The End of Boomerism As We Know It!?!?

Trust in John Zogby. He's the guy whose polling firm is always the most accurate when it comes to predicting the outcomes of elections. Well, maybe not the most accurate, but most of the time he's pretty alright. Now he's written one of the most gloriously optimistic (in my opinion) editorials I've read in...forever. Since when do I even read editorials? Never. I don't read them because they all kind of suck. But not this one. I mean, yeah it's about politics -- and I've sworn for the last three years never to discuss politics -- but it's also about baby boomers, and how their ability to control the future of our country (maybe even the whole world!) is rapidly deteriorating. How wonderfully fucking sweet.

Zogby goes on to discuss the two 'boomer presidents (Clinton and Bush, of course), all the horrible qualities they have that define them as 'boomers, and the reasons why, at the end of the day, we're all sick and tired of poor judgement and permanent adolescence. "Voters have moved beyond Boomerism. Now, Americans will choose between an older version of duty, honor, glory, and a return to the American Century vs. a new vision of global pluralism, diversity, change, and youthful vigor." Sounds like it should be a fun five months leading up to this next general election.

John Hubbuch sums it all up quite nicely. "We watched too much TV. We smoked too much dope. We got divorced too quick. We read too much Madison Avenue hype that we were a unique generation. Our Boomer leader Clinton gave us Monica, Paula, Marc Rich, Gennifer Flowers, Travelgate, Whitewater and Impeachment. Our leader Bush gave us Terry Schiavo, Guantanamo, Katrina, Abu Ghraib, Rendition, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Waterboarding. Quite the legacy. Boomer politicians, you had your chance. Please go. Volunteer. Work for a foundation. Or a think tank. Take care of your grandkids. Play golf. Something. Anything. Just get off the stage. Now."

You know how I feel about "the worst generation ever", so it's no surprise that I am giddy over this supposition. Imagine, after all the time baby boomers spent anticipating their time to be in charge, they might only get two [stunningly bad] presidents to show for their years in power. And, really, should we expect anything more of their legacy? Of course not. They're too fucking busy worrying about themselves, and that savage selfishness prohibits them from giving as much as even two shits about the greater good.

Of course, you're shit out of luck if you expect a single 'boomer to criticize the choices they've made. They do not possess the ability to be self-effacing or modest when it comes to having their decisions critiqued. They are insensitive, unwavering in their support for their own kind, and pathetically unable to comprehend the damage they have done. Scary, right? All that matters to an entire generation is that they made a few bucks in the '80s and '90s, rose to the top of their professions, and are now planning their escape just as shit hits the fan (ie. recession).

But today is cause for celebration, because tomorrow we are another day closer to a government without baby boomers in charge.

The Birthday Party
Drunk On The Pope's Blood
MediaFire Download Link

Tracklist:
01. (Sometimes) Pleasure Heads Must Burn
02. King Ink
03. Zoo Music Girl
04. Loose
05. Ho Ho
06. The Plague
07. Scatterbrain
08. The Friend Catcher
09. Dead Joe
10. After The Fireworks
11. After, After The Fireworks

Tags: Baby Boomers, Boomerism, John Zogby, editorial, Bush, Clinton, legacy, John Hubbuch, mistakes, the worst generation, selfish, permanent adolescence, The Birthday Party, Nick Cave, Drunk On The Pope's Blood, rare, out-of-print, mp3, blog, download

While We Cope With Recession, Baby Boomers Keep Spending

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but this Los Angeles Times article about how a large number of Gen-X and Yers are seeing their dreams go bust reads like the handiwork of a self-satisfied Baby Boomer wagging their finger and saying, "Told ya so!"

