I went into Safeway to get an Odwalla soy shake and a thing of yogurt. (Yogurt doesn't come in containers, by the way. It comes in things.) What I really wanted was a Fresh Samantha soy shake, which I haven't had since about 2002. Odwalla just isn't the same. But now I know why I haven't seen Fresh Samanthas in years--Odwalla bought them out and then discontinued them. grrrrrr.

Well, I got my inferior Odwalla soy shake and my thing of yogurt, and I proceeded to the checkout. And what did I feast my eyes upon while in line, but a miniature version of this?


Well, at the very least, this was a blog entry waiting to happen.

Public transit story #7: Too sexy

I left work fairly early today, on account of a mid-afternoon dentist appointment. I'm not too fond of dental appointments--why has everything that's gone awry in my mouth been the direct result of previous work?--but at least the dentist is conveniently right by the train station on this end.

On the train was this young guy, probably in his early 20s or so. He was leaning up against the wall of the car, and he seemed to think he was having a conversation with some people across the aisle. The people across the aisle were not of the same opinion, for they were talking amongst themselves and not even looking at this guy.

"Don't you think I'm the sexiest man around?" he kept saying. "I am the sexiest man on the train. Don't you think I'm the sexiest man ever?"

The people across the aisle were not impressed.

After a few minutes he seemed to get frustrated by the lack of attention coming his way.

"I AM LEGENDARY!" he proclaimed. "I am so legendary! I am the sexiest man ever! I am legendary-sexy, sexy-legendary, the sexiest legendary man alive!"

I'm glad I was only on the train with this dude for one stop. This was all pretty funny at first, but those four minutes between stops were not so sexy.

But legendary? Absolutely.

Warning

I swear, if one more person asks me at a bus stop whether I go to Berkeley High, I am going to tell him or her kindly to fuck off.

For the record, classes of 1997, 2001, and 2006, yo.