There's one for the ASPCA that's just as horrible. Those turn my misanthropic dials all the way to eleven.
What it makes me realize is how extreme a commercial has to be to get the attention of people who watch TV. Since I don't watch TV (yeah yeah) other than a few gentle shows on Hulu, I've lost whatever armor I used to have, and I find most programs and commercials totally stomach-churning. (Have you noticed just how sexist a commercial has to be in order to be "edgy"? I wonder exactly how long it will take before it becomes apparent that reinforcing a thousands-year-old structure of oppression, rape, and degradation is not, like, the hippest new thing the cool kids just made up.)
Have you seen the totally creepy Axe ("creepy" and "Axe" being redudant, I know) commercial on Hulu that begins with a woman (curvy and naked, natch) sort of being formed out of leather? I can't really describe it, but ick.
I guess I've always been really sensitive to that stuff, though. My mom won't go see potentially upsetting movies with me since the Thin Red Line incident. Even a fairly innocuous-seeming film will make me silent and moody for days.
3: Yes. Wicked gross. She looks like one of the writhing demons in the background of the last scene in Devil's Advocate, or like someone being smothered to death. Also: ladies are not universally fond of the smell of leather, o dudes with leather couches that are both stinky and clammy to the touch.
Wow, no more masturbating to Brittany Murphy.
Oh yes, that commercial is sooo creepy. Even though she's acting lithe and slippery, it's like she's being suffocated and body-bagged.
Daily News. It's not on Wikipedia yet.
Christ, she looks completely anorexic.
Wow. Yeah, I remember being shocked to see her, maybe post-Clueless, when she really whittled away to nothing.
2 - I was kind of aghast to see the Motorola Droid commercials, which might as well just say "iPhones are for fags and girls".
It's not a princess, it's a robot. A phone that trades hairdo for can-do.
Not just for fags and girls! They are girls. Horrible, stupid girls who wear horrible, stupid, vacuous lipstick. I'd like to stab the creative director responsible for that with a stiletto heel.
Wow, that commercial does piss me off.
Also, Jammies' brothers always have tons of mysterious crippling viruses on their laptops, which makes me laugh. They should be called STDs.
Fascinating. The Brittany Murphy Wikipedia article was just updated, not to record her death date, but to change "She has starred in films" to "She starred in films."
TiVo and related technologies that let you zip through commercials lead to the same kind of re-sensitization that AWB describes, even though you're still watching TV. Watching the same programs at someone else's house, without it, is aggravating.
The ones I can't stand are the ones here that are warning about car accidents. There was a horrible one about wearing seatbelts in the back seat which had me switching off every time. My then) 8 year old accidentally saw one (it was on after the 9pm watershed, but during half time of some big football match that had started at 8pm, so probably more than a few non-adults watching) which involves a man seeing the dead body of the boy he presumably ran over, lying about the place wherever he went. Poor kid had nightmares over that one.
Sticking to downloads and the BBC is safer.
Recently, Hulu started offering a choice between advertisement "experiences" for him and for her. The "for her" ones are mostly Dove ads about how empowering it is to teach little girls to value beauty, which squicked me, so I switched to the "for him" experience, which were Axe ads also featuring women talking about how important physical beauty is. I couldn't really tell a difference.
I like how Hulu has started an option of watching one long advertisement before a show. You can choose that option, turn down the sound, click over to another tab, then turn the sound back on and return to the Hulu tab once the ad ends.
With Adblock on, half the ads don't load at all. Instead you get a stern encouragement to learn to enjoy advertising accompanied by a 30-second silent pause.
Adblock has made my life about 20% less frustrating.
Speaking of things that are infuriating, does anyone else share my loathing of contemporary natural law arguments and the people who make them?
22: I've only seen that with the Nuva Ring. I do leave the room for a bit, but I know that I would lose track of the time if I turned it off completely.
24: It's sad that the NY Times can print a phrase iike "Alarmed at the liberal takeover of Washington" without putting quotes around 'liberal takeover of Washington'.
I can't really bring myself to read the whole article, but on skimming it, I'm sort of delighted by the phrase 'Well, gosh, why don't we do some bodily sharing.'
I had one where the ad didn't work, and hulu said that the particular advertiser allowed them to show it without one of the ads. They apologized for ruining my viewing experience. I still had to wait 30 seconds for the show to resume.
"Ordinary friendships wouldn't be friendships anymore if they involved bodily sharing,"
Hmph. Apparently "natural law" involves a total lack of experimental spirit.
Hulu occasionally is unable to show me ads (they don't load or something?) but the timer still counts down. They suggest that if that happens frequently I should contact them about it. Why in the world would I do that? I don't want to watch their damn ads.
