I’m speechless. I love working in advertising, and I hope that commercial was real and not a joke.

I’m no fisherman, but this seems pretty handy. Disgusting, but handy. But come on, if you’re smart enough to come up with something that makes de-boning fish a snap, you’ve got to come up with a better name than that.

And whatever copywriter wrote this, thank god for you. I imagine it was someone who got the assignment to write this TV spot and thought “That’s the name? Really? This must be a joke.” Upon realizing he was, in fact, going to get paid to sell this modern day mousetrap, he decided to work in all the sexual innuendo he could.

“My wife would like one of those!”

I bet she would, skippy. I bet she would. I also imagine the client loved this, which would only spawn more laughter at the Wunder Boner’s expense back at the agency.

And double points for the red neck with the handlebar mustachio. Nice work.

They don’t get much better than this.

This week’s topic: WINDY CITY MASS TRANSIT vs. ROCK CITY GRIDLOCK

OPENING STATEMENTS

Jeff: Two years ago I sojourned to the White City in search of an economy that couldn’t be held hostage by a group of overweight, middle aged men who think on-the-clock drunken high-lo racing is the sport of kings. My first experience with this wonderful city was in her underbelly, riding the subways and the “el”. My only experience with mass-transit before was on systems in second rate cities, places like London, Paris and Berlin. Let me tell you, Chicago puts every other city on the face of the earth to shame. To shame, I say!

Rob: Being a world-traveler myself, I’ve experienced mass transit in quite a few metropolises. And since Detroit has no mass transit whatsoever, save the People Mover (blech), I’m here to say we don’t need it.  Having lived with and without it…well, you can keep your stupid, dependable modes of transport!  You hear me, world!  We’re better off without it!  Give me a gas-guzzling, environment polluting automobile any day of the week.  Trolleys and trams, subways and buses - blech!  After all, we’re all out to take care of ourselves anyway, right?

ONBOARD BATHROOMS

Jeff: Gotta go? Go in your pants! In Chicago, it’s socially acceptable to crap your pants on the train, as evidenced by the toothless grin and earthy fragrance that greeted me when I stepped on my very first rail car. Finally, a place where we can be unencumbered by an unnecessary, time consuming trip to the porcelain throne.

Rob: The People Mover, a two-car elevated train that goes in a quarter-mile loop, has no bathrooms. It’s dangerous and smelly and I’m assuming bums piss all they want in there with no repercussions. I can rightfully assume, as in Chicago, there are no agents of the law making rounds to remedy this self-defecating situation, so I guess this one’s a tie.  Now, the beauty of “taking care of business” in the privacy of your own car?  No one else cares!  If you can put up with it, what else do you need.  Besides, the beauty of driving your own car means you can pull off on the shoulder to do your thing any time you want!  No longer will you feel embarrassed for pulling the cord and getting off five stops early to the chagrin of those commuters you see every day.  They know you have to go.  They just know it.

WORLD-CLASS EFFICIENCY

Jeff: Other cities give you seats, ample standing room and enough trains to lessen the crush a hundred thousand people trying to get through the same five foot wide door. Not Chicago. Space is maximized by encouraging everyone to shove in until the very act of breathing may cause the car to explode. Bonus! You can have guilt-free sex with 6 people on the way to work. Informing them of what you did is optional.

Rob: Well, efficiency has many different meanings, my friend.  Detroit has miles and miles of highway, so even though you may be late for that super urgent appointment, or you’ve completely abandoned all hope you’ll get off of I-75 before you die, at least, when you’re in your own car and stuck in traffic (which you will be, guaranteed), it seems like you’re surrounded by so many friends, each in the very same predicament you are! Efficiency of the heart, my friends.

ALWAYS ON SCHEDULE

Jeff: A Chicago bus or train is never late or early, it arrives exactly when it means too. And sometimes, 4 or 5 buses come bunched up together. The full ones stop, the empty ones skip by you so the driver can take an extra five-minute break hitting on the 200-pound honey selling deep-dish sausage pizza on Wacker. With these kinds of choices, I quickly fell under the “Lady by the Lake’s” spell.

Rob: Well, here in Motown, we do away with schedules altogether! I mean, hell, there could be a strike at any minute from any number of unions impeding your journey, and wait long enough, chances are your job will become obsolete and you won’t even have to drive anywhere! It’s like the best kind of vacation, the kind that doesn’t end!

