But hey – there’s probably an Appleby’s near the new hospital up north!

Anyhoo, just had to weigh in on the ads. I thought the Dodge ad was sexist, sure, but weren’t most of them? At least the Dodge ad plunged a little deeper into the otherwise shallow male psyche and didn’t simply announce, “Hey, boys, here’s some weak beer and fake blondes with fake boobs. Don’t jizz all over yourselves, now.”

Brian, regarding the Audi ad, I’ve read in marketing news that Audi owners are by far mostly Republican, but with bourgeois bohemian pretensions. So, weird as it was, I think the ad served its mission. Make yourself look hip, crunchy and cool while being the unapologetic self-serving pig that you are.

I find advertising generally insulting, and the Super Bowl is the annual showcase of the worst, IMHO.

EDIT: Just read the RIP for Casa D’Angelo on Fairfield. Was just there on Saturday and praising it to the staff as my favorite location. (The acoustics and atmosphere really do beat the hell out of the other locations, which are steel pole barns with fancied-up facades.) The staff were reportedly given notice that very day. What a shame. It was also one of the few places in town with al fresco dining in a courtyard under trees, not facing a strip mall parking lot.

Forget the Focus on the Family thing; Audi ran a flatly bizarre ad that was essentially incoherent – especially coming from a damned German car company!

It’s because politicians, like advertisers, like to tell Americans to feel sorry for themselves. And we like to feel sorry for ourselves.

My take was that the Dodge ad was lame, period. There is a strain of self-pity in several of the ads, not just that one, that said, “Oh my Lord, the THINGS women want us to do (big eyeroll). Aren’t we put upon? And won’t buying something make it all better?” Damn. You ain’t that put-upon and nobody wants your martyred ass in a boutique when you could be watching the big game (FloTV).

Of course, the whole point of many commercials is to tell you that the universe is screwing you, and that buying crap will make it all better. Even if it makes you broke.

When the teabaggers first got going, I remember someone (alas, I forget who) making what I thought was a really interesting observation about how the media was reacting to the sight of these grey-haired folks ranting in townhalls. Basically, the popular image of the elderly (however you want to define that) has been shaped by the older members of previous generations, who came from a culture of not making waves unless the situation was really dire. So you see the teabaggers, see the grey hair, see the frothing, and assume that the situation must be horribly bad, to make dignified little old ladies and polite older gentlemen so wroth. The thing is, the commenter went on to say, many of the people who are today considered “older Americans” came of age in the sixties and seventies, out of a culture that encouraged that kind of high-emotion protest.

So are they wound up because the conditions that are provoking their outrage are objectively worthy of such high dudgeon, or because they get worked up over all kinds of things, just because that’s the style they’re used to? The media likes to assume the former… but is that necessarily the case?

didn’t watch the Super Bowl, had our thirtysomething neighbors over for an anti-Super Bowl party and tried to watch “A Hard Day’s Night,” they did not get it at ALL though.

we did turn the tv on to see the Who, with Ringo’s son Zak on drums… who has said that Ringo didn’t want him to be a drummer and Keith Moon gave him his first kit. seems to me, though, the best thing Daltrey and Townshend could have done after halftime was to immediately announce their retirement from live performance. “Look, we’re too old for this, we will never play in front of a larger audience or put on a more extravagant production, that’s it, we quit.”

Chris Matthews had a fairly dire take on the rough talk coming from Nashville, which (paraphrasing both him and Ms McCain) amounts to: Revoutions may be for young folks, but older folks prefer coup d’états.

Think about it: these stupid sons of bitches have made it a talking point that we cannot defend our Constitutional government by Constitutional means; and we cannot trust a president who cares more about the Constitution than in exercising unchecked war powers as Commander in Chief.

With talk about revolution and secession coming from “main stream” national political figures, one cannot help but think that the Crazy Train is beginning to get up a head of steam (if it hasn’t already left the station)

The times we live in are becoming increasingly strange, and the dysfunctional sourness of our political discourse is slowly reducing into something else; something more acidic.