Rise and Shine --- Ahhh...

Good Morning and maybe we could mix in a little gentle rain this week?




Anyway, I'm already sick of the presidential election and things haven't even really started.

I'm sick of hearing Mitt Romney talk. I'm sick of hearing the rhetoric about the economy, jobs, global warming and healthcare.

I'm sick of being inundated with false report after false report. I'm sick of the commercials where they take one comment from something four, five, six years ago and try to make a point. I'm sick of hearing all these rich people tell me what I should be thinking.

Really, let's face it, most people have already decided who they are going to vote for in November. Those few still sitting on the fence aren't going to be swayed by attack ads.

Yes, it's going to a long stretch of politics.

By the way, saw this yesterday and it's pretty funny.

Rise and Shine --- Ad break

Good Morning and wouldn't it be nice if we could all sleep in late?




Maybe we could make it a new holiday: National Sleep in Late Day.

Target could have a 'Sleep in Late Day Sale,' with doors not opening until noon. We could see Toyota commercials for the month leading up to the day.

Speaking of commercials, they have become really annoying of late.

Let's not even talk about the car ads where a bunch of people are running to the dealer to get the best buy. Now, I know cars might be selling a little better than 2 years ago, but, come on, don't insult me with a bunch of stupid people running to the dealer before the sale is over. I have a feeling if you go into the dealer a day after the sale is over, you can still get the same deal.

So, anyway, the one that is really annoying me right now is the credit card commercial where some town combines their points to watch 'the London Olympics in true London style.'

Excuse me, but the Olympics don't start for a month. How did this town watch them already? Are they in some kind of time vortex where they can live in today, but watch the Olympics in the future?

I know ad agency's are struggling to come up with ideas, but whoever green-lighted this one should be forced to watch hours of Angry Orange.

Never mind, that would probably be illegal torture.

Rise and Shine --- Side effect: Death

Good Morning and welcome back to another lovely day!

The best thing about having a DVR (and a VCR before that) is you can watch a show and skip through the commercials.
I know, I know, these companies sink a whole lot of money into the ad, the least we could do is let it run, even if we are not paying attention.
The problem is, most commercials are annoying. Sure, there are those that run during the Super Bowl that are well thought out and entertaining. There are funny ones. There are poignant ones.
Then there's this one about the iPhone that has been sufficiently ridiculed.
Don't even get me started on those commercials from drug companies. The reading of the list of side effects runs longer than the actual commercial.
The other night, I was half paying attention to one when I heard the announcer say death was one of the side effects.
DEATH!
I don't care what the drug supposedly cures, if one of the side effects is death, why would you take it?
Better yet, why would you advertise it?

Rise and Shine --- Shoot the messenger

Good Morning and what do we have here?

You know, most years I kind of ignore all the Christmas shopping commercials that pop up on TV. I'm going to buy what I'm going to buy and no commercial is going to change that.
This year, though, there's something different. This year, I secretly hope Godzilla makes a pre-Christmas run and crushes all the new Lexus' people seem to be buying.
Really, is there anything more annoying than a car commercial where somebody does some 'cute' way of showing how good they are by buying somebody a new Lexus. First of all, let's get past the whole personal choice thing. A car is, after all, something deeply personal.
Who has that kind of money sitting around. Certainly not the people they show in commercials. How does the woman who reprograms the elevator music to play the Lexus jingle get the money to buy her boyfriend a new car while working at Starbucks?
Meanwhile, those people who apparently shop at Target, WalMart, Best Buy or any of the other places that exist in these commercials need to be attacked by zombies. I mean, really, if I saw somebody singing the praises of WalMart while shopping, I might turn into a zombie. Then again, I have a feeling the zombies would starve since there doesn't appear to be a brain anywhere.
Don't even get me started with the jewelery dealers. Yeah, 'Every Kiss begins with Kay' but you can't spell bankruptcy without that same 'Kay.' So there.

Rise and Shine --- Skipping along

Good Morning and is it really going to be 80 today?

