Today in "brand tie-ins I don't understand, because I'm old and set in my ways and believe that everything was better when I was 19, except the Yankees and ease of non-library information retrieval": the new Oreos commercial that started airing earlier this week. Did anybody catch this? A kid on his bicycle happens upon a Transformers pileup on a rural road. Warily, he approaches the felled beast (are Transformers beasts, technically speaking? I was more a Q*bert kind of kid) and hands him/her/it an Oreo. Duly yummified, the Transformer gets off the turf, says, "Thanks, kid" (Transformers can talk?) …

So, does anyone have any thoughts on the legal and humanitarian implications of modifying one of those invisible perimeter pet fences for use by/with a toddler? Say, a toddler who seems gravitationally drawn towards daddy's guitars? One whose hands are somehow permanently coated with melted cream cheese, even after a thorough scrubbing and a few hours in a hazmat tent? I'm asking for a friend.

When a sponsored Twitter-tweet popped into my media place this morning reporting that “only 20% of dads think they are accurately depicted in the media,” I was like, heck to the yizzle, we’re not. Dads in ads are bumblers with bellies. They routinely get outsmarted by the kids. Most seem to be afflicted with some kind of degenerative neurological condition, one that prevents them from executing even the most basic of tasks (“do not allow the pets to engage in acts of emotional congress”). I can only assume that their spouses stick around due to the enormity of their …

I don't know what Fantastic Delites Curls are, but I want them. That name sells the product by itself. "Fantastic" connotes superlative excellence, "Delites" connotes cheekily misspelled-for-effect wonderful happiness and "Curls" connotes state-of-the-art gastro-engineering. Fantastic Delites Curls - ooh, I bet they're crunchy and not straight. I could sell Fantastic Delites Curls, and I have the marketing IQ of a BlackBerry executive. Stick a professional extrovert on the street with a live mic, hand out product samples and ask whether Fantastic Delites Curls deliver upon the myriad promises and glories implicit in their name. Boom.