Mischief at DC Rally; Follow Patty on Twitter

Posted on October 29, 2010 | By Patty Pino | No Comments

Hey Slacker Nation –

Follow me @BeingPattyPino. I’ll be tweeting live from Comedy Central’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on Saturday, October 29.  Twits can also check out #rally4sanity.

Not a twitterer?  You can cheat the system by going to http://twitter.com/beingpattypino.  You should be able to see some tweets without an account.  (It is also free to sign up.) Read more

The Death of an Icon

Posted on October 22, 2010 | By Christian | No Comments

It is with a heavy heart that I bring you this news.  Its official… Sony Corp has ended all sales of its Walkman cassette players.  In some ways its hard to believe that it took this long.  The Walkman was first launched in 1979 and sold about 220 Million units that year!  The device we all grew up with has gone the way of the Dodo.

Sadly this will likely be the death knell for the mix-tape as well.  And what am I going to do with my 80′s Metal cassettes??

The recession is over! Really??

Posted on September 20, 2010 | By Christian | No Comments

June 1 2009 - the new groundhog day?

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has announced the Great Recession is over!  Apparently the experts have decided it began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009.  I don’t know what to say other than “what??”.

Headlights Reflecting on Gravestones, a Meandering Rant from The Slacker Factor Podcast TSF14

Posted on August 25, 2010 | By Patty Pino | No Comments

Headlights Reflecting on Gravestones

Driving home last night / I heard that tune / The one from the 70’s / About things being over

The singer is in denial / He “Keeps Forgetting” / Things have changed / You know the song

Everything ends / Jobs, friendships, relationships, life / Somehow we don’t expect that / Won’t except that

We hate that part / The ending / The Silence / Fini

We’re built to function in the moment / But the moment is ever changing / Always working towards finish

Electrons move to eventually settle / Yearning for finale

We keep forgetting / An inherent beauty exists / In conclusion

The sun slipping behind the horizon / The sculptor making a final tap / Resonance of strings culminating the concert

Ends allows us to pause / Take heed of our experience / And look to the next

Driving home last night / I passed that cemetery / The one close to the road / Where our grandparents are buried

Sometimes I forget / The pervasive artistry of endings

Until I see headlights / Reflecting on gravestones

~pp

< Listen to this rant, and more, on the podcast here or on iTunes TSF14: Hunger Never Ends >

Just Don’t Call Me Mr. Rob

Posted on August 4, 2010 | By Christian | No Comments

Check out this article by Rob Sachs, or Mr Sachs, in today’s Huffington Post “Just Don’t Call Me Mr. Rob“.  He discusses the way our generation has brought up our children to refer to their elders as Mr/Miss First Name as opposed to the way we were raised to call them Mr/Mrs Last Name.  Mr Sachs expresses his dilemma of how he should teach his children to refer to adults.  Close friends can be Uncle/Aunt but at what point do we delineate between who is worthy of such a grand title or relegated to Mr/Miss First Name?  And is Mr/Miss First Name really expressing the respect our children should learn to have for adults?

My wife and I have also wrestled with this (and I lost).  I tend to agree with Rob, err Mr. Sachs, that some sense of respect seems lost in the change of title.  Teachers and people in authority are typically Mr/Mrs Last Name so thats fine, but neighbors and friends are less formal?  To be honest, if I were a kid today I would prefer we go one way or another.  I have enough to think about other than worry about what/how I should call someone by name.  And what if the child should choose the wrong way to go?!?  Is this just going to add to the stress of the whole thing?  As a kid I thought trying to figure out if a woman was Miss or Mrs was hard enough!

If I had a vote (which I don’t) I would rather we went back to the good ole days of Mr/Mrs Last Name.  I’m ok with the Aunt/Uncle thing, but come on people lets all get together and make a real change!  ~cg