Old Man Gripes

As I've mentioned in this space before, I'm an old man now. It's time to start publishing my gripes.

Gripe #1:

These two DirectTV commercials, which attempt (poorly) to make fun of merging cable companies. I'll post the first one. I know there's at least one more, wherein the guy from all of those mockumentaries dumps boiled shrimp and ice all over the conference room table.

(2023 update: embedded video no longer exists, and I don't remember what this was to search up a replacement.)

It's not just that they've come up with a not-funny ad for these comedy stars to read. It's not that YouTube makes me watch a commercial so that I can get to the commercial that I'm trying to watch. It's that they piss on the whole premise of this spot by ending with, "Now part of the AT&T family."

Did they have this in the works before the AT&T/DirectTV takeover and then just not have the balls to kill it? Or do the marketing people have their heads so far up the corporate behind that they don't recognize their own face?

(I'm could have probably worked that metaphor out a little better.)

Just really stupid.

And, it really is gripe-worthy that YouTube makes you watch a commercial to watch a commercial. If I had known that one before I started to write, it would have it's own entry in the ennumeration.

Gripe #2:

I really like Apple Pay. I use it where I can. One of those places is Whole Foods. But when my total at Whole Foods is over some threshold -- and I'm not sure where this threshold is, but it's somewhere between a coffee and a week of groceries -- they make me sign the screen pad when I pay.

The whole point of the signature is to prove that it was me at the register if I decide to claim it wasn't. But with Apple Pay, the system has already validated my thumbprint. That's WAY better proof that I'm me than my signature is. Get rid of that, Whole Foods!

That was fun. Let's do this more often!