I guess I approach articles such as these with more than a hint of skepticism because statements like, "Raised amid a long stretch of financial bounty and weaned on video games, cellphones, iPods and weekends at the mall, many Generation X and Y members have barely seen a time when they couldn't spend freely on the latest styles and gadgets" sound as if they are coming from a douchey 'Boomer who does not want to talk about how his generation is responsible for the current economic downturn, and would rather pat himself on the back for having survived a recession and for being financially secure at a point in US history when many are not. These navel gazing 'boomer journalists really do love taunting those younger than them for not getting their shit together and contributing to society. Unfortunately, the author doesn't bother delving into why more and more young people are finding themselves in debt, because to do so would be to admit that his generation raised the cost of living to such outrageous levels that almost every graduating college student arrives at his or her first job already mired in debt. So a quote such as, "This generation as a whole has not experienced any substantial kind of financial difficulty...It could be a defining moment for them," are laughable...because what kind of "substantial financial difficulty" greeted 'boomers upon college graduation? The oil crisis in the early '70s occurred when the oldest members of the generation were turning thirty-years old. I'd say those seven or eight years between entering the work force and the start of the oil crisis enabled most of the Baby Boomers to handle the "crisis" without much difficulty.

By the way, it's worth noting that during the 1973 recession, the price of oil rose from $3 a barrel to $12. In today's dollars, that's an increase of $10 a barrel to $40 a barrel. This week, the price of oil hit $115 a barrel. I'd say the Baby Boomers had it pretty easy in '73. During the early '80s recession, the oldest 'boomers had already begun birthing the youngest Gen Xers. Again, they miraculously survived that recession, and remained viable workers straight through the Internet boom (and bust), all the while amassing great enough wealth to not have to worry about debt. Even in today's economic downturn (if you want to call it a recession, that's fine), they're still spending like mad, acquiring all the useless trinkets they could ever desire! My dad even called me yesterday and asked me to buy him $300 worth of memorabilia from the store. Recession? What recession? Negligence towards future generations is one of the most deplorable traits of any Baby Boomer, and the author of this article clearly has no shame in flippantly citing things like average credit card debt, and the toll of the Iraq war on our economy from his lofty position of gainfully employed, fearlessly dedicated possible 'boomer.

"Paradoxically...research shows that younger people have grown up in a time of great wealth but have more anxiety about their economic future than past generations." That's odd, maybe it stems from watching our parents buy themselves everything under the sun. This article from Forbes states that by 2015, "u-boomers" will account for 25% of US consumption. Until then, I'm sure they'll just continue to brush off our cries that most of what's wrong with this country is their fault, and simply stick there fingers in their ears and go, "LA LA LA LA GET A JOB I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA LA".

I'm sure my friend-in-blogging "Mr. X-er", who runs The Worst Generation Ever, would have a field day picking apart this article. I don't really have the strength to make it through all three pages of this article. I've already exhausted enough words on just page one.

Tags: Los Angeles Times, article, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y, economic downturn, recession, oil crisis, inflation, generational neglect, spending, consumerism, marketing, The Worst Generation Ever, mp3, blog, download, Iggy Pop, The Clash, Beastie Boys, Melt-Banana

4,738 Anti-Boomer Rants Later...

After a miserable start to my day yesterday, I'm feeling good, to quote Nina Simone. I ran a bunch of errands, had a tasty burrito for dinner, and got a full night of sleep. I'm ready for whatever happens this weekend. Here's a new top ten list I formulated on the couch this morning. It's about as spiteful as I've sounded in a long time.

THE TOP TEN WORST 'BOOMERS

10 - Richard Branson - The entrepreneur responsible for the Virgin brand, whose net worth is valued at roughly $7.8 billion dollars. I don't care that he started his own business and made a shit-ton of money, it's his being an immature piece of shit that gets on my nerves. Isn't it just like a 'boomer to build a vast fortune and then give up on work and devote one's life to trying to break insignificant world records? Who gives a fuck about going around in a hot air balloon. Try something a little more inventive if you're looking to make headlines. His greatest testament to being an annoying Baby Boomer came when one of his world record attempts failed. He tried to cross the Atlantic by boat only to have it capsize in British waters. After the press called for him to reimburse the government for the cost of his rescue, what did this asshole do? Nothing.