Oh God, the next paragraph is even worse. I can't continue reading this.
29: Yes, that was my experience as well. And why would I want to do that?
Of all the infuriating things about that article, I think the worst is the reporter's tone of "oooh, these ideas are so complicated and abstract that very few people can even grasp them." Um, no. You just have to work yourself into an intellectual fog if you want to actually believe them.
He derides Hume, but his argumentation style is fundamentally the same. You say something pretty controversial in smallish words with abstract hypotheticals and then declare that it's obviously true.
It's pretty disappointing that someone this vile could get tenure at Princeton. I know people who are struggling to get tenure at Princeton, dammit. They're orders of magnitude smarter and many orders of magnitude less evil.
In reality, I am inclined to suspect that all these several finders-of-truth are the very identical men who are by others called the finders-of-gold. The method used in both these searches after truth and after gold being indeed one and the same, viz., the searching, rummaging, and examining into a nasty place; indeed, in the former instances into the nastiest of all places, A BAD MIND.
From Tom Jones VI.1. "Finders of gold" was slang for latrine-cleaners.
32, 34: One sort of has to marvel at the effort expended to rehearse the entirety of Catholic dogma from the American right-wing starting-block, but I have to wonder when the sin of presumption was struck from the Catholic rolls.
Christ, she looks completely anorexic.
Heavy heroin use has a way of melting off the pounds.
36: That's an excellent sin.
The disingenuousness is indeed a bit breathtaking. Dude clearly recognized very early in his academic career that there was no percentage in being a good St. Thomas scholar or taking a broad view of Roman Catholic political thought (which would have to include the social-justice teachings (which, unlike the natural law stuff, actually date to rather before the 13th c.)). Instead: the fucking Manhattan Declaration. The savvy career move is to provide intellectual justification for cultural backlash, the oppression of women and homos.
Of all the infuriating things about that article, I think the worst is the reporter's tone of "oooh, these ideas are so complicated and abstract that very few people can even grasp them." Um, no. You just have to work yourself into an intellectual fog if you want to actually believe them.
Snarkout and I got ourselves worked up into a nice fury over that article earlier today. I think we probably wound up quoting absolutely the entire thing to one another in IM, as each piece provoked our outrage anew.
37: I wish they wouldn't report deaths of people younger than me without giving a reason that I can go "Doesn't apply to me."
24: Sweet Jesus that was an obnoxious article. I wish hilzoy were still blogging; I'd pay to see her take it (and the guy's arguments) apart.
I especially like when George says that he believes the Iraq war was just. Pope Benedict totally disagreed, and said so before the war, but hey, what the hell -- I'll take my Catholicism where it aligns with the Republican party platform, thanks! Pro-life only when it comes to controlling other peoples' sex lives.
Here's another side of Robbie George.
No one has remarked upon the fact that the article mentions a person named Metropolitan Jonah. (His full title is apparently His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah.)
You may henceforth refer to me as Her Beatitude, Cosmopolitan Kraab.
I rather like the title the Prince of Seborgia took for himself -- His Tremendousness.
39: lolz. Yes.
41: The article sent me into a whole new fantasy: I shall immerse myself in the scholarship and spend a year or two writing an awesome, popular, book-length refutation of this kind of bullshit. And then I remembered that people don't believe George because his arguments are so strong; they believe him because it's politically convenient.
42: "after the First Things board meeting." You know, I like the banjo, but it seems to attract assholes (c.f. Steve Martin). And that hammered dulcimer in the foreground? Another really cool instrument that attracts a lot of people I don't like (sorry, no famous examples).
43: No, but I gaped at the description of him as "primate." Obviously it has another meaning than the one I know best.
I couldn't read the article, though. Life is too short, and I'm already angry enough at journalists this week. I feel like way too many of them live in a world -- and their professional training encourages them to think this way -- where they can't grasp the idea that their work has consequences for people who are different then they are.
Seriously. Explain to a reporter that you don't want to say X because your boss will figure out it was you and you'll get in trouble, they grasp that. Explain to them that if they publish supposedly neutral news photo X, a small child will be more likely to be assaulted, and they boggle. It isn't true in their social world, therefore it isn't true.
ARGH.
46: Somehow I don't think this is a problem just in journalists.
I didn't know Steve Martin was an asshole.
You're right that it's not limited to journalists, but they're the ones with by far the biggest bullhorns and the widest readership. Some jerk with a blog decides to post a picture, it's highly unlikely to ever go anywhere serious. Some AP photographer does, and an hour later it can be flashed around the world, seen by millions of people who have no computer access and don't read blogs.