PEOPLE LOOK OUT FOR EACH OTHER

Jeff: Whether you’re 95, you’re 8 months pregnant, you’re trying to get your 5 kids down to the soup kitchen so you can eat, or even on crutches - rest assured no one will get up to give you a seat. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. And Chicago is not a city for the weak. Tough it out, or we will feast on your flesh.

Seriously, Chicagoans will eat you.

Rob: Imagine you’re at any number of fantastic clubs in downtown Detroit. It’s Friday, everyone’s bumping and grinding, and someone pulls out a gun, starts laying waste to the bodies on the floor. Then, out of pure kindness, someone is fantastic enough to start shouting “Gun! Gun! Get the f&$% out of the way! He’s got a gun!” alerting you to the situation at hand because you’ve been otherwise preoccupied with an exceptional “Detroit Hunny.” Then, the bandit leaves the club, he’s fled on one of the cities dozens of buses, the excitement’s died down, and the club starts hopping again. I mean, that kind of entertainment…you’d pay through the roof for that most places. All thanks to transportation.

CONCLUSION

In the battle of transportation, who wins? Only you, dear reader, can decide. Cast your vote in the comments or perish.

Got an STD? Let someone know anonymously!

Number one, who is sending these cards? Number two, how would it really make you feel to receive one of these gems in the mail.

“You’re too hot to be out of action. I got diagnosed with an STD since we played. You might want to get checked too.”

If you’re such a raging philanderer, shouldn’t the possibility that you might have caught a chlamydia crab cocktail from the weekend group sex session down at county already have crossed your mind? If it hasn’t, do you really deserve to live? Honestly.

I’d also like to witness the hallmark moment that would ensue if someone in a monogamous relationship sends these kind words:

“Who? What? When? Where? It doesn’t matter. I got an STD; you might have it too. Please get checked out.”

On inspection of the site itself, sending a card comes with handy features like choosing the STD you have, and the ability to send to up to 6 people! Finally, a website that supports moresomes. Yes!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go send out some twenty or so odd e-cards.

On an unrelated note, Rob, please check your email before you have sex again.

Since no one has commented on the ads, it seems like it’s my responsibility to break down all the action between the snaps. And with it costing 2.7 million to buy 30 seconds of airtime (not even including production costs of actually making the spots), it’s not surprising there was more Justin Timberlake and Stewie than Brady and Moss.

So, which were my favorites?

None. They all blew.

What happened to the golden days of advertising in the big game? When there were story arcs that carried themselves across the whole game. Bud Bowl, I’m looking in your direction. Michael Jordan and Larry Bird are always up for a game long game of horse, right boys?

At nearly 3M a pop, my guess is that it’s not economically feasible to have these game long masterpieces. Instead, we get giant pigeons and Francis Ford Copolla rip offs. Seriously - who are the ad wizards that came up with this one?

Superbowl ads will always have a few lite beer spots where guys love their precious brew so much they’ll go to all sorts of ends just to smuggle it into places that no normal man would be caught without the ability to get himself sloshed on low-calorie mash. There will always be talking animals and babies.

It doesn’t get much better than this, folks. Sorry.

This, dear friends, is it.

Barkley: Shut Up and Jam: Gaidan.

The year? 2041. Neo New York has been destroyed by a force that can only be described as “The Chaos Dunk.” A dunk so powerful, it’s like 150 megaton nuclear bombs going off at once. And this dunk can only be performed by Charles Barkley.

Basketball has been outlawed by the great B-Ball Plurge. Michael Jordan, a turncoat in this modern era, is charged with busting old hoops stars for playing the sport they love so. Larry Bird is a man of the cloth, denying his roots.

Your task? Make a better world for your son, Hoopz, a plucky youngster aching to learn the game Balthios James, the great grandson of Lebron James.

I can’t make this stuff up folks. You’ll just have to watch the whole trailer (stick with it through the first 2 minutes, it starts kind of slow but trust me, it’s worth it. Then download the game. The very essence of Barkley’s personality has been captured in it’s rawest form.

Seriously, what are you waiting for. Download it!

You suck. I have no idea how you stay in business.

In the time I’ve procured internet service from you, three months by my reckoning, you have disappointed and showed incredible ineptitude at every point of contact.

The Price Comparison

Like any good consumer, I compare prices when I shop. Little did I know that I’d be comparing no less than 5 different and distinct prices from Comcast on the internet, over the phone and through another company’s promotional offer. Also, good job mislabeling your “Internet Only” package online. I guess I should know “Internet Only” actually means “Internet and Phone”, I’ll do my homework next time.

