It is a longstanding tradition in this country to pay attention to the advertisements aired during the Superbowl, as the timeslots are the priciest in the business and the content is supposed to be intelligent and groundbreaking. Watching the television commercials tonight was a bit of a culture shock for me personally, because I barely ever watch the sort of television that carries advertising. Heck, the last time I regularly watched network TV was back when the networks were TV. In any case, the commercials did not live up to their reputation; I found them pretty uniformly insipid. Can we please put an end to this myth that ad consultants are geniuses who know exactly what they’re doing? I don’t think there has ever been a case when a TV commercial influenced my decision to buy anything at all. Surely the untold millions of dollars spent on marketing could be better used elsewhere, especially in this terrible economy.