From "We Blog Cartoons"

Alright, I admit it.  I have iPad envy… and its not because my iPhone is small.  Well, maybe it is.  Anyway, I was out the other night chilling with the family having some sushi and the table next to me of college kids had a new iPad and were showing it off.  And damn!  It is as cool as it looks on TV.  I haven’t actually had the chance to hold one and play with it but it does look seriously cool.

One thing that can go away is the constant media attention to it.  I can’t turn on the TV or radio without someone talking about iPad this or iPad that.  Its everywhere! Which is probably why they have sold 500k of them already.

Does everyone who writes and article or has a blog feel compelled to write about the thing?  Oh wait.  Anyway, I don’t think I will be able to get a P.O. from the wife to get one anytime soon so I will have to learn to live with envy.

And my iPhone is not small.

The Slacker Factor Podcast, Episode 8:  Misty, Water-colored Whatnot

Lamentations about what we lack – the time to make memories, and our (in)ability to recollect them – drives us through the conversation of this Slackcast. We close with the memory-haunting music of St. Vincent.

Subscribe with iTunes

Links:

Meandering Rant on Time by Chris

Book Report: Memories (or lack thereof)

Music Segment: St Vincent

This is more of an observation… I had an interesting conversation over the weekend with my step father.  It was his birthday and he was saying he has another 3yrs to go before he can retire.  Of course, I am much further away, but it sparked my curiosity and wondered  how old I would have to be.  The answer is 67.  That is 27 years from now.  27 years is longer than the amount of time from  when I began “officially” working at 16 and today!  I don’t know what to say other than… shit.

These guys from mrmonkeypants.net share their Midwestern hullabaloo, exhibiting that they are onboard with the slacker lifestyle.  Check out Wade and Ryan’s perspective on a classic snack, amped up for relaxed consumption.  Oh, and don’t forget to listen to The Slacker Factor podcast here or on iTunes.  It is free, it is delicious, and it is HUGE in St. Louis – kinda like Wade and Ryan.

Here's to you MTV!

Well, its official.  MTV has announced their focus on Millennials, casting aside Generation X… the generation that made MTV.  Sad news indeed.  I’d like to give a big FU to MTV.  Not just for this recent admission, but for the crap they have been broadcasting for the past 20 years.  There was a time when MTV was about music television.  It was certainly a revolutionary, but simple, concept that changed music forever.  Play popular music but with supporting video.  It changed everything.  No longer were we sitting by the radio listening to music while doing something else.  Now we were completely focused on the music as a total sensory experience.  And when I say focused, I mean sitting like a zombie starring at the TV, one music video after another… completely enthralled.  It was a perfect formula and our generation shaped it.

Then something along the way happened.  Something terrible.  MTV changed focus from what made them great, music television, to a soap opera channel.  I blame the Real World and it was all down hill from there, recently culminating with Jersey Shore.  While this metamorphosis was occurring, MTV did still try to retain the Generation X market via MTV2.  This worked for a while but ultimately failed.  I want my MTV!

As I mentioned, we shaped MTV, but in a way it shaped us as well.  It changed how we absorbed music and how we responded to it on a social level.  Do you remember going into school on Monday after seeing the latest and greatest new MTV Video over the weekend???  MTV Network President Van Toffler said “Millennials are really about authentic reality and family” and that MTV “played up the camaraderie and famliy elements on Jersey Shore to appeal to them”.  What???  Has he seen Jersey Shore???  If this is any reflection on what Millennials are about, or if they are at all being shaped by MTV’s content… God help us all.

Certainly on some level I can understand MTV now focusing on Millennials.   They spend the most time in front of the television and apparently care far less about music than our generation had.  I wonder though, would Gen-Xers spend some of our prime time viewing hours watching MTV if there were still something that appealed to us?  Its hard to say because, despite their recent admission, MTV cast us aside many years ago.  So, again MTV… FU.  How’s that for cynical?

~cg

I am honored that you are even listening to me, listening to us, at this moment.  Alright – maybe “honored” is a little thick.  I’m more like surprised and impressed – in a good way. Hey – I know what it took for you to get here.  Booting up things, clicking around places, having to pay attention, downloading stuff, maybe.  All of that is work.  Really, and I know you have better choices than anything that even resembles work.  You could be half-passed-out on the living room couch right now, test-tasting the snacky things that your kid dropped between the cushions, drooling a little.  That would be easier; but instead, you’re here.  Well, maybe you’re both.  Anyway, if you are here, then you, my friend, qualify as a slacker.  THAT is why I am honored.  Thank you, fellow Slacker, for listening.

