Verizon Wireless has been advertising their NFL Mobile app with commercials highlighting the amazing transformation of dweebs into jock-sniffers simply by staring at their cellphones. Remember that scene from Clockwork Orange where they taped his eyes open and made him watch violent videos? Apparently that's good for you now.

There are 2 of these commercials, "Andy" and "Jane." Because, like both Andy and Jane, I watch waaaay too much football, I must have seen each of these a hundred times. Unlike Andy and Jane, my incessant consumption of NFL products has yet to lure NFL quarterbacks to my backyard barbecues. Although I can intelligently discuss endgame strategy, recognize Tampa 2 coverage, and explain referee hand signals, none of those abilities has in any way improved my social standing.

These uplifting vignettes of zeros to heroes remind me of those fundamentalists who are determined to metamorphose homosexuals into heterosexuals via vigorous psychological reconditioning. Originally a lonely misfit, Andy is schmoozing with hot women by the end of his commercial. Shut-in Jane transforms from lonely cat lady to someone who yells at people on the bus. It's conversion therapy, NFL style!

Funny, too, that these commercials run almost exclusively during football games. If the NFL's product was so transformative, wouldn't I already have supermodels running their fingers through my overly gelled hair? I'm beginning to suspect that it isn't the NFL that's helping these geeks so much as it is their nifty Verizon smartphones. Mankind had expected the Rise of the Machines to involve Teutonic cyborgs, but in 2012 the end of the world has been preceded by stormtroopers of talking address books.

Think I'm kidding? Both Andy and Jane start their commercials wearing eyeglasses, and after months of staring intently at 6-inch screens held at the end of their noses, neither needs glasses any longer! "Can you see me now?" says Verizon! I gotta admit, if Telephone Jesus can restore the vision that I lost in the 3rd grade, I'll sign-up for their longest-term contract on the spot!

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As I was waiting for the "Colbert Report," Comedy Central forced the two worst commercials currently being broadcast on me. The culprits? Verizon and Quiznos (again).

In the Verizon ad, some sweaty, air-headed bastard approaches me, the viewer, and puts his sweaty earphones on my head so that I can listen to music that he "gets totally pumped" to. (Fall Out Boy, I think.) First of all, I don't care how big that bastard is, he's not putting his sweaty earphones in my ears. I know where those things have been: in his ears! Secondly, in the commercial, to prove that this asshole isn't gay, he takes his earphones away to talk to "his lady." Yeah, boy, that jerk just put his sweaty earphones in my ears unprovoked, and now he has to go prove that he's not gay for coming on to me? (I'm willing to put myself in the role of a woman here, and I still don't want some sweaty guy putting earphones in my ears. I've never met the chick that liked having man-sweat shoved in her ears.) Sorry, I'm not buying it. Seriously. No Verizon for me. (And yes, I hated the same concept when that ditzy flirt put her music in my ears in the previous version of this commercial. I don't want any stranger to approach me with headphones that were just in their ears. Ever. It's somewhere along the lines of "poo-on-a-stick." Just gross.)

In the Quiznos commercial, two women discuss how great their new prime rib sandwich is with the following dialogue: "It's not lacking any meat. And that's what real women need. giggle-snort." Damn, if they didn't beat some Enzyte ad to that exact line. It wouldn't be half as bad if they didn't break down giggling after the innuendo. Quiznos, giggling airheads making childish sexual suggestions will not lure me back to your sandwiches. Maybe you should consider reducing the price of your product instead of pumping the airwaves full of stupid, insulting commercials if you really want us all to drop in for a bite.

I thought it fitting that at the end of the "Report," Stephen Colbert asked his guest, political theorist Benjamin Barber, if he was a Subway or Quiznos guy. Barber said he was a Subway guy. That's one more vote against you, Quiznos! (Even if it did come from a Howard Dean supporter.)

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