The Installation

Thanks for completely blowing off the appointment to install my internet and making me waste a day off work because you can’t seem to schedule anything without a four-hour swag. Also, thanks for informing me when I called you to complain that you actually rescheduled the installation, and updated my account on your website to inform me of that fact. I’ll hop on the magic internet connection you haven’t installed yet and make sure I get the date right next time.

The Second Installation

Thanks for showing up an hour late and staying until 7. Another thank you is in order for making sure to tell me I needed the condo association’s permission to subscribe to your services. I really enjoyed scrambling around with a hungry, cranky toddler and a spastic dog.

The Move (Setup)

Moving time! I should just be able to call and things should go smooth, right? Sounds like it, except my internet stopped working the day after I called to transfer. I’m wise to your ways now, Comcast. I knew you had just stopped my current connection prematurely.

Sure enough, I called and you told me I can’t have two addresses on the same account. I called back a week later, and the rep I talked to seemed to have no trouble keeping my current connection running for the five days before the installation at the new home would occur. I appreciate the unnecessary run-around.

The Second Installation

Thanks for sending a cracker-jack tech guy to install my internet. He was at my house for maybe two hours before he said, “Hey man, I can’t get this to work. I keep getting an error message.”

Sometimes the easiest answer is the most obvious one, Comcast. It took me 5 minutes to figure out that your tech guy was using a bad cable modem. I told him to try a new one. With my help, everything got set up in a snap. I’ll be expecting my paycheck for successfully completing an installation on Monday between the hours of noon and five.

Sincerely,

Jef

Update! Co-worker Jenny told me about how the Comcast installation guy actually fell asleep in her living room floor while waiting for a pingback from the system. Nice!

I don’t begrudge Annie, who has become the token Wolverine in our group of friends. First off, we all liked UofM growing up. She’s seen her turncoat friends go over to the dark side, and has stood strong by her original conviction. She even married a Spartan, and hasn’t converted. Huzzah to you for sticking to your guns.

That said, one of the main reasons I left the Michigan fanbase was because of the fans. Don’t get me wrong, Annie’s great (and her husband looks fantabulous in a bikini I might add) , but a full 95% of Michigan fans are raging a-holes. Attendance to the school is not required to be a Wolverine Jackass.

Michigan fans are my second least favorite type of fan. Winning top spot are Notre Dame fans, but they both share similar qualities.

• No matter what, they think they should have the National Championship Trophy in their trophy case before the season starts
• No matter what, they are ranked in the pre-season top ten
• They could be 10 and 0, and their fans would be bitching about how the coach “runs the ball too damn much”. Hey asshole, running the ball got you 10 wins this season so shut up

Now I don’t disagree that Annie was accosted by State fans in East Lansing. But girlfriend, what else did you expect? I went to the Bulls/Pistons game last night in Chicago, and almost drowned in the “Detroit Sucks!” cheers. This is what happens when you are the visitor at a stadium. You’re going to get trash talked, period. Insert the Spartan penchant for alcohol, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

I joined the Spartan legions because:

• I went to school there, and did develop an affinity for the place
• I came to despise any Michigan fan not named Annie Whitlock
• Having fun is more important than winning, in my book. Spartans have more fun. Wolverines sulk even when they’re winning, which I don’t get.

My 2 cents.

(more…)

Yeah. I wanted to forget him. But this morning I came back from a nice, relaxing vacation to this response to his asinine company-wide email.

LOST

A small leaf-shaped piece of silver jewelry 9/16ths of an inch in length, 1/4” wide and about 1/32” in thickness. The shape is conical, fashioned to resemble the European white birch (Betula pendula) or the American elm (Ulmus americana), but is stylized to a fair level of simplicity representing the veins of the leaves in crude relief. The veins are parallel and eighteen in number. It’s molded, not shaped and though fairly shiny, it’s actually a non-precious metal alloy. Nevertheless it is greatly missed, as it’s an accompaniment to a larger piece of jewelry, an earring in fact. See Photo.

Very clever. See he copied and pasted the “Found” email into a “Lost” email. There are so many layers of comedy I want to cry.

