Ice Cream Store Without a Freezer

How cool is this new innovation? Smitten Ice Cream, based out of San Fransico, makes each scoop of ice cream fresh before your eyes (in 60 seconds!), using their unique liquid nitrogen based machine. No need to freeze anything. In fact, until they had a real store, they just sold it out of a cart on the street.

The Sad Lesson of the "Pet Rock"

In the late 70s, the Pet Rock was a new joke. An Ad Exec was in a bar listening to his friends complain about the hassles of having a real pet, and he came up with the idea of a Pet Rock. A Pet Rock, as the joke went, did not have to fed, walked or bathed.

Being an Ad Exec Alpha Personality, he went ahead and made the Pet Rocks a reality. For a while, these were the biggest trend. A Pet Rock came with the rock itself as well as a funny instruction manual for your new Pet. In the year or so that the fad lasted, the Ad Exec in question became a millionaire. Eventually, Rosebud Entertainment bought the rights to the Pet Rock - and Hipsters everywhere can now buy them again as of 2012.

The Ad Exec's joke was that you can sell absolutely anything as long as you market it right, even a Rock. Sadly, he proved us right.

There is now even a more modern version of the Pet Rock:

Ketchup Loses All Appeal in these "Sex Sells" Ads

 Seeing ketchup bottles spanking people's bottoms have definitely turned me off ketchup for life. The idea was something about new squeezable bottles, but that gets lost in the sleaziness.

The idea itself is tacky. The visuals are poorly done. The cartoon ladies are all boobs and butts. The cartoon dude is there to stop me from complaining about sexism.

Worst of all, the spanked recipients look petrified, like it's non-consensual. Gross.

Facebook "Home" Ad Features Bratty Behavior

Isn't this why you should put your phone away at the dinner table? So you don't come across as being like the bratty girl featured in this ad, rudely ignoring her family to focus on "Facebook friends."

This Matador Network article sums it up best:  "It’s about this marketing campaign by Facebook that paints them as a saviour to all your boring life moments — you know, like when you’re eating dinner that your parents slaved over and listening to an aunt that you probably haven’t said hi to since you were 8."

Business Insider bluntly points out the real problem with this, "The commercial suggest that Facebook Home will eliminate mobile phone etiquette altogether. Granted, the ads are exaggerated, but they have all featured users who are so absorbed in their phones that real life events, even important moments, plays second fiddle to Facebook fixation."

I'm consoling myself hoping that Facebook is going to lose its relevance soon anyway.

Stereotypes in Diet Commercials

This fabulously witty pieces exposes all the cliches found in diet products ads. Skinny women resisting dessert, weighing themselves constantly and wearing red bikinis.

Bonus: Includes the line, "women and muffins can't coexist."