Bad ads.

I'm noticing several ads I've seen recently really rub me the wrong way.

One is the San Francisco Chronicle's campaign: "It's your Chronicle... and it's all about you." Really? It covers important facts like my toddler keeps waking up at 6 a.m., and the skin on my left heel keeps cracking badly in the winter? Because those are the LAST things I want to think about. Honestly, I'd rather learn more about, oh, I don't know, important topics of the day, locally, nationally and internationally. Dear Abby's good too. Are we Californians really so self-centered that we need our newspapers to prop up our fragile sense that we are the most important people in our world?

Then there's Burger King's new "One World, One Whopper" campaign. Ominous Orwellian overtones. But how does it taste? Ah, there's the "Whopper Virgins" ad and website, in which innocent third-world denizens who have never before tasted a burger take a bite and declare that it's the most amazing thing ever and that they will happily discard their far healthier native diets for a shortened lifespan with a side of obesity. Hold the onions.

There are others that I can't think of right now that are equally irritating, and I don't even watch a lot of TV so that's probably the tip of the iceberg. On the other hand, I am very fond of the "White Gold" ad by the Milk Council. So maybe my advertising tastes are not those of the general public. Who knows?