09 - Elton John - It takes a real kind of asshole to capitalize on the death of another person. But leave it to the dainty fop Elton John to turn a worldwide news story into an opportunity to make some headlines of your own. After Princess Di (who was a useless bitch in her own right, but this isn't the time or the place) was killed, he releases this "Candle In The Wind, 1997" song in her memory. The proceeds go to charity, but how many people do you think liked the song and then went back to their local record store to buy Goodbye Yellow Brick Road? To date its sold more than 20 million copies, and in 1998, after the death of Princess Di, it just happened to go 7x Platinum in the US. Hmm...Coincidence, or greedy money-hungry Baby Boomer cashing in on death?

08 - Jack Kerouac - "More like Jackass Kerouac. Ten times more fag than either Ginsberg or Burroughs and only one-tenth the writer. His unbearably effusive “masterpiece” On the Road is the literary equivalent of the liquor-induced internal hemorrhage that cut him down at age 47—a sloppy cranial menstrual cycle in severe need of an editorial tampon. The main character’s name is Sal Paradise—how stupid is that? Written while “on the speed,” On the Road may have inspired countless “stream-of-consciousness” imitations, but the “stream” was the rank piss of a hopeless alcoholic, and the “consciousness” was that of a homophobic cocksucker who went on collegiate gay-bashing jaunts with jock friends before bedding dozens of men." - Jim Goad

07 - John Travolta - A young fag moves to New York City in the '70s to live a life of complete queerness, weaseling his way into some acting roles here or there. He reaches stardom following roles in two of the gayest films of the decade, Saturday Night Fever and Grease. Then he falls off the face of the universe, somehow winds up joining a club for reformed homosexuals under the guise of a religious movement (Scientology), and his career has a miraculous resurgence. His new-found spirituality (placing faith in a shoddily-written Sci-Fi novel) has since enabled him to conquer his sexual deviance, marry a fairly attractive beard, birth two children, and totally fuck one of them up for life by neglecting to admit that he is inflicted with Autism. This stupid asshole is so obsessed with his own image, he refuses to talk about his son Jett's disorder because (according to the doctrine of Scientology) Jett would then be labeled a "degraded being" who was somehow responsible for his affliction. Fuck this guy.

06 - George Clooney - From his Oscar speech: "We're the ones who talked about AIDS when it was just being whispered...and we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular. This academy—this group of people—gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I'm proud to be a part of this academy, proud to be part of this community, and proud to be out of touch." What a smug, self-aggrandizing tool. Hey, dumbfuck, Hattie McDaniel played the role of Mammy in Gone With The Wind. Yeah, that film really did a lot to repair race relations in America. You're out of touch, alright...

05 - Bill Gates - Again, this has nothing to do with his being super-rich. His estimated worth is $56 billion, and I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is his ability to never take an ounce of blame for anything. His company's indiscretions and shady business practices have found him in court on several occasions, and for some reason the ensuing Microsoft products managed to be even worse, or more flagrantly anti-competitive. He is the epitome of a greedy, manipulative bastard. All it takes to realize this is an attempt to uninstall Windows from your computer. When you see how impossible it is for a novice computer user to install a new, different operating system on their PC, you begin to understand just what a horrible person this guy is.

04 - Michael Lang, John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, and Artie Kornfield - Together these assholes founded a little event known as Woodstock. This metaphoric pat-on-the-back for a generation of young people who didn't want to ever grow up or do anything with their lives went on for three days and totally sucked, except for the few parts when it didn't suck. It's nice that they wanted to rid themselves of staunch conservatism of Eisenhower's '50s, but they went about it all wrong and totally fucked things up in the process (Altamont?). These clowns perpetuated hippie idealism, which was rooted in complete and utter selfishness. Then in the seventies (The "Me" Decade), the populace that Lang, Roberts, Rosenman and Kornfield brought together turned to spiritual growth, MDMA, and disco, which led right into the '80s, when they all sold out to to the inherently selfish system of Reaganomics. They even re-elected him, which ensured the entire decade would become a black hole for social issues. It's all your fault, Woodstock promoters!

