pitchman
Recently, I made the mistake of watching some television commercials. Ooh boy.

Here are some thoughts.

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"When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie," sang the frozen pizza commercial, "that's amore."

So, if I follow the metaphor correctly, love is getting smacked in the eye with a pizza? That makes no sense at all, though perhaps the word portrait simply lacks detail. Is the pizza cold or hot? Now, getting hit in the face with a hot pizza fresh from the oven - the burns from scalding tomato sauce, molten cheese clogging your nostrils, every moment an eternity of agony - that sounds quite a bit like love. Or, at least, the sort of love that sells pop songs. 

But getting hit in the face with a frozen pizza, now - that sounds little different than getting smacked across the jaw with a book. That's not love; that's assault with a blunt object.

Really, the whole thing makes both pizza and love seem quite unappealing.

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"Wow!"

This commercial shows people marveling at the various wonders of the world; the Pyramids, the Grand Canyon, a majestic mountain vista. Then we see a girl at a laptop running Microsoft Windows Vista, and she goes "Wow!"

Wow?

Could she have meant "wow, this computer is slow?"

Or perhaps she wished to say "wow, this OS was expensive!"

Or maybe "I don't need to see the Grand Canyon, or the Pyramids, because Windows Vista has TRANSPARENT WINDOW BORDERS!"

The Wow is now.

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And speaking of computer commercials, d'you notice how they always show the entire family clustered around the computer, beaming radiantly at the camera? You can see a similar family - or perhaps even the same family, I don't know - on the cover of various computer products. Especially wireless routers, for some reason. Usually only one person's sitting in front of the computer, while the rest of the family hunches over behind them.

I don't know about you, but that seems likely a remarkably unpleasant way to pass the evening. Think of the arguments over who gets to use the mouse!

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Definitely time to read a book, I think. That's the thing with books - you don't have to worry about people shamelessly hawking their wares.

-JM