"You hate commercials, don't you?" came the question from the couch the other day.
No, I don't hate commercials. I just figure when one comes on the television it's a good time to check out what else is happening.
Maybe I want to take a break from latest adventures of SpongeBob to see how the Phillies are doing. Maybe I'm trying to burn the idea of talking dogs out of my head by seeing if there's anything (ANYTHING) else on television.
So, at least I can justify grabbing the remote during commercials. Not to say there aren't entertaining commercials. Most are well done, but I don't need to know that taking prilosec could cause instant death despite the smiling people apparently using it.
By the way, if all these drugs have so drastic side effects, why would anybody even think about taking them? Oh yeah, drug companies have a lot of money and doctors need to pay insurance premiums and, well, never mind.
So, I'll continue to skip along unless, of course, I can come up with the next great invention.

Rise and Shine --- No flipping

Good Morning and welcome to August!

Ever since I discovered the remote control, television commercials became a way to see what else was happening around the dial (or buttons).
Oh, that annoying Fiber One commercial is on again, see how the Phillies are doing. OK, now it's followed by Ford and some annoying guy wearing a ball cap. Check out the stuff being made on Iron Chef.
So, it being summer and all, I let the children watch television later at night. Usually, it's some inane cartoon on the Cartoon Network or, more often than not, some kind of Star Wars offshoot.
Now, while commercials on 'adult' television shows are annoying or sometimes funny, those shone during 'kids' shows are downright brain melting or a something that shows an unhealthy lifestyle.
So, when those things come on during these hot summer nights, I grab the remote and, more often than not, switch over to the baseball game.
"NOOOOOOO!" comes the first yell.
"I hate baseball!" is a quick follow-up.
I'm just checking the score, I say.
"Why don't you like commercials? They are great," comes another voice.
Well, I don't have any money and I'm not really hungry, so I'd rather not see them.
"Come on, they are better than baseball."
Uh, no and we'll switch ba..
"Switch now, the commercials are over."
I just turned it, give it a minute.
"This is the boring life of boring."
OK, time for bed.

Rise and Shine --- Politics

Good Morning and welcome back!

You know, the political game is funny, annoying and scary all at once.
I always wonder why political candidates (or their staff most likely) think it's a good thing to cut down an opponent.
Just look at Sen. Arlen Specter's latest commercial attacking U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak's military record.
Going negative in a campaign just makes you look desperate. Look, Specter is probably going to beat Sestak in the primary. The polls show that. Why he needs to throw out negative things against Sestak is beyond belief.
Now the scary part, Arizona is trying to pass a law where authorities can stop anybody on the street and force them to show proof they are a U.S. Citizen.
This is being pushed by a Republican-led state government, which, like the rest of the GOP, stood out against health-care reform because 'there was too much government involvement.'
Now, there are going to be secret police set up to 'catch' illegal immigrants.
What if you are a citizen, just forgot to bring your wallet that day and have to go through the possible process of deportation.
See, there's no long-range view of any of this stuff. Maybe all these politicians should fade into the background.

Superman Deported - watch more funny videos

Rise and Shine --- Super ... Ouch

Good Morning and welcome to the greatest week Ben Gay ever had!

After a full day of sledding and shoveling, the Super Bowl seemed like it would be the perfect elixer to end the day.
Watching the Big Game (as they like to say when they don't want to pay the NFL) with four non-football fans makes it, well, kind of interesting.
The biggest question of the day wasn't, 'Who's going to win?' It was a tie between 'Is this over yet?' and 'Can we watch Spongebob instead?'
Hey, at least there were some entertaining commercial spots this year to fill in between the boring stuff.
After a couple of years of too much Budweiser, Geccos and talking Babies, there was some imagination out there this time around.
I thought the David Letterman/Oprah/Jay Leno spot and the Careerbuilder.com Casual Friday ad were funny. I also laughed out loud at the Betty White/Abe Vigoda snickers ad.
In highly scientific voting at the Super Bowl party, though, there were three clear winners. So, since the game wasn't as exciting, here you go with the top three:
3. Dorito's Tim's Locker: CLICK here to see it
2. Kia's Toys dream: CLICK HERE to see it
1. Google. CLICK HERE to see it
Now, the three worst (once again, highly scientific voting procedures)
3. Denny's
2. Emerald Nuts
1. Bridgestone
What do you think?

Rise and Shine

Good Morning weekly warriors!