Good lord, I just read that article. What utter garbage. I can't believe George is considered by Princeton to be a serious scholar.
A primate is "the chief bishop or archbishop of an ecclesiastical province; the title of the bishop of the 'first see' of a state or people. Also (not conferred as a specific title): a patriarch of the Orthodox Church"; it derives ultimately from primus, first, and has a nonreligious but rare use in which it denotes simply someone first in rank or importance. Presumably it is thence that the zoological use derives, the primates being the firstbest among the animals.
49: Oh, I understand. I just had to reflect that people frequently, frequently, don't realize that their actions (and attitudes) have consequences. I dunno; it's been an exhausting week in which cluelessness and posturing seem to abound, to the point where I want to yell quietly observe: this is not a tv show! We are not all characters in a sit-com (or drama)!
52:
One man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Are you telling me I'm old, Charley?
In re: 13, are Scud missiles notably fast? I always thought they were supposed to be pretty slow as far as missiles go. And it seems like taping a horse to one would lead to an off-target missile and distinctly less promising thoroughbred.
What, are you some kind of physics fag? Science princess?
Live by the nerd, die by the nerd.
43: No, but I gaped at the description of him as "primate." Obviously it has another meaning than the one I know best.
When Cardinal Tomás O'Fiach of Armagh died, a reporter memorably asked an Archbishop whether he would remember the Cardinal best as a man or a primate.
54 -- Not at all parsley. You're a special snowflake. The rest of us are playing our parts in the sitcom.
So this is how illiterate I am: "What a great poem Charley has posted. So modern -- some 20th century kind of thing." then I googled and turned up a bunch of Shakespeare references. "Oh, some clever, relatively unknown poet (hence not showing up in google) decided to riff on Shakespeare and did a good job of it."
That reminds me that I stumped a bunch of people at work the other day with the Sphinx riddle from Oedipus Rex.
Oh, I've totally done that. Kinda fun.
Sophocles totally copied that "Riddle of the Sphinx" thing from Goblet of Fire.
Oh, some clever, relatively unknown poet (hence not showing up in google) decided to riff on Shakespeare and did a good job of it."
Sounds about right.
There are entire cable channels that are nearly unwatchable.
D-HC is a medical weirdness and horror channel. Child without growth hormones, medical examiner shows, "a malodorous 11-year-old girl" tonight, conjoined twins, 500 lb virgins;8 yr olds with no facial bones
Animal planet has a regular series of "Animal Cops:Big City" (AC:Phoenix) about ASPCA calls and cases
Most of these have relatively happy endings, but I still can't watch them..
65: You forgot Poland the 400 pound tumors!
Today we are watching He's Just Not That Into You. This is one terrible movie. Did you know that men get married because they're considered jerks if they date you for a long time without marrying you, but then they are called assholes if they marry you before they are ready? They can't catch a break!
This movie is hurting so much. Gay men exist to be a giggly chorus to straight women's pursuits. Neat! Women. They will redecorate their apartments, making such expensive choices, until they drive their husbands into the arms of sultry temptresses. There is no category that this movie does not insult.
68.last: Does it insult inscrutable Oriental despots?
Hmmm. Not yet. It just insulted Wiccans, though. And it is insulting Ricky from My So-Called Life.
Someone needs to speak up for the sultry temptresses!
We just found out that she drove her husband into the arms of the temptress because they haven't had sex in a really long time. Like, longer than a dry spell. Also the temptress is Scarlett Johansson and she goes not-quite-visibly-topless, and it seems she believes the straying husband will marry her as soon as he leaves his wife.
THE NINE KINDS OF DRUNKENNESS
Nor haue we one or two kinde of drunkards onely, but nine kindes. The first is Ape drunke, who sings and hollowes, and daunceth for the heauens; the second is Lion drunke, and he flings the pots about the house, calls his Hostesse whore, breakes the glasse windowes with his dagger, and is apt to quarrell with any man that speaks to
him; the third is Swine drunke, heauy, lumpish, and sleepie, and cries for a little more drinke, and a fewe more cloathes; the fourth is Sheepe drunke, wise in his owne conceipt, when he cannot bring foorth a right word; the fifth is Mawdlen drunke, when a fellow will weepe for kindnes in the midst of his Ale, and kisse you, saying; "By God Captaine I loue thee, goe thy waies thou dost not thinke so often of me as I do of thee, I would (if it pleased God) could I not loue thee so well as I doo," and then he puts his finger in his eie, and cries; the sixt is Martin drunke, when a man is drunke and drinkes himselfe sober ere he stirre; the seuenth is Goate drunke, when in his drunkennes he hath no minde but on Lechery; the eighth is Foxe drunke, when he is craftie drunke, as many of the Dutch men bee, will neuer bargaine but when they are drunke; the nint is Becks drunke, when he or shee be drunke and onn the Interrwebs, comenting with bothe profanitees and CAPITAL LETTRS and mayhap som misspellings as well.