Slackers, like me and Chris(tian) and Rob and you, are not incapable of doing stuff.  We are actually really capable, and we actually do stuff. It is just that, when given the choice, most times we’d rather not.  Well, that isn’t totally true – we like to do the stuff we like to do, just not the stuff we’re supposed to do, or stuff we have to do, or stuff that sucks.

I find myself in total, almost constant, conflict.  Do I do the laundry, or surf the web for strange pets-in-costume photos?  It is important that I visit my parents and help them take out the their garbage, but just one more episode of Anthony Bourdain’s snarky world-travel show can’t hurt,  and then, I’m out the door – I promise.  Believe me, besides you, I am the least-disciplined person you know.

The place where my slacker-factor has the most negative impact is in the area of EXERCISE.  Can you relate, you couch-loving snack-forager?  Even the word sucks – ex-er-size.  It sounds like an awkward and uncomfortable way to cancel out the beautiful size of me.  I suppose that that is the point, but does it have to sound so dorky?  “I’m going to exercise.”  Sure…some people call it “working out”, but that involves WORK, and I’m not into that.

I suppose if you could exercise an actually look cool, which you can’t, or maybe if you could hang out with Henry Rollins or Iggy Pop at the gym, which you can’t, maybe it would be appealing.  But Rollins and Iggy are like the anti-slackers, and that would bring up so much additional guilt…forget it.

So, how does a slacker survive in this responsibility-filled, money-oriented, you-gotta-work society?  Often, in a bitter, and begrudging way.  Really, we seek out other slackers who can bring things to the table to assist our lazy-asses. Who wants to reinvent the wheel, when some other guy is into sharing his wheels with his friends?  The network of slackers is huge, and we’ll bring it to you, when we’re motivated.  We wanna help you, friend, enjoy the moments of your life, with minimal effort.  Let’s use this networking and technology crap to ease the pains of your intended efforts and relieve you from the toils of your existence.

~pp

<Hear this amazing rant, as well as other nonsense, on the podcast TSF4: Mary’s Gone Slackers, is NOW ONLINE!>

The Slacker Factor Podcast, Episode 4:  Mary’s Gone Slackers

We’re mysteriously hungry for crackers, thirsty for new music, high on caffeine but not motivated enough to get this podcast done in a more timely manner. Subscribe with iTunes

Links:

Meandering Rant on Slacking by Patty Pino

Cool Products Book Report featuring:

• Keurig Coffee Machine
• Mary ‘s Gone Crackers
• Walk Fit Shoe Inserts

Music Segment on Ghostly International and the iPhone application, Ghostly Discovery

Wear black

Listen to bands that don’t exist

Swear off all friends and/or family

Develop an addiction (sex, drugs… anything will work – just ask Tiger)

Marry Up

Never lose your hair (Hairclub, Rogaine…do whatever it takes).  Hear me, Christian?

Produce Films (or buy a Flip Cam to tape your kid’s stupid tricks and call yourself a producer )

Work for Corporate America so everyone around you sucks dramatically more than yourself

Do what you Love

Become a DJ, pretend to DJ, play DJ Hero, or just buy a damn iPod and force your friends to listen your eclectic, purposefully obtuse, self-indulgent music

Follow Fashion Trends.. wait.. DON’T follow fashion trends… no… well, i don’t know but I’m sure there should be something about fashion on this list…maybe I should quit while I’m ahead/behind

Episode 3: Always looking for something else or something other to the somethings we experience every day, we focus on the changed experience of finding new music and the challenges to the way we eat.  We wrap with the Jolly Green Giant’s favorite musician, Scout Niblett.

<Check out Rob’s Why All New Music Sucks, a Meandering Rant from TSF3>

Episode 2: The Slacker Factor team ponders the Power of Tape, the advent of Social Networking with all of its love and annoyances, as well as the music of School of Seven Bells who are aptly named after a mythical South American pickpocket training academy (or so says the all knowing Wikipedia).

<Read pp’s The Power of Tape, a Meandering Rant from TSF2.>