Commercials and Valentine's Day

I heard a florist commercial on the radio that was technically just as manipulative as the jewelry commercials I despise, but it was more forgivable because it was just a seasonal thing, flowers are much cheaper, and the person teased prospective customers instead of kissing their butts. "You'll come out smelling like roses," she says, "which is much better than what you usually smell like!" I respect that kind of gumption. Speaking of commercials...

The kind of football I like is the kind that everyone who isn't American has in mind when they use that word. You know, soccer, where the players actually use their feet to kick the ball. Make sense? I'm not crazy about American football. I went to the first game during my freshman year of college and never bothered to go again, because the action stopped about every five seconds. Woohoo! Not. But I can agree to disagree. If you like American football, good for you. Anyway, I wouldn't have bothered watching the Super Bowl except that my neighbors invited me and it was a good opportunity for food and and male bonding, two things I could use more of in my life. The price I paid was that the puppymonkeybaby will now haunt my dreams forever. Would you just sit there and let that thing dance on your coffee table and give you drinks and lick your face? I wouldn't. I'd be like, "Hey, you little abomination against God, get out of my house."

So, I just thought this Doritos commercial was whatever...

...but now I absolutely love it, because it's angered some people who deserve to be angry.

1. The term "anti-choice" is moronic and I can't believe people actually use it in complete seriousness. You don't see me calling pro-choicers "anti-life", do you? Though it would clearly be appropriate in some cases, but we'll get to that in a moment.

​2. Sexist though it may be, I actually was clueless. I didn't, and still don't, understand what's wrong with eating Doritos or any other snack item during an ultrasound.

​3. The doctor in this commercial clearly said "any day now", which even I, an Aspie with limited understanding of metaphors and slang and hints and implications, clearly understood to mean that the baby, I mean fetus, was going to be born very soon. Yet the toolbags at NARAL have a problem with "humanizing" it nonetheless. According to their logic, I suppose the baby, I mean fetus, is not human and has no rights as long as it remains inside its mother, but the birth canal is lined with fairy dust that magically turns it into a human as it emerges. Strange how a mindless obsession with "choice" can lower your IQ by 70 points.

Then this bit...

...apparently upset one of their smaller affiliates.

Go on, try to convince me that these are decent and well-intentioned people who just happen to be slightly misguided. I dare you.

​Their astonishingly lame attempt at backpedaling:

And maybe... just maybe... it's none of their business. Their idea of "family planning" is to kill unborn family members. Anyway, NARAL ProChoice Ohio got something else to complain about just a few days later when Ohio joined the list of states that have defunded Planned Parenthood. That $1.3 million will be redirected to other women's health initiatives that are not affiliated with abortion providers, but mainstream media coverage has unsurprisingly "forgotten" to mention that.

Of course this commercial was my favorite owing to the sci-fi elements.

Knowing me, you might expect that I hate Valentine's Day with a passion, but you would be wrong. It's just whatever, and I actually find the people who complain about it to be more annoying. Having said that, I have to agree with the assessment of self-proclaimed dating doctor David Coleman, who has come to speak at USU a few times but was unable to help me because darn it, he's a doctor, not a miracle worker. He doesn't like Valentine's Day because romance is supposed to be spontaneous and surprising and Valentine's Day is the exact opposite of spontaneous and surprising. He has a work-around for that, though. He suggests that guys (or girls who believe in equality) get their significant other something the day before and say "I just couldn't wait another day to show how much I love you." And then if she hates it, he says, you can be like "Haha, I was totally kidding" and you still have time to get something else. Though personally I would suggest you just dump her and find someone who isn't an entitled brat.
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Also, like most holidays, it provides an opportunity for me to buy myself candy without guilt. Spending money usually feels like tearing away little pieces of my soul, but this time I can justify it by pointing out that I'm only spending a fraction of what I would be spending anyway if somebody loved me. And that's not even taking into account the post-holiday sale on the seasonal stuff. I love those little powdery candy hearts with the banal little messages. They need to come in a jumbo size with messages like "I want to have thoughtful, intelligent conversations with you." In homage to Valentine's Day I am going to repost this clip from "The Red Green Show" that I posted months ago, because I had fewer readers then and those who have already seen it may have forgotten it sufficiently by now to find it funny again. As always, I hope that by watching it here you will come to subconsciously associate it with me and find me funny by extension.

Probably no one loves Valentine's Day more than my old roommate. Last week he bore his testimony about how we should change our perspective to think about all kinds of love and not just romance, and think about our friends and family and all the people who love us and that we love. He said that if he could, he would visit each and every one of us to show us that he cares. And then he gave the congregation a conspiratorial grin and said, "Some of you know what I do for Valentine's Day." To anyone who didn't, it must have sounded much creepier than it actually is. This is what it actually is.

I was excited by a table outside the campus store advertising $2 cremations, but then I realized they were actually "carnations". I don't even have any dead people to take care of, but I would've had to find some, because how could someone pass up a deal like that?

I'm not even going to be cynical, but I will be lazy and recycle something I've already posted again. In homage to Valentine's Day, here is a song whose title translates as "Salute to Love", already featured on my racist page about Indians because I danced to it in the finale of USU's Diwali Festival in 2011. I've listened to it too many times and now I don't get the same thrill I felt the first time I heard it, but it still seems like the best choice with its generic yet all-encompassing theme. Ignore the risqué bit.

Salaam-E-Ishq