Oh How I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Carats

My roommates and I have been playing a new game.  Whenever a commercial begins with soft music, muted colors, and makes you want to throw up in your mouth, we all shout out a guess of which jewelry store it will be for.  It’s kinda like "Name That Tune" but way more stupid.  I do have to say however, that I’ve gotten pretty good.  I can call out a Zales commercial before the male character even attempts to show his love, and well before the female character shows she’s materialistic.

I don’t know what it is about jewelry commercials though (some would accuse me of being bitter and single), but as Peter Griffin would say, they really “grind my gears”.  I mean, I’m all for romance, and trust me, I’ve bought jewelry for a girl or two, or three, or … you can guess how that worked out for me.  But I feel like these commercials are damaging.  They are teaching the young women of our great nation that gold digging is standard.

Just a small sampling of the things we can take from jewelry commercials:

We learn here by spending between $200 and $2500 that we can “say I love you like never before.”  It’s obvious to me that the guy spending two hundy is saying I love you a little bit differently than the guy spending two Gs.  But it’s love either way, right?

This is a classic.  Here we learn that although the kids spent all day pampering Mom on Mother’s Day, Dad can make her forget all about the little bastards because he’s got a bank account with more than a hundred dollars in it.  You just got one-upped.  Suckas!

This one shows us it is important to point out to our small impressionable nieces that although people may tell us they like us, they don’t actually like us until they show us with a necklace.

But I digress …

I mean, we’ve known for a while that “Every kiss begins with Kay”.  I take that to signify that you can’t get any action without buying jewelry.  I’d have to say I disagree with that theory.  What if I told you I have evidence that you can actually get action by buying expensive meals too?  So take that Kay Jewelers!  Sometimes kisses begin with filets.

But listen, I get it.  When someone gives you something expensive, you assume it means a lot, especially if they had to work hard to afford it.  And I’m all for showing love that way if you have the means (like I said, I’ve gone down that road before).  But it shouldn’t be expected, and we shouldn’t be glorifying it on TV the way we do.  We should be teaching kids that love has absolutely nothing to do with money.  I’d say I’ve done things in the past for women I’ve loved that cost me absolutely nothing, and to them meant more than anything high-priced and shiny.

Lastly, and not to backtrack into ranting, but specifically because of their commercials, I will never buy ANYTHING from Jared Jewelers.  I’ve been this close to throwing a full glass of Knob Creek at my TV during one of their commercials.  Unfortunately I could not find video of my most-hated one (for those that have seen it, it’s the crossword one).  But, honestly I’ve never heard anyone in real life get excited because “He went to Jared!”, unless Jared happened to be the name of their drug dealer.

America is materialistic enough without these ads, let's stop it.

And this says it all.

Let's Stop Fueling the Fame-Fire

This post is extremely hypocritical, but I just had to say something.  The media does bad people favors.  By bad people, I mean people who do inappropriate things solely to become famous.  The media latches on to these stories, and beats you over the head with them until these people actually become famous.  I think it's time to realize that we'd have less of these people if the media didn't make it clear they are willing to help just about anyone advance their sick "get famous" goals.  Balloon boy wasn't the first, and we find out weekly that he isn't the last either.  To be honest what really spurred this post was the "White House Party Crashers" (I refuse to link to story because I don't want to feed into the problem).  Being home for Thanksgiving has given me time to watch a lot of TV.  I've seen everyone from CBS to Fox News run story after story about, who are these people, what do we know about the party crashers, who did they talk to, how did they get by security, what do their friends have to say, what does Katie Couric have to say, what new details are coming out about the crashers, let's talk about what we know about the crashers, were these crashers really invited, what does the crashers' lawyer have to say, were the crashers vying for a reality show, what else can we find out about the crashers.  PLEASE STOP!  I'll tell you all you need to know about the crashers.  They are sick-in-the-head fame whores, and let's stop talking about them.  Thank God Tiger is cheating on his wife, so this story may go away soon.

Poking, Tweeting, and Doing Hard Time

It boggles my mind that the internets and social networking have come to this.  People getting busted for Facebook posts, and others getting arrested for NOT tweeting?  These four recent stories wouldn't have seemed possible even 5 years ago, but the world continues to spiral out of control:

1) A woman loses her health benefits because she claimed to be suffering from depression, but posted pics of herself smiling at the beach on her Facebook.  If she wasn't depressed, she surely is now.  Nice of her to cooperate with the media, and leak her own story.  That sounds like something a depressed person would do, right?  Regardless, in her defense I will say this: there was this one time I was in a really bad mood, but someone I was hanging out with happened to have a camera.  They requested a picture.  Just before they took the picture, they said "Okay, smile!", and I obliged.  I was still in a bad mood, but if you look at the photographic evidence from that day, I look happy.  Hopefully you get where I'm going with that stupid story.  Apparently her insurance company didn't take into account that most people smile for pictures, even when they're not happy.  And apparently she didn't take into account that she is a moron.

2) New, annoying, teen sensation, Justin Bieber plans an album signing at a Long Island mall.  A riot ensues.  Completely unrelated, Justin Bieber needs a haircut.  For safety reasons the signing is cancelled.  Cops ask one of Bieber's handlers to send out a tweet announcing cancellation.  Handler refuses, and gets arrested.  Busted for NOT tweeting.  Is that really a crime?  Is Twitter really their jurisdiction?  I'm picturing a day when I get a knock on my door, and the police are standing there, guns drawn, threatening to shoot if I don't change my MySpace profile picture.  And lastly, Justin Bieber needs a haircut.

3) This one's a classic.  Dude gets arrested for robbery.  But wait ... dude's Facebook got updated with status "Where's my pancakes?", right at the time of the robbery.  So no way dude coulda done it.  If you're home looking for your pancakes, you are not robbing places.  It's just one of the great truths of this world.  Hold on though, is there a way that this guy possibly left himself logged in, and someone else updated his status?  Nah.

4) A little older, but the story of the woman who was arrested for poking someone on Facebook is a real gem.  In a literal sense, there are some times when "poking" should be considered illegal.  But Facebook poking?  I'm not so sure.  In this case the woman was braking a restraining order, so yeah, it was a stupid thing for her to do.  But seriously, c'mon!  The other party here should've had this woman blocked, right?  What idiot files for a restraining order against someone but then leaves them unblocked on Facebook?  Someone who deserves to get poked, that's who.

Hopefully you learned something from these stories.  I learned that nothing surprises me anymore with the craziness that exists on the internets.  It's a dangerous place.  Stay safe out there friends.

Gesundheit

I saw this girl on the Today show this morning.  And if this is some sort of "Balloon Boy" stunt concocted by her parents, then goddamnit this is an America I don't want to live in.

Today Show Clip