I’ve been trying to post daily aside from the weekends and I sort of dropped the ball. Jkash and I were going to go to wing bowl on Friday but we hit a little snag. I should have known I was in trouble after drinking 6 beers before we left for the bar on Thursday, then did 2 shots of this Jim Beam combo, 1 shot of jager, and then a mind eraser. To prepare for the end of the special I probably bought around 5 more beers and was quadruple fisting at point point. I was fine coherently but ended up playing poker till 1:30. When you have a wake up time for 3:30, that amount of alcohol can be problematic. So we pathetically missed it and this was the low of the weekend. Friday and Saturday were kind of ho-hum. I proved my worth in quarters and told some girl she looked like Snookie but that’s really the most exciting part. I was complaining how I have nothing to write about and it’s still somewhat true. I did stumble upon one topic that is worth mentioning though.

There are good things, and there are bad things. Any form of presentation can fall into one of these two categories whether it be movies, songs, TV, or anything else. I want to explain why things are good. A commercial I particularly liked last night was the Simpson’s coke commercial. No it wasn’t funny and I’m not even a real Simpson’s fan (anymore). What I liked about it was the theme and the simplicity. Themes are a key factor in how things become good.

Let’s dissect. We are in a recession and tons of people have the feeling of losing money. This commercial relates to the average American. When something as simple as a coke can give joy to Burns, it symbolizes that money isn’t the only thing that can make you happy. A simple concept of a coke bringing happiness is what I constitute as a good commercial. You can substitute coke for anything, cotton candy bubble gum, asian massage hj’s, making snow angels (for some reason I made one on a high school track and it turned out perfect and it was like a scene from a movie where the character was enlightened with something unexplainable), any simple thing that makes you happy can overshadow a feeling of dejection.

I thought this Dodge Charger was another really good commercial. Once again we (not I) can relate to the experience a man goes through to appease his significant other. Once again, relating to the common person’s experience. All this guy wants to do is drive his Dodge Charger and for doing all these other things, he deserves it. When you can relate to the idea behind the commercial, it makes it that much better.

Here’s one that is terrible. It’s tries to be funny, it’s not. People don’t correlate your Snickers bar to giving them energy for a football game. All around bad. Even the simpletons should find this bad. I enjoy the cheap laugh just as much as the next guy but this doesn’t even make sense. The Doritos’s and the casket was also just as bad and I don’t want to embed it because it will make this post worse.

What really bothers me is that the marketing brains behind some of these commercials probably are not stupid people. And stay with me here. The people of America are so dumb that these marketers actually dumb down the commercial to entertain the non-thinking human. The two commercials I picked out are probably rated some of the worst among the masses. I’m not saying I’m smart but well thought out messages hit me harder than cheap laughs at this point of my life.

A couple more examples away from TV. Paranormal Activity. I watched it this weekend. Bad. Badder than bad. There was absolutely no good from this movie. Maybe if I watched it in the theaters it would have had a better result but honestly this was the biggest piece of shit work I’ve watched in a long time. I’m not even sure it was a movie. How they filled 86 minutes is beyond me. I remember at 54 minutes thinking, has anything happened yet? It can’t be a good movie for the following reasons. The girl wasn’t hot. There is no feeling towards either character. You could care less if either one dies at the end. There is no theme, no message. The point is to try to scare you and I really didn’t even think they did a good job at that. I honestly can’t think of too many worse movies. Kazaam?

A final focus on what makes something good. Let’s take songs. Whose on top right now? Taylor Swift. Why? She sings about common themes that everyone can relate to. Love, growing up, everyday stuff. Obviously talented too, but her songs are moving to people. What’s not good? Carry out by Justin Timberlake and Timbaland. Doomed from the get-go. No beat is going to save this ridiculous concept. I’ve only listened to it once but it’s hook is carrying something out, and that pretty much makes zero sense.

So next time someone asks your opinion if something is good or not, forget the glitz and the glam and try to give an intelligent answer. Like when Jordan Cohen tells me Eragon is a great movie, I just have to take into consideration that the special effects were taking over his mind and turned his brain into jello. It probably could have been a fire breathing dragon flying around for two hours and it would have kept him on the edge of his seat. Sorry Jordan, but for some reason you just come to mind when I think of someone who talks up movies.