It's funny, the very first episode ran the piece about how Cover Oregon was fucked up and pretty much ignored the fact that it was Oracle's fault (which was also the fault of our then-governor who later resigned over that and other things) and just went for a long hipster joke about Portland and the hipsters who live there. I was kind of like "wow a lot of free publicity for my friend's band" but it got off track super quickly, like if I was going to start talking about how my cat relates to Ashley Madison. Can my cat sign up? Let's show a video of a cat in front of a keyboard and find out.

This piece actually made me think that Ashley Madison was a completely localized dating service for the citizens of Ottawa and parts nearby, like if you're looking to discreetly hook up through your local craigslist but less likely to wind up meeting a serial killer. So I appreciate your two stars on this one.

But I did think the sketch at the end was funny.

Ottawa is the capital of Canada? For serious? I thought it was Toronto or something.

Nope. But Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario.

That's cool! I worked as a ghostwriter for a bit for a service I shouldn't name, and it was just weird. It was high powered guys who didn't have the time to write their own profiles because they were too busy playing lonely golf or something? I dunno. It was a weird gig and I didn't stay there long.

I guess the attraction behind Ashley Madison is it's about as close to Grindr or Tinder as you can get but you can put in more info. It's still meant for a fuck and probably just a one night stand but the intention is there the way it is explicitly implied in other commercials that it won't happen. It's the fuckture.

I figure a lot of AM was the fantasy element. Nowadays it may be more of a genuine web service but when it started way back (wikipedia says 2001) that was still very much uncharted water for most people out there. I'm guessing it was mostly some steamy messages back and forth with an AM employee and nothing came of it. There were creepy infomercials for it back then at 2 AM and it seemed to have all the legitimacy of a phone sex line. Now it just seems quaint - you'd just make up a regular profile and omit the fact you're married.