Tuesday, July 29, 2008

FreeCreditReport.Com Commercials

I have a new favorite asshole. Free Credit Report.Com is just about the worst thing to come out of the internet since on-line predators. I hate the concept of being manipulated into thinking I'm getting something for free, when in reality I have to pay to "enroll" in their stupid program to qualify for the "free" credit report. I hate the jingle...Freeee credit report.....dot com. Incendiary, that song is. I used to hate that big-teethed, poor man's Prince William who sat in that chair looking smug about knowing what was on his credit report. If I was in third grade and seeing that for the first time, I would say, "If you love your credit report so much, then why don't you marry it?" Seriously that guy acts like he would fuck his credit score if only he could. Hate him and his bleach teeth and his outfit and his smug "do you know your credit score?" I thought I could never hate another human being as much as I hated this smarmy fool.

I couldn't be more wrong. Because now at regular intervals on my television screen comes an even worse asshole to plug this sham of a business. Why did they pick this squirrely, horrible man out of the people who auditioned? Surely this is truly the worst person you could ever select to represent your product. His presence on my screen makes me wish for death. His death. First of all I hate his shaggy hair. Second of all, I despise his plucky music. In the first commercial, he is working as a waiter in a restaurant, and he proceeds to play a creepily upbeat number about how he wouldn't be working there if he had known his credit score. What? It's downright offensive to insinuate that nobody would work as a waiter unless someone stole their identity and messed up their credit report and pushed them into the sad, sad life of waiting tables. Boo Hoo, you have to wear a pirate costume. There are worse things in this life - like people are STARVING to death in Africa, and being methodically murdered in Darfur. Get some fucking perspective. If I were those nice couples eating in that restaurant, I wouldn't let that vile man go within 20 feet of any of my food.

If that weren't bad enough, in the next commercial the same guy gets married and then proceeds to sing a despicable little tune about how if he had known her credit was so bad he would never have married her and had to live in her father's basement. What an ungrateful douchebag. Seriously, if you are that cramped for space and its so horrible living there, then why do you have your crappy "band" hanging out there? While your poor wife is stuck trying to do the laundry all around your dumbass friends lounging around and leering at her? Why don't you just leave if it's so horrible? Oh right...she's the girl of your dreams. You just regret marrying her because you didn't illegally obtain her credit report score prior to the wedding. How romantic, you tool. He should be grateful just to have such a nice, pretty wife as to not only completely divorce him on the spot for singing a little ditty about how much he can't stand being married to her RIGHT IN FRONT of her face, but still does the wash and puts up with all your douchebag friends taking up room in her already cramped living space. What a complete asshole is this guy to basically express that a person's value can be defined by a credit score. Is that supposed to be funny? Because its gross. And if they have to constantly peddle their dubious wares on my TV screen, bring back bleach teach. He's the lesser of two evils.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Fire and Ice

I'm beginning to think that the people I already know are the only people worth knowing in this world. Everywhere I turn I see individuals that bolster my inward desire to develop a bad case of agoraphobia, hunker down in front of my TV or a good novel, make some popcorn, and prepare to watch the greatest show ever - The Apocalypse, otherwise known as the destruction of all humankind (including myself) via fireballs and nifty explosions.

Of course, I know that the end of humankind won't be that simple. According to all the "green" people that have been annoying the shit out of me lately with their incessant whining about off-shore drilling and polar ice caps and paper plates, our world will probably end in ice as a result of our own arrogance and greed. Remember that Robert Frost poem?

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also greatAnd would suffice.

I can't (or don't want to) picture Robert Frost "tast[ing] of desire", but the man makes a brilliant point. Well, well, well... he's somebody I never met who was probably worth knowing. I have to concede that I just might be wrong a lot of the time. Of course, its hard to make any sense when my mind is so cluttered with angry and cynical sentiments. It's like this boiling rage bubbling underneath the surface of my docile demeanor and it's very distracting. I know that this anger is mostly about stupid things of little consequence. It doesn't take a whole lot to set off the fireworks in my skull. It could be a dumbass actor telling a tired joke on my television screen and all of the sudden I want to have a comedian bonfire. I might have bought a one-way ticket to Hell this morning, because I said "Jesus Christ" about 1,000 times when the woman driving in front of me was being bipolar with the speed limit (old lady on a Sunday drive one minute, Speedracer the next),. Yesterday, I broke a pen right in half because Livy was trying to take it from me when I was writing. I've taken enough basic Psychology classes to know that what I'm really mad about is something else entirely. I guess it's easier to be angry at the little things, then face the truth about my own failings and disappointments in myself.

I guess it is good that I've retreated these past few months. I have made an art of isolation. I am a mason, working hard at the fortress, using every annoyance as an excuse to lay down another brick. It's an ugly wall, but it serves a beautiful purpose. It's protects both you and I from facing the consequences of uneven tempers and the impatient, whirring storms of discontent. And for the record, I also hold with those who favor fire, but only in this life and not beyond.