Dear Best Buy: I Know That’s Me In Those Ads!

I’ve had numerous people who know me, and know my show, to send me this commercial. Usually, with an addendum that I should promptly SUE the ad agency for Best Buy, for clearly and blatantly using my persona without my permission.

His name is “Steve?” Check.
He walks into Best Buy like he’s on a cushion of joy? Check.
He’s… BALD!

Why… I oughta!

But hey, more power to them. I am that guy at Best Buy, still to this day. I go to the big box electronics retailer at least a few times a month. Usually, to purchase absurdly overpriced Blu-Rays that I may never watch. (I hear “Lone Survivor” is awesome. Still in the wrapper.)

But also to see what kind of new gee-gads, and gizmos are out.

I am thankful that Best Buy still exists. There was a time about 5 years ago, where it looked very dicey. Circuit City had just bit the dust, already bonafide high-end camera stores were as rare as VCR repair shops, and Amazon was threatening to take over the world.

Yet, Best Buy survived. God bless ‘em! They still get my money. I feel it’s my duty.

What is funny now, is seeing the items that once would fill my electronic nerd heart with joy, languish in little browsed aisles. I remember oogling the dropping prices of computer flatscreen monitors: “Holy shit! A 20” LCD for under $500!”

I used to be a printer whore, finding amazement at the ability to print photo-lab caliber photos in the comfort of your own home. Sure, the fucking ink was like buying baby’s blood on the black market. The paper was a sheer ripoff. And you wasted sheet after sheet, trying to get it perfect.

Now, meh. Upload it to any service you want. It’ll be on the doorstep tomorrow. Perfect. For pennies.

CD-R! Wait.. CD-RW! Ohhhh.. DVD-R!

Even now, I have giant spindles of Blu-Ray-R discs in my desk drawers. They are no match for a thumb drive, that can hold 50x of them for $9.99 – or less. The thumb drives now plug into just about every new DVD player, or even right to your TV.

But the new stuff keeps coming. And I keep buying.

GoPro cameras. Tablet-a-palooza! Drones. They tried to push 3D TV on us. They tried to push “connected” TV on us. TV’s that are curved, TV’s that splash light on the wall behind it.

Meh. Let’s just cut to the 4k. Mmm-kay?

So this holiday season, dammit, I WILL be that mythical bald-headed joyful electronic-nerd in that commercial. I will dance into best buy, amble around pointlessly, like a hockey-team killing a penalty, and soak in the nerdy goodness.

And any shit I buy, will be quickly supplanted by even better shit, that I don’t even know exists. And this will be okay. Because otherwise, I’d still be saving my files on an iOmega zip-drive.

And those things… sucked.