welcome to Southern Irrelevantia, or maybe Nontox City

Today I learned to run our scanner and watch Heroes episodes on NBC's website. You can't skip the ads there, so I learned that Heroes is sponsored by some kind of Altima, which is a kind of car I really don't need, so it's unclear what effect making me watch Altima ads could be expected to have, and by cars.com, so clearly Heroes viewers are expected to be serious car shoppers. I'd get right on that, except I don't think cars.com has a lot of beater vans I could make into a safe camper.

It occurred to me that when I see commercials, which happens infrequently, they are for things that would poison me, like air fresheners, fabric softeners, hair dyes, and pharmaceuticals, or for things I can't possibly afford, like cars and cruises, which I couldn't go on even if I could afford them.

I can't help but think that ads are aimed entirely at people who have nothing better to do with their lives than spend money, so they go out and support the economy while I sit on my couch made out of mattress springs (I have a couch!) in my house that doesn't smell like much and is safe, and I think, except for a bad habit of watching Maury when they're DNA testing potential baby-daddies, I'm not an American anymore. I live in a totally different place, and one of these days I'm going to name it.