Talking to you is like long division

With songs being licensed for commercials left and right (The The's "This Is The Day" for M&Ms, New Pornographers' "The Bleeding Heart Show" for University of Phoenix, the Buzzcocks' "Everybody's Happy Nowadays" for AARP—yes, the retired persons group), I find myself wondering how Rhett Miller's "Singular Girl" never got poached by a relatively obvious cell phone company. Sure, it's only a homonym (to the extent that the name of the company is to be considered a word), but where else would they find a song that so blatantly sounds like it's saying their name?

Heck, it's not like Rhett wouldn't go for it; his songs for the Old 97's have appeared in commercials previously, and they even recorded a special version of the Chili's "Baby Back Ribs" song for that restaurant chain, so he's not so much of an artist to fail to snatch up some corporate dollars to feed his kids.

However, now it's too late. Cingular is being phased out by AT&T, so technically there's not much longer going to be a cellular company whose name sounds like "singular" and who would be interested in concocting an ad campaign around a girl—or more likely, around the boy pursuing the girl. Hell, if I can come up with that much off the top of my head, someone in any agency should be able to phone it in.

(Heh, phone it in.)

Perhaps such a commercial would have boosted sales for Cingular to the point where they could have absorbed AT&T. If Rhett can make people want to eat ribs, selling phone plans would be a snap.

I'm just saying.