If you need me, dear reader, I’ll be out on the train tracks waiting for the 5:05 CSX to rumble over my neck with a ten-ton load of wheat from Kalkaska.

but i simply couldn’t ignore the transgression that follows.

so.

i get an “all-office” email at 10:54 a.m. claiming that a piece of jewelry was found. no alarms so far. even though i don’t own jewelry, i’ll take any excuse i can to stop staring at a 10000 row excel document (advertising at its sexiest, let me tell you). so i hunker down to what i think is going to be a quick 5 second note about a sapphire earring or cubic zirconium engagement ring that’s longing for its real owner.

instead, i get this.

found,

if you can describe it, it’s yours.

this was sent out by an actual person in the office (a partner and creative director, mind you, not some nameless peon.) it was sent without prompting or context. a photo even accompanied it, further adding to the ludicrousness.

thank you, creative director, for wasting everyone’s time with your silly wit. did you think that up all by yourself? tee hee, it would be a large guffaw if a detailed description accompanied a “lost and found” email, tee hee, you thought to yourself.

apparently, there’s nothing better to do here than come up with inside jokes with yourself.

relax, dear reader. do not be alarmed. no one important was hurt.

“we have no findings to suggest anyone famous was involved in the accident,” said a police spokesman, adding he did not know whether it would affect the shoot this week.

oh thank god. no one famous was hurt. i don’t know what i would have done if everyone’s favorite scientologist had gotten a scraped knee or gotten a sore throat from dust kicked up from the crash. thankfully, mr. cruise employs (and rightfully so) ‘little people’ to do all his stunts. their lives are expendable.

while we’ve got a long way to go here in america, it looks like the german police force is well on it’s way to having its priorities straight. movie stars are more important than god. period.

sehnt sich phasendeutschland

• whenever matt butler enters a room, everyone immediately has the song american soldier stuck in their head for the next ten years.
• pat tillman wasn’t killed by friendly fire, he was killed by matt butler for singing the star spangled banner off-key.
• former presidents put on rubber matt butler masks to go trick or treating
• matt butler doesn’t ask what his country can do for him. he makes other people die for their country.
• when matt butler goes to a baseball game, the singer is forced to hold each note of the national anthem for ten minutes.
• matt butler doesn’t hunt bin laden. matt butler allows bin laden to run for his life for sport.
• every time matt butler finishes a sentence, ten thousand red, white and blue balloons fall over everyone within hearing distance.
• matt butler makes all his girlfriends dye their skin green, carry a torch and change their name to lady liberty. if they fail to do this, he airlifts them to a tribal camp in afghanistan where they are forced into servitude.
• matt butler shows up to vote in non-election years
• for exercise, matt butler runs up the stairs of the statue of liberty and the washington monument while carrying the liberty bell. he finishes by urinating on the steps of the united nations building.

case in point - street magic with david blaine. do not live for another second without watching the below videos. if you do not watch them, kill yourself, for you have no sense of humor.

episode 1 - sets things up beautifully

episode 2 - best out of the 2 posted. if you liked anything of the first one, come back for more.

and here’s a quick bonus video for all you lovers out there

how did he achieve this? by attaching himself to a hundred or so thin sacks of rubber filled with gas.

his method of returning to earth? a fcc-approved combo of a release valve and a bb gun.

bravo, kent couch. next time that guy at work starts bragging about how he nailed the grandma receptionist with the secretary spread, you can say, “yeah. well i flew over the fucking rockies. in a lawn chair.”

you have the ultimate trump card. as long as you don’t find yourself in the same room as an astronaut, it’s highly unlikely anyone will be able to top your story.

yet later in the article, he mentions the fact that he may not fly again. in fact, if his wife tells him not to, he won’t go up.

boo couch! your balls made of blood diamonds have been revoked, you wimp. you achieved the miracle of flight and you’re letting some broad dictate what you can and can’t do?

poor form, old chap. poor form.

an australian manufacturing company has put out a call to their fellow countrymen to become official condom testers.

let’s let that sink in for a second.

apparently, this company doesn’t think they’ll have any issues getting eager aussies to take part in the product test.

