Not enough points/miles/minutes!

I've noticed a lot of ads on TV that fit this motif:

Some guy is trying to enjoy some kind of super-cheap version of some kind of minor luxury.  There's the guy trying to take his family on vacation by jumping boxcars with hoboes, there's the guy trying to go bicycling in a forest without a bike, and there's the guy who told the kids their grandparents were dead so they don't use as many cell phone minutes.

As you can tell, the problem isn't that they don't have enough money.  It's because corporate America has frowned upon them and given them coupons with too many restrictions.  The family guy can't go on good vacations because his credit card miles have blackout dates.  The bicycling guy doesn't have a bike because he didn't rack up reward points fast enough.  And the family with the secret grandparents have never heard of mail of any kind, obviously.

Would this behavior be considered pathetic in the real world?  Or am I just not as coupon-crazy as I should be?

(no subject)

What I like most about Adam Carolla's morning show is that it's not like those other morning shows...

Browne transcript

You know that phony TV psychic Sylvia Browne, who makes all kinds of consistently wrong psychic predictions and projections on TV?

She sells private telephone readings for $700 each.  And now you have the distinct honor to be among the first to read a transcript of a real live Browne reading.

If you're willing to throw your morality out the window, then you too could sell wild guesses for $700 an hour to vulnerable people.  It's easy money, and if the skeptic movement's efforts have taught me anything, nobody can ever stop you.