First story line resolved itself: the woman who broke up with her emotionally stable boyfriend because he didn't believe in marriage now realizes she's okay being in a permanent non-married relationship.
#2: The wife threw the cheating husband out, in an empowering way.
And the temptress stopped leading on the nice guy that she was leading on.
And the cynical guy who doesn't believe in love is admitting he's in love with the foolish girl who wears her heart on her sleeve is desperate for any shred of male attention, so this is really validating and fulfilling for her, too.
75/76: Stopped leading on the nice boy because now she can run off and married the married guy? Or because she's seen the light?
I hate this movie. Aren't you glad you just read my live-blogging of one of the worst movies ever? ...Oh, not yet to the credits. We still have to resove the nice guy who was ditched by the temptress thread.
Jesus, how many stereotypical characters does this movie have?
And now he's talking to Drew Barrymore. This seems promising.
78: It's not clear yet. I guess there are more plot twists to come.
The girl who took back the upstanding boyfriend who doesn't believe in marriage just found a ring and now he's down on one knee. Win-win or something.
Drew Barrymore is cancelling her myspace page that caused her so much grief.
The cheating husband and temptress appear not to be living happily ever after, after all. But I'm pretty sure the women are empowered and the men either learned their lessons, or are in relationships.
I'm going to vote for nice guy runs into soon-to-be-ex-wife in coffee shop/grocery store and sparks fly; married guy runs to the arms of the temptress who, at last understanding that he has been leading her on the way she led on the nice guy, leaves him out in the cold; Drew Barrymore does something endearingly funny.
The voiceover is telling us that the lesson is to keep hope throughout the messy dating process. Here come the credits!
Although I'm totally amused that Jammies' little brothers were controlling the remote control for the past 90 minutes.
Capsule review: Heebie's just not that into you.
Next, bring the internet-phone to the cineplex and liveblog "It's Complicated".
73: In a post-It's a Wonderful Life unpacking with Iris, I got to explain the difference between drunks who are too angry and drunks who are too happy. I decided to avoid terms such as "sloppy."
I really liked "He's Just Not That Into You". It was sort of weirdly perverted and more honest than it meant to be. I class it as one of those movies that reveals something about the collective subconscious without intending to.
You got what out of that movie? Are you sure you're just not being contrary?
90: About a year ago, I was trying to explain, to an 8 year-old, with assistance from her father, how it could be that someone had "had too much fun." (Referencing characters in a play we had just seen who were suffering the aftereffects of partaking in various substances). In the end, the best I could do was to say that it's often the case that you only realize you've had too much fun after the fun part is over.
PG "Armond White" D has it as #2 on the Best of 2009 list, right behind Bandslam.
I glanced at Just Not That Into You last night, watched some scene with Affleck and Aniston with the sound off, and switched channels immediately.
Instead, watched something Urban Depressing like Crash or The Air I Breather with an ensemble cast of Losers Who Would Rather Just Die and Have Good Reasons Until the Spirit of Christmas Brings Them Together. Forest Whittaker, Jessica Biel, Ray Liotta. Purple Snow It was terrible, but at least people suffered and were kind to each other.
I mean really suffered, not the kind of stuff heebie described. Forest Whittaker killed in his wife in a car crash and was an Anglican Priest who lost jis faith, Jessica was a stripper with a kid in permanent vegetative state, Ray Liotta had spent 25 years in prison and was released with terminal cancer.
Not that people whose spouses forget their birthdays or stuff like that don't deeply suffer. Can't compare pain.
Forest Whittaker killed in his wife in a car crash
Blowjobs while driving: tempting, but wrong.
I'm really suffering.
Fucking 70 degrees out there but the female dog had a busy weekend and needs to rest her leg.
Two weeks of 40-55 coming up.
96:Actually, it was his wedding day and he was trying to catch pictures with a camcorder of his bride while driving.
an Anglican Priest who lost jis faith
Many thoughts go through a man's mind in the moments after he comes but before he dies because he got a blowjob in a moving car. It's important, however, to resist the temptation to blame the ejaculate per se, whatever faith you've been brought up in.
But usually I love those ensemble yuppie musical bed relationship movies, and heebie's play-by-play interested me.
Blowjobs while driving: tempting, but wrong.
Especially performing them.
101: isn't everybody involved in a blowjob performing, in some ways?
102:I was often told I was very good at it.