Time to update my annual homage to TV ads featured alongside coverage of the Tour de France.

Commendable for its imagination, The Nissan Leaf ad. Picture everything running on gas. The alarm clock in suburbia beeps at 6:20 AM, and Joe Average slaps it, and the little gas engine of the alarm clock shuts off, no more exhaust shooting over the bed. Fire up the coffee maker with a mini pull, like starting a lawn mower. The microwave cranks up, belching exhaust fumes up through the pipe in the back. The office, each sit at a desk, and Joe Average primes the gas pedal, turning the key just so and his computer fires up.

Then there is the so-called Ultra Life of Michelob Ultra. Reality is bent suitably to the current attention span, the touch screen of a smart phone. And those who adapt congratulate themselves as they even control the sunset at happy hour. Instant gratification, mass produced beer (compare to the long slow process of making wine in cooperation with earth and nature.) "Well, come on, yeah, come on."

Weezer, continuing on with the 'hard rock 'n roll music' (which itself has become cliché) has contributed music to Izod, the fast successful life of fast cars, sailboats, a big chested blonde in a tight polo leaning out a car window, conspicuously. The male viewer is not unhappy with her excuse to lean so out of a car window, but of course, it's all contrived. "This is the dawning of our brave new world. No more hesitating, it's too late to turn back now." Mindless words, a mindless world. No thanks. I'm not a model. I'm too busy with doing dishes, feeding the cat and other disasters of home economics.

I miss the repetitive SAAB commercial, the one with the woman in the driver's seat of a white convertible from Tours gone by. A clever nod to the female capability of multiple orgasm?

Sex sells. Of course it does.

A recent Suburu ad may well be the master of subtlety. Kids all geared up, playing hockey, set to The Pogues, "If I Should Fall From Grace With God," all under the protection of a nice mom who gets these energetic little pros home, dreaming in the back seat, exhausted from their exertions on the rink. Pretty clever.

But now I hear Anthony Bourdain wondering out loud that Hemingway, according to his theory, was "hung like a hamster... not that anything is wrong with that." Maybe it's funny, I don't know. But I would think differently.