Well, it's getting ugly out there and I'm not talking about a Saturday night Phillies game.
Politics, thanks to our new (improved?) 24 hour news cycle, the Presidential election is already mucking up the mud.
Over the last few weeks, Republican John McCain's campaign has run commercials saying Democrat Barack Obama is to blame for the gas-price problem. Obama has also been compared to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Today, there's a story with McCain saying he's taking the high road and not talking about race.
Obama, in a speech, said the McCain Team was using his race and name to sway voters. Here's what he said: "You know, 'he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know, he's risky."
McCain's response: "Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."
Really, though, this election is all about race. It's also about economics, war, gas prices, taxes, home ownership, schools and everything else that runs our lives.
So, let's not pretend we are something we are not.
If Hillary Clinton was going to be the Democratic candidate, the other side would be putting out stories about how she should stay in the kitchen and take the children to soccer practice.
Don't take the high road when you're already in the sewer.
By the way, most aren't really interested in politics anyway:


If you have any cool links or photos, send them along to onlinedelco@gmail.com

Rise and Shine

Good Morning, Delaware County!

OK, I'll admit it first: I tape television shows and fast-forward through the commercials.
It's not that I don't appreciate the need for advertising. I know buying things makes our country go around, it's just that commercials are annoying.
It's bad enough the shows on television are mostly stupid, but, adding the commercials, can make the headache last even longer.
Over the years, there have been some inspired ads. Ones that made us laugh.
Yet, after the four millionth time it runs in an hour, even those are annoying.
For instance, there is a commercial running right now for a new car equipped with a rear-review camera. A bunch of nudists crash on a road, are offered a ride, and hilarity ensues. Well, actually, it was funny the first couple of times, but it's just annoying after seeing it all the time.
There are some just annoying from the first viewing.
Cheerios, that old breakfast cereal we ate as a youth because our mothers were conned into thinking it was good for us, is the latest to 're-invent' itself.
There's no doubt you've seen these ads where two annoying people talk about the 'benefits' of eating Cheerios. Mostly, to help lower cholesterol. One has a guy doing housework while his wife eats. They have some kind of bet. In my mind, they both win and should leave us alone.
In fact, get all these annoying people off the air.
Here, though, is the way it's supposed to be done:


Or this one:


Or this one:
E-mail links or cool stories to onlinedelco@gmail.com

RISE AND SHINE

GOOD MORNING, DELAWARE COUNTY!

Having worked most of my life after the sun had set, anytime I wanted to watch a television show, I would tape it.
Then, either later that night or the next day, I would watch the show, fast-fowarding through the commercials.
So, I really didn't pay too much attention to them. I don't need a commercial to figure out what I need to waste my money on anyway.
Having started this morning wake-up in January, I've been able to catch the shows during the normal run. Which means, except for when I have the remote in hand and check around, I am forced to watch the commercials.
Well, maybe there are a couple of humourous ones, but most are just plain annoying. Not only would I not buy their product now, but I feel like tracking down the master film and destroying it.
Morning television is the worst. If it's not a political ad, then there is this one for something called 'Honey Clusters.' It is apparently some kind of cereal. They are trying to show it's good for you. Some snot-nosed teenager with a whiny voice makes me hope Honey Clusters go the way of cheap gas.
Anyway, here are some good ones sent along by a favorite reader:


If you have any cool links or photos, send them along to onlinedelco@gmail.com

RISE AND SHINE

GOOD MORNING DELAWARE COUNTY

It's a wet and somewhat slippery morning out there, so be careful taking the young ones to school and getting to work.

Well, it appears Super Bowl Weekend is kicking off in, well, annoying fashion. There are a lot of people down at the Wachovia Center watching a bunch of guys eat.
Sounds like a good way to spend the morning.
On second thought, I'd rather have a stomach ailment.

Anyway, the Super Bowl has morphed into a big party day, with the game becoming background noise. The biggest buzz seems to be about the commercials.
One question: If businesses are doing so bad, how can they spend millions for 30 seconds of airtime?
While there have been some good ads over the years, most end up like the game itself - disappointing.
There are some classics of course and here are five that stand the test of time.
Mean Joe Green and the kid
Apple 1984
Larry Bird and Michael Jordan play H-O-R-S-E
Frogs learn to talk
David Letterman and Oprah are a match

Do you have another favorite, let me know at onlinedelco@gmail.com

Enjoy the game, enjoy the parties, enjoy the commercials and have a great weekend.