I've seen a lot of ridiculous things in the past few months. A grand piano in a McDonald's. A grown man crying at the OTB. Steven Seagal in a Mountain Dew commercial. This one may top them all.

Here's an ad I found while flipping through a recent issue of Sports Illustrated:

The Taste of Paradise

Nobu Matsuhisa, Nobu: "For me, cooking is about giving my customers little surprises that will lead them to make discoveries about their own latent tastes. The soft smooth taste of (product) is one of those rare discoveries I am excited to share with my customers."

Charlie Trotter, Charlie Trotter's: "It all starts with exceptional ingredients, there is no substitute! I have spent my entire career as a chef searching out the very finest products from all over the world...... and (product) is no exception to the rule. Its unmatched purity and distinctive taste are extraordinary."

So..... you wanna take a stab at what this ad is for? Come on, just guess.

Is it for wine? Champagne? Cooking oil? A nice extra virgin olive oil, perhaps? Or some sort of spice. An expensive spice. Yeah, something expensive, like saffron. It's an ad for saffron, right?

Wrong.

Those are all good guesses, but this is an ad for something even more extraordinary than those things. This is an ad for a product so rich, so decadent, so far beyond the mundane pleasures we enjoy in our ordinary lives that you and I will be lucky if God ever blesses us with such a divine creation.

That's right, folks. This is an ad for...... bottled water.

Fiji Water.

Water.

Just water.

This is an ad for water, folks.

Bottled water.

You know, I tried Fiji Water once, just a few minutes after I read this ad, actually. And thank goodness I did, because the experience of drinking Fiji Water is one I shall never forget. If you've ever tried Fiji Water, you can probably relate, as I sort of can, to the enthusiasm Nobu Matsuhisa and Charlie Trotter were trying to convey in this ad.

Fiji Water isn't just water. It has, as Nobu suggests, a soft, smooth taste. When you drink Fiji Water, you'll feel it is, as Nobu suggests, one of those rare discoveries. You'll notice right away that it has, as Charlie Trotter suggests, unmatched purity and a distinctive taste.

You'll also notice that it's JUST WATER, KIND OF LIKE EVERY OTHER BOTTLED WATER YOU CAN BUY AT THE MARKET IS JUST WATER.

SERIOUSLY, man. This ad's almost as upsetting as the I'm Lovin It commercial for McDonald's.

(Maybe I'm just mad because I actually believed this water was going to taste different, i.e. better, and I got suckered into buying it. Ugh. You're better than that, Dan. Come on.)

The line of the week comes from Minnesota Timberwolves power forward extraordinaire Kevin Garnett:
"It's Game 7, man. That's it. It's for all the marbles. Sitting in the house, I'm loadin' up the pump. I'm loadin' up the Uzi. I got a couple M-16s, a couple 9s. I got a couple joints with some silencers on them. I'm just loading clips, a couple grenades. I got a missile launcher with a couple of missiles. I'm ready for war."

Again, that ad above was for bottled water.