Quit trying to kill me, commercial lovers

Everybody loves a break from these things

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/health/03mind.html?_r=1&ref=science
Everyone has a guilty pleasure- the occasional cigarette, reality TV shows starring the Future Handbag Designers of America, one of those new weird Dorito flavors that are called things like "Bodacious Brackenroot" and "Xtreme Cheese Beef"- that they don't necessarily advertise to the world. We may even do everything in our power to keep our smoking habits and radioactive chip consumption to ourselves. But could it be that, behind closed doors, all of us share one such pleasure in common? We've been too ashamed to admit it, but in our heart of hearts, isn't it a relief to finally come clean: we love commercials, and find our television viewing experience drastically enhanced by their presence?

It seems the nytimes found two whole research studies, conducted by the type of Dr. Venkman-esque pseudo-scientist who'd devote his life's work to the question "Aren't people just pretending to hate commercials?", that unequivically prove our undying, subconscious love for creative catchphrases like "Solid as a rock" and "I'm lovin it." (Sidenote: Seriously McDonalds? You're going to get us to choose you over other, similar products, with the catchphrase "I like this"? Maybe later you can enter an Extremely Vague Guarantee contest and be outdone only by "It's all inside". Great Best Buy. Glad to hear you don't scatter your inventory across the parking lot. You are truly raising the bar for the electronics suppliers of America.)

Anyway. My point is, Rupert Murdoch's Fair and Balanced Research Institute can continue to report similar findings, but you'd have an easier time convincing me the StayPuft Marshmellow Man is descending on Manhattan this very instant than trying to tell me I get more enjoyment from a TV show interrupted by late-90s hair models raving about something called "Jared's", which apparently features expensive baubles designed by the teens who brought you "Claire's," but which always inexplicably results in a lot of implied ass being gotten. Perhaps these girls are secretly 13, a la Tom Hanks in Big, and would also be thrilled to receive a $50 Express gift certificate or an allusion that, given good behavior, there may be PONIES just around the corner. The subtext is hard to suss out.

In any case, I can say with some certainty that my enjoyment of a given TV show is inversely proportional to the number of Silver Foxes lying suggestively in bathtubs in an (ironically) flaccid attempt to push Manhood drugs on me. In fact, the last I checked, commercials like these are doing a lot for sales of another product, Tivo, that device invented for the express purpose of never having to watch Christina Aguilera trying to make us believe she shops at Target while wearing a square hectare of tranny make-up ever again.

Yet the New York Times insists:
“Listening to a song, watching a TV program, having a massage: these all start out very enjoyable, and within a few minutes we get used to it. Interruptions break that up.”

Ah, yes. I remember the last time I popped in the most recent Beyonce CD, I am....having an Identity Crisis, I stopped her mid-Putting a ring on it so I could listen to a man shouting at me about cheap cars. Then I whipped my videophone out of my Dereon jeans and called up my girl B to report how I'd drastically improved her music in five "limited time offers" or less, and wouldn't you know it? The day after she ditched the Tivo, Jay-Z knew what to do.

He went to Jared's.