Since moving last month, I've been watching a lot more commercials on TV.

I'm not watching any more TV (less probably) and I did get a DVR as part of my Comcast cable service, but it just is not the same as with a Tivo box. In designing their software, Tivo made a huge improvement to the fast forward function by having it backtrack a few seconds when you hit play again. It saves the hassle of fast forwarding then having to rewind back a few seconds because you are not fast enough with the play button when you see the show is back on.

I've also been watching a bit of the Olympic Games which I haven't been recording, but just watching the broadcast and last week I saw the oddest set of commercials.

First came a commercial, which I can't even remember what it was for, set to The Postal Service version of "Such Great Heights". It got odd when that was followed by an M&M's commercial set to the Iron & Wine version of the song.

It got even stranger when both these ads were followed with the Apple iMac commercial which doesn't use "Such Great Heights" for it's soundtrack (it's Moby's "God Moving Over the Face of the World"), but it's imagery of clean rooms and silicon chips is pretty much a duplicate of the Postal Service music video and I heard was even made by the same director.

I think it's a bit sad all these ads have such little creativity or originality, coming back from the break with a promotion for more Olympic Games coverage on their other networks, NBC used a favorite song of mine by Badly Drawn Boy, "A Minor Incident" from the About a Boy soundtrack. It's distinctive with the harmonica giving it a sort of warm folksy feel.