“who wouldn’t want to have a chance with an actual authorised professional?”

i take this to mean that said product testers will not be having sex with each other. rather, with some other ‘professional’ to be named by the company.

who are these pros? porn stars? you’d have to pay them too much. prostitutes? too disease ridden.

i submit to you, if you sign up for this study, you will be sleeping with employees of this company.

now, I work in an office with some fairly attractive people. after all, it is an advertising agency. even so, there are maybe only 3 or 4 people you’d consider having sex with if you weren’t wearing office goggles.

i can’t imagine too many attractive women work in the field of rubber manufacturing. i also can’t imagine that anything other than high school/college age/50 year old men will sign up for this study.

so if you’re planning on participating in this ’study’, be forewarned. take a look around your office. that 45-year old admin with the huge secretary spread and the chin whiskers? that’s who you’re going to be plowing in an all white room with an experimental rubber on your package.

well folks, apple is printing money again. oops, i meant, they just released a “new” product into the market. in case you haven’t been speaking to human beings since last year or you happen to live in a state with no electricity, sewer or waste removal system, like georgia, and haven’t heard about the iphone, let me enlighten you.

steve Jobs and co. took a phone, an ipod, a camera, a touchscreen and brought them all into a room with their best designers. several crates (and I’m talking those large, metal ones you’ll find filled with black market arms on huge freighters) of lsd and multiple moresomes later, they emerged with what everyone is touting as a supplement for jesus christ himself.

i, however, will not be joining the cupertino zombies. i’ve never touched an iphone, and i don’t intend to. here are my top ten reasons you shouldn’t get an iphone, in descending order.

10.) this means another deluge of “witty” john hodgeman cameos on ask a ninja.
9.) steve jobs doesn’t eat food - he eats the still thinking brains of puppies and orphans
8.) there will be a sharp increase in traffic accidents as people attempt to drive with their knees while holding and using the touchscreen
7.) sorority girls will still have their clothes “wowed” off by the moto razr, a much cheaper alternative to visible consumption.
6.) every IT guy in your office will have one, paid for by the company. they will show up at your desk to “update your drivers” every day and brag about their new phone while smelling like asparagus.
5.) we’ll be forced to endure microsoft’s marketing deluge for their competitor, which will be poorly designed, require 20 steps to make a phone call and be riddled with viruses
4.) $599 bucks? who do they think they are?
3.) there’s a 95% chance the battery will explode near your head, leaving you with harvey dent like scars
2.) really, the ability to watch everybody loves raymond anywhere you want is not a good thing
1.) inevitably, someone will try unlocking your phone by rubbing their genitalia on it

seconds before the iphone self-destructs, relegating this gadget happy pre-teen, to a diet of strawberry milkshakes for the rest of his life

it was on my way home from work. up till this point, it had been filled with the standard fare. zombie like women with giant sunglasses sitting next to perma-shadowed middle aged men with acne on the train. the faint smell of asparagus (or is it urine) as i stepped off the redline. but then, i walked onto bryn mawr street, and there, sitting in the gutter with a dirty suede jacket and hair akimbo was a glorious sight.

a homeless man. begging for change. with a sign. pretty standard so far. what did his sign say?

“trying to get drunk”

this was accompanied by the shit eating grin he wore as he asked people to spare a nickel or penny.

thank you for being honest. lou, richie, whatever your name is. thanks for not feeding me the standard story about how your car with your blind kids that you’re raising yourself because your wife died in your arms in world war 2 broke down five miles away and you need my spare two cents to pay for a new radiator so you can get home.

a pair of lincolns and maybe a jefferson or two rattled into his styrofoam cup that he was no doubt eagerly waiting to fill with the cheapest, hardest liquor he could find.

we singlehandedly have mr. brown to thank for the gratuitous propagation of the knights templar in literature and cinema. it’s the poor mans way to explain any supernatural/magical/spiritual phenomena.

want to write a book about howler monkeys who discover how to use tools, build a time machine, go back to the paleozoic era and kill the first caveman, thusly destroying the human race? go for it! if anyone questions why on earth howler monkeys would behave so, simply write this:

“the knights templar made them do it.”

it’s so blessedly simple. the list of authors who choose to dine at dan brown’s bodily leavings (shit, to the layperson) is a thousand middle aged women who can’t think for themselves long.

a few choice examples. robin young, bretheren. jerry bruckheimer couldn’t miss a chance to cash in (surprise, surprise) with national treasure . the last templar, by raymond khoury. hbo’s carnivale had numerous references to the freemasonic anarchists. and just when you thought it was over, kingdom of heaven comes swooping in with templar propaganda.

who are these knights? why do they have such powers?

“who cares?” say writers everywhere, who invoke their name at the mere mention of anything unexplainable. ignore logic. they are the fashionable conspirators. they replace the quintessential post 9-11 arab man as demonic, faceless evil force.

so again, thank you dan brown. the runaway success of your well plotted thriller has provided a crutch for writers everywhere.