03 - Madonna - Nobody captures the "me me me" spirit quite like this cum dumpster. Is there anything she won't do or say just to retain some hint of relevance? On the checklist of typical boomer characteristics, she receives nearly a perfect sore. She's an arrogant, superficial, untalented, hackneyed, pietist. She built a career on her lack of sexual mores and navel-gazing, and parlayed that into some sort of retarded spiritual awakening, followed by a period of outspoken bullshit that rarely if ever makes sense. Madonna is a great 'boomer to put on this list because she's built quite an empire for herself while achieving absolutely nothing in the way of advancing our society. She set feminism back God-knows how many years. She sucks as an actress, she can't sing, and she's a shitty dancer. Like everyone else on this list, she's useless. Only, because it's Madonna, she's super-useless. Like a used condom wrapper.

02 - Oprah Winfrey - Fuck this racist bitch. She's one of the richest women in the world, and how does she go about giving back to society? She opens an all-black, all-girls school in South Africa. Hey, how about you help out the American educational system while you're at it? How about you open schools in the Middle East, or South America? Oh, that's right. You don't want to. Because you're racist. You air tearful stories for lonely housewives about colored people overcoming the odds and doing good things, all the while exploiting your own people to amass more wealth. That's pretty scrupulous of you, Oprah. She started a book club, and praised a white author, until it turned out he was a bit of a liar. Then she proceed to give him a caning that would make many a headmaster blush. Where were you during the Jayson Blair controversy a few years ago, O-dawg? How come, in your twenty-plus years on television, you've never once endorsed a candidate for president until now, when you're adamantly supporting Barack Obama? If there's one thing I hate more than a Baby Boomer, it's an ignorant, racist Baby Boomer.

01 - Forest Gump - There's nothing more cloying than a self-satisfied 'boomer who can't shut up about how great they are. Take this retarded southern piece of shit, for example. He sits down on a bench waiting for a bus, and proceeds to tell his stupid stories to anyone who sits down next to him. Of course, nobody sticks around for the duration of the story. It's too fucking stupid to keep anyone's attention. The worst part is, this arrogant storytelling motherfucker never even gets on any bus. He exhausts all his stories, then goes, "fuck you guys, I'm out of things to say and I don't want to hear anything you have to say, so I'm gonna get out of here." He decides to walk instead of take the bus. Then he meets his son, and his girlfriend dies of AIDS. I wish he'd die of AIDS, too.

PS - Here's a vain little bonus for you. Pictures of me dancing with my neighbor last weekend, drunken and blond-wigged. Click to enlarge:

Tags: Baby Boomers, 'Boomers, top ten, list, worst 'Boomers, Richard Branson, Elton John, Jack Kerouac, Jim Goad, John Travolta, George Clooney, Bill Gates, Michael Lang, John Roberts, Joel Roseman, Artie Kornfield, Madonna, Oprah, Forest Gump, alcohol, Halloween, wigged party, Pabst, mp3, blog, download

'Boomers Think We're Spoiled

I'm writing this early Wednesday morning, so please forgive me for any erroneous remarks or grammatical/spelling errors. My brain is not functioning at one-hundred percent. It's Ilya's birthday and a bunch of us crazy no-job-having kids are going to spend the day in Joshua Tree. It should be a real hoot, and by "hoot" I mean a day filled with excess and vice.

Boston.com, your one-stop website for the finest in journalism, has posted an article from the Boston Globe Magazine called "The New Me Generation," about recent college graduates coming into the workforce and not taking shit from anybody. That's right, somebody finally noticed there are a great many young people in America who are tired of having to respect aging 'boomers who don't know what they're doing in the workplace, and wrote an article about it.

The opening paragraph might as well have been transcribed from any conversation I've had with a friend in the past five years. A fifteen-year-old girl pictures her future in a boss-less, career-less world. Like many of us, even this teenager understands that there is no appeal in working for somebody else, especially if that somebody else is an overpaid, out-of-touch baby boomer who can't come to grips with the fact that their job could be done easily by a child. These old farts are quite quick to state that one must "pay their dues" before they can climb the corporate ladder, but those are the same people who come home from work and beg their children to teach them how to send an instant message or create a contact list in Gmail.

I think it's quite ironic that my generation has been labeled "The Entitlement Generation," by some the most selfish, self-aggrandizing, self-indulgent people who have ever lived. They re-elected Reagan even after he steered our society towards a microscopic upper class and an immeasurable second class. Of course, none of the 'boomers noticed this because they so embraced his selfish "Greed Is Good" ideals and aspired to become rich and forget everybody else along the way. Our grandparents were tough people. They cared only for their kin. Children needed roofs over their heads, clothes to wear, and financial security so they could be better educated. Our parents are not tough people. They play fantasy baseball, join fitness centers, and do everything they can to better their own chances for survival. They were spoiled babies who grew their hair long, got high, fucked around and only rallied against the Vietnam War when the crisis escalated and they risked being sent off to fight. Fast forward thirty years, and now that they've comfortably moved into their McMansions, they see no problem sending the children of working-class families overseas to fight a war for them.

Yeah right. Us? Entitlement Generation? I laugh at this notion.

I also laugh when I read this section of the Wikipedia entry for "Baby Boomers"

Tags: Boston.com, The New Me Generation, Baby Boomers, Entitlement Generation, Ronald Reagan, Greed Is Good, McMansions, mp3, blog, download

Boomers Invented Everything

From MSNBC: The headline reads "Computers once filled entire rooms. Now they fit in our pockets. How a generation formed our tech landscape," and the smugness only grows from there; three pages of self-satisfaction and vainglorious pats on the collective back of a generation. Self-described 'boomer and author of this garbage feature article Stephen Levy (born in '51) has found a new way to exploit the success of a few ambitious individuals and attribute it to everyone born between the years 1946 and 1964. After taking credit for everything from economic booms to cultural trends to a rise in our national life expectancy, 'boomers are now taking credit for the entire history of technological advancement, one which reached a pinnacle in the late '90s, when the oldest of the bunch were eligible for senior discounts.

Yeah, I guess the premise of the article makes sense. I also guess Mr. Levy will go on assuming the computer is also a member of the baby boomer generation, "growing up in a restrictive environment and going batty as a young adult. Now, like the generation it grew up alongside, the computer has assumed a leadership role, while still maintaining and unruly edge." Of course, nowhere in his rambling, overly-proud prose does Levy mention that the word "computer" dates back to a time before Jesus, or that Babbage conceptualized a personal computer in the 1800s, or that the first computer to operate digitally was made five years before the first 'boomer was pathetically squeezed out into a world which has since been devastated by it and its peers.

It's easy to criticize the baby boomers when one of them uses suggestive word choice in an article about how great it is to be one in their club, because all these articles about how hip it is to be old are brimming with self-satisfaction. It's an entirely different kind of easy to criticize blunt statements like, "The boomers themselves can take credit for shaping the course of this technology if not the entire direction of the digital revolution." Holy fucking Christ, guy! Are you going to tell me that 78 million Americans have the right to take credit for the work of handful of enterprising people? What an asshole! I can't even read this whole article. It's sickening. The nerve of douchebags like Stephen Levy is beyond me. It's unconscionable.

Let me ask you something, Mr. Levy. How come you're not so quick to talk about the negative societal changes that have occurred under "leadership" of baby boomers. Let's start with...oh, I don't know...AIDS. Why doesn't your generation take responsibility for the millions of lives lost due to negligence and selfishness? How about the cultural decline that has occurred since you came to power? I can't go to a movie theater or listen to FM radio anymore because you replaced quality with prefabricated confections in an attempt to line your pockets. How about the ongoing war? If Bill Gates and George Bush are both boomers, shouldn't you be "taking credit" for both of their contributions to society? God damn you and your blind consumerism, your dead-end nihilism, and your sense of entitlement. From Volkswagen Beetles to Hummers, from tap water to bottled water, you've got a lot of shit you need to explain away before I offer any of you an ounce of respect.

Has anyone in my age bracket ever thought back to middle school or high school history classes? Do you remember the last lesson you covered each school year, just before final exams? My American history classes barely made it to post-World War II America. The irony is not lost on me when I think back on how "history" ended with the introduction of baby boomers.

If you can get through Levy's article without hating him, try these on for size:
- Boomers: The New America
- Why Bobos Rule

Tags: MSNBC, baby boomers, computers, generation, success, innovation, Stephen Levy, economic booms, cultural trends, life expectancy, annoying, vainglory, idiotic, assholes, mp3, blog, download

CNN Adores The Boomers

In case you have been searching for another reason to mock CNN, here's a public interest story that's sure to help. It seems like every few weeks the media giant produces one of these unintentionally uproarious articles about the Baby Boomer generation, and how they don't have to worry about aging, because they're going to stay young and awesome forever -- not like their parents, who just got old and died. Those between the ages of 43 and 61 can continue believing in the existence of a real-life Peter Pan syndrome, where they don't have to accept reality, and can spoil and coddle themselves all they want for many years to come. After all, they deserve it.

The article -- in all likelihood penned by one of those wretched 'boomers -- is intended to inform the "Me Me Me" generation that just because they're closer to death than re-birth, they don't have to act like it. Not only that, 'boomers are totally redefining what it means to be a senior. Long gone are the days when Bea Arthur, Andy Griffith and Angela Lansbury were the role models of the elderly. The new class of upstanding seniors includes hip old cats like Goldie Hawn and Harrison Ford. Today's old people look young and fit, which the article attributes to diet and exercise, not makeup and plastic surgery. By the way, you can pretty much stop reading after the third or fourth paragraph, because it starts to get stupid and boring. Be sure to check out the URL for the sub-title. Funny stuff!

Speaking of exercise, according to the article, the baby boomers "helped spark the modern fitness movement." Jesus Christ, now they're taking credit for a phenomenon that is entirely unrelated to them, and is in fact, completely unfounded. I'm willing to guess that any "modern fitness movement" currently taking hold of our country is the product of our ridiculous culture of celebritydom, and the constant portrayals of young, sexy people on television and in movies. Leave it to the fucking 'boomers to take all the credit for something that doesn't even exist. Shockingly, there is no mention of the Iraq War, and whether or not 'boomers were responsible for that.

What's more, there's no mention of the disgusting sense of entitlement most 'boomers inherently feel, and how it has driven our country into an awful economic era. Thanks to their generational nepotism in the workplace, and penchant for doling out giant bonuses to themselves and each other, the cost of living has reached frightening new heights. An unrelated article on MSN states that young people who are bringing a child into the world today should be prepared to spend around $290,000 on that child to cover housing, food, transportation, clothes, health care and miscellany before the child turns seventeen. After that, prepare to spend another $105,000 to $225,000 on a college education.

How is this even possible, when men are no longer earning more than their fathers? According to a 2004 study (quoted here), the median income for men in their 30s was $35,010 -- twelve percent less than for men in their 30s in 1974. The technological boom of the '90s, which certainly helped to pad the pocket of Baby Boomers and Genereation X'ers alike, is not making things easier for us. Between 2000 and 2005, productivity rose sixteen percent while median income fell two percent. It seems as if for the all the work we're doing, we're getting paid less. Meanwhile, in the upper echelon of the business world, those in charge are earning more than ever off the work of their underlings. Their innate fear of being relegated to old age homes and scoffed at by their children and their children's children has them promulgating the "earn your dues" ideology, thus preventing perfectly capable young people from breaking into careers at higher levels than they once did. They will remain steadfast and selfish to the end.

Can you tell I'm bitter about my prolonged unemployment, and the frustration of finding a job for which I'm neither over-qualified or under-qualified?

Tags: CNN, public interest story, Baby Boomers, Me Me Me Generation, Generation Entitlement, The Worst Generation, Bea Arthur, Andy Griffith, Angela Lansbury, Harrison Ford, Goldie Hawn, URL, modern fitness movement, taking credit, annoying, phenomenon, self-centeredness, 'Boomers, MSN, cost of living, higher, average income, earning less than our father's Generation X, underlings, mp3, blog, download

Wrap

- A regretful 'boomer? Man, my post-sarcasm in 2007 campaign (ie. brutal honesty at all times) is really starting to pick up steam. Then again, the only thing more annoying than a 'boomer is a self-righteous 'boomer who feels the need to draw more attention to himself by placing blame on his 76 million peers. Good job, guy. How about instead of telling your friends to stop whining about their children and grandchildren, we just ship you off to live on some deserted island where you can "me, me, me" yourselves to death out of earshot.

- Robert Anton Wilson. He never succeeded at transcending death, but he DID succeed at transcending life. So close!

- So the UK Music Charts are counting Internet downloads as singles sales, and some no-name band has managed to crack the top 40 without even having a record label. Does this symbolize an end for the reign of major record labels? We can only hope. On a personal level, I hope the US singles chart takes a hint from the Brits, so that I may singlehandedly ruin a weekly Billboard singles chart by cracking the top 40 with a Musky Taint "song".

- Alluc.org finally got around to changing servers, and they've also realized that if they're going to link to full-length television programs, they might as well try full-length movies as well. Lose yourself for a day or a week. It's been my life since Wednesday.

- Apple introduced a phone (and then got sued by Cisco over the name), causing mass hysteria amongst nerds and hipsters alike. Countless standing ovations aside, the one thing this week's MacWorld didn't achieve was lowering the prices of any of their hardware. But don't worry, Apple still introduced a bunch of really gay iPod ads, and in the end, isn't it cooler to be able to hear a Belle and Sebastian song on TV than it is to be able to afford a computer?

- Blender Magazine continues to churn out the absolute shittiest in music journalism.

Stay safe this weekend.

Tags: baby boomers, Robert Anton Wilson, UK music charts, Internet downloads, Musky Taint, Alluc.org, Apple, iPhone, Cisco, MacWorld, Belle and Sebastian, Blender magazine, journalism, mp3, blog, download

Frigid Saturday Mid-Afternoon

If ever there existed a news lead that could make my blood boil, this might be it. This article over at CNN begins, "Teenager Michelle Rome can't imagine life without instant messaging. Baby boomer Steve Wilson doesn't care that it even exists." Of course it's an item about technology surpassing our nation's poor old 'boomers, leaving them woefully out-of-touch with their families and the rest of modern society. But hey, it's not the fault of the 'boomers that they don't "get" IMs--they're too busy being self-absorbed to worry about such trivial things as interpersonal communication!

It gets better. The AP scribe that constructed this story (who is likely a 'boomer), in attempt to inform the uninformed, actually feels the need to define this phenomenon that is sweeping the nation as "[the] sending and receiving of...instant messages -- or 'IM-ing'." For more side-splitting amusement, check out the rest of the article. One day you're going to wake up , roll out of bed and say to yourself, "Jesus H. Fucknuts, you know what? That Evan is so right about 'boomers. I hate them all!" Then you'll run over to my place, plop down on my couch, and you'll feel the need to pour out your heart to me (why, I don't know). When you've finished sobbing, you'll look to me for some kind of sympathy. And you know what? I'll be there to put my hand on your shoulder and say, "It's okay, I hate your parents and all their friends, too."

Unfortunately, some of them happen to be talented musicians, so we can't hate all of them...