Your website

Nathan [or is it Nate?]:

    I stumbled upon your website today and I have to tell you I have not laughed that hard since Minnesota elected Jessie Ventura to be governor. You are by far one of the wittiest people I have ever encountered and I thoroughly enjoyed pouring through your acerbic rants and biting rebuttals to the idiot savants who felt the need to throw their two cents into the ring. I even found myself ranting when I got home whenever a stupid commercial came on, much to the chagrin of my roommate who, after about ten minutes, threw up her hands and went to buy a bottle of wine. Is that a natural reaction? Do you drive people to drink?

    Anyway, I made a few observations of my own and thought I would share them with you really quick before someone at work actually catches on to the fact that I have spent three or four days avoiding work. Thank God law school starts in four weeks and I am out of here in three, because if they had any idea how little I actually do during the day, I probably would have been fired months ago.

    1.     Respectcopyrights.org: Have you seen this piece of advertising? Sean Astin and Ben Affleck flicking across the screen among a litany of underpaid, undervalued minimum wage workers who they claim are also affected by piracy? Yeah, because my downloading Bruce Almighty from KaZaA means that some teenage stoner working at the local theater is going to be prevented from making $5.15 an hour. Here's a novel idea Ben, you don't want me to download your movies off a pirate website, stop charging $17.00 for shit movies and overdone plot lines. Make a movie with substance for once and depend upon that little skill that requires you to be in Hollywood, called acting, instead of your chiseled features and tabloid notoriety. And on that note, if the Supreme Court can put a moratorium on the death penalty because it is cruel and unusual punishment, can't we do the same thing to prevent J Lo from acting, singing, appearing in public?

    2.    Any tourism advertisement for any state in the Midwest. I live in the Midwest, and I can tell you, people in New York and California don't sit around watching television, see these commercials and think, I have never been to the Lake of the Ozarks, that sounds like a fun family trip of inbreeding and illiteracy. People don't visit Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri because they like the atmosphere. They visit these states because their goddamned car broke down here while they were on their way to a much more exciting city. We are not tourist traps, we are simply traps for the weary traveler who's flight is cancelled because there is snow in fucking September and they are stuck at some Budget 8 in historical downtown [insert Midwest city here] where the cacophony of one way streets is so utterly untraversable that it would Magellan a migraine headache. Stop pretending that we have anything to offer other than creatively placed trailer parks and an overabundance of unwed teenage mothers, we are not a cultural hub.

    3.    Those fucking 10 10 ... numbers. Some things belong in the 1980s; acid wash jeans, diamond rolled cuffs, Hulk Hogan and Alf. Tell me what a furry alien would know about my phone bill. Did the 10 10 execs sit around and attempt to think up ways to insult the intelligence of the average consumer? And when did Hulk Hogan start acting? Isn't that like Jessie Ventura being elected governor? Oh, wait....

    4.    Any commercial that uses a cute cartoon or a talking animal to sell its product. Does a bear shit in the woods? Why yes he does, but for $15.00 a roll he can have the added comfort of new Charmin, "is this a down comforter or toilet paper", Super Colossal Quilt. Is it just me or is it a little disturbing to actually contemplate purchasing a bathroom tissue based on a cartoon character's bowel movements? And what is up with the Gecko? Did they actually pay someone to come up with this idea? "Well lets see, Gecko kind of sounds like GEICO and everyone loves that annoying Taco Bell dog, I think we have a winner...."  I mean really what does a Gecko have to do with me crashing into so old lady who refuses to use her turn signals for fear that she will burn out the fucking light bulb?

    Thanks for providing quality entertainment and allowing me to sound off a little. It's a great website and you are just hilarious!

Jenn

commercial that puzzles me

Do you remember those deodorant commercials from a few years back that started with a woman saying, "The last time I wore this dress..." and going on with her story about finding out that some other deodorant didn't keep her as dry as Secret, or whatever it was. Now, I know commmercials are supposed to get your attention and it doesn't much matter how they do it, but I've always wondered about this opening. There's no attempt to make it make sense in the context of the commercial, saying that she had to take her dress to the dry-cleaners, or something. The dress is simply used as a marker, a place in time. I have to believe that this was written by a man who thinks that women spend a great deal of time talking and thinking about their dresses, and bringing them up in conversation as often as they can. In his mind, if a woman comes to work in a new dress, she and a friend of hers spend at least five minutes at the beginning of the day talking about the dress, every little detail of it, how it feels to wear it, if she's wearing the right belt, the right high heels, every little thing. I'm pretty sure that women don't do his.

If you don't remember this commercial, this is how it went:

Let's say it was for Secret, since I don't remember the product. It's set in a hotel room. It starts with a woman in a red dress saying to the camera, referring to her dress, "The last time I wore this dress was when I discovered that Secret roll-on kept me drier than the leading roll-on." ( or something like that ) Then she's shown in flash-back, the dress is shown on a hanger, she's about to slip into it. She's visiting a friend, she's out of secret, her friend lends her another roll-on, she's shown at a party in her red dress, but "it didn't really keep me as dry as Secret roll-on." Then there's some more verbiage, and she's shown at the end, back in the present, posing in her red dress and obviously enjoying her dress very much, and saying, "That's why I use it." It's almost like the commercial is for the dress.

Then they did another similar one, with a woman at an airport saying, "The last time I wore this dress," again, posing as though she's presenting her dress for the camera. After all the verbiage she's back at the airport, and she says something truly odd. "Well, we're off again! Me, my dress, and Secret roll-on." And off she goes.

So you can see how I remembered these commercials as odd. Even for a commercial.

Do you remember this commercial?

- Alan Plessinger

Nathan,

Get a life and stop being such a freakin snob.  Are you that anal you can not enjoy something for what it is, rather then pick it apart in a dillusionary waste of web space.  If you dont like Frost then dont drink it.  Go back to drinking water from the Alps.

annoyed,

Jason Bougie

Your website

Maybe it's just because I'm sleep-deprived and have an essay due tomorrow I
haven't even started yet, but I found your site quite amusing. I laughed
out loud at the picture from the Playtex website, "Getting ready for your
first period." Is it first period gym class? Oh, that first period? Well,
no wonder Carrie had such a humiliating experience with her first period.
She wasn't in pyramid position. Is it the girl on top "getting ready"? or
all of them together? I don't recall being on a "period pyramid" team, but
I sat out most activities in middle & high school. Killer cramps will do
that to you, antisocial attitude notwithstanding. Upon reflection, I don't
think I want to be at the bottom of that living structure if we're all
starting our periods at once. Hey, the one in the red shirt is a boy! I
guess Playtex is fighting gender discrimination in its own way.
Just wanted to say thanks for maintaining this site. If humorless
bloodthirsty right-wingers like DreamWeaverCatcher are outraged at you
daring to complain about god-given red-blooded American mass-media
brainwashing THEY can't even stand, I think you'd better expand.
-the jax

Stalker not-quite-wannabe

From: "Melinda"
Date: Tue Jul 15, 2003 9:59:03 AM US/Pacific
To: nathan @commercialsihate.com
Subject: Stalker not-quite-wannabe

Dear Nathan,
I think you're the handsomest boy in the whole world too, and though I'd really like to stalk you, I just lack that level of energy and commitment. Plus, you might slip and call me Melissa, and that would really piss me off.
Love,
Melinda