ldopa.net

How much of this scathing indictment of the “Millennial Generation” is fair, and how much is just standard Gen X ranting/whining? I myself am quite weary of the lame-ass business features that insist that Facebook applications, Twitter updates and SMS messaging are going to be OMG 100% MANDATORY in order to survive in the post-Millennial business workplace.

What do you think? Is this article a fair shot, or a low blow?

~Jeff

I always suspected Carl Orff had hid some meaningful English false cognates in that Latin; and now, proof. Make sure you crank up your speakers, especially if you are at work.

Side note: it’s been a while since two ldopans posted in one day. Hooray!

Personally? I’ve always preferred “Display“.

I can remember when I was a kid I didn’t have the nearly right kind of sneakers at all for my fellow students’ liking — my Mom insisted we go to this store called “The Bootery” in Vernon, CT which only carried one kind of sneaker, “Kangaroos” — which were kind of cool on one level, thanks to the hidden pocket that you could stash about a dime-bags worth of seekrit! junk in, but on another level, the level that middle-school kids operated on? — “Kangaroos” were not cool in the least. Anyway.

~jeff

Capsule Review: Tastes like the Fruit Stripe Zebra took a piss in my mouth!

And no, Pepsi Summer Mix is not paying me to say that.

~jeff

Don’t be fooled — the cryptically named, virally-marketed “X-13D” black-bag Doritos are wicked crazy exciting! if you’re wicked crazy excited by the explosive taste of: mustard.

I, myself, am not, as I feel putting mustard on my food is only one step less egregious than spitting on it. So I’m going to try and sell these suckers on eBay. One bag X-13D, barely touched. Laugh, but it’ll be this generations’ “Crystal Pepsi”.

~Jeff

Jerry Falwell
1933-2007
a eulogy

Jerry Falwell was a big man. Not big of heart, not big of mind, but a big man anyway. His corpulence could only be compared in volume to that of his homophobia, contempt of women, and capacity to ignore the core tenets of the faith he claimed to hold dear. His love of prostitutes, politics, and money put him in line with the great corruptors of society while his media outlet and university gave him access to the greatest number of hungry minds and souls. Truly, he can be considered one of the worst individuals in American society through the 20th century. If he was right, and fortunately, he wasn’t, he is now sharing Hell with J. Edgar Hoover, Alan Dulles, Joseph McCarthy, and Richard Nixon in a special place for those whose thirst for power makes them consume all around them, body, soul, and leftovers.

(Jerry Falwell’s Hit Parade, by Slate.)

A great photo essay/journal about becoming a commercial fisherman in Alaska.

*

Baby Boomers, probably on their boat.
Great article by Paul Begala here from 2000 on the Baby Boomers; the horrible, awful, baby boomers, hoggin’ up all the jobs, houses… and pretty much everything else.

~jeff

p.s. sorry Mom

Me, teaching. Hi.
I just read this post entitled “10 Tough Things About Being a Teacher“. It’s an accurate set of genuinely tough things, no doubt. It also has a glib, “hang-in-there-kitty” final conclusion that precisely describes the line of thinking that drove me out of teaching for good.

This last year, I worked as a public high school teacher teaching various classes in computer science, and I lasted for a whopping half a year. I started fully motivated, and ended up incredibly depressed. The money was dismal, and the conditions demoralizing and obscene. The technology was outdated and poorly maintained. I couldn’t take it. I fled mid-year to a job in the private sector where the workload is less, and the pay far better. I miss the kids, but I couldn’t justify living a personally miserable life for the tangential benefit of a couple hundred students.

I suspect these conditions will continue until teachers stop publicly extolling how virtuous and soulful it is to work under these shameful conditions and how this proves that “it’s not about the money”; as if there’s something wrong with taking a job for money just because children are involved. No one ever says they haul trash for the inherent love of trash, so why are teachers expected to teach for the love of teaching? More importantly, why do teachers repeat this fallacy in robotic unison?

The teachers’ unions that promote these mediocrities need to be burned to the fucking ground. They have traded every benefit a teacher could possibly hope for in exchange for the elusive promise of tenure, thus assuring their members a long, painful slog of a career with an enthusiasm trajectory inherently trending downward. In our current public school system, there is no reason any reasonably intelligent person would want to be a teacher, and until conditions improve, it is a career path to be shunned and avoided.

~jeff

Absolutely fantastic David Blaine parody. It’s worth nothing that the entire thing is one, unbroken shot — hard to do in comedy, but they pull it off.

~jeff

Poetry by Taalam Acey from the film What Black Men Think.

Not safe for work link.

Who needs the “Forever” stamp when you’ve got this handy tip:

1. Write the name of the person you want the letter to go to in the return address, where you’d normally put your address.
2. Write your address front and center, where you’d normally put the recipient’s address.
3. Casually “forget” the stamp.
4. Your letