The Top 10 Everything of 2009

Is there anything more rueful than an empty coat hanger slightly swaying, as if something had just been whipped off it, to the wistful strains of Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major? American Express has always wanted to be thought of as the card for superior people (anyone still remember the Do You Know Me? spots from the '70s?). Here, the superior person is you, as you cleverly identify that all the images are actually happy or sad faces. In what is probably a sign of the future, the ad is also DVR-proof. Even if you fast-forward through it, the message is still clear. Sad, deflating events can be made right, it suggests, with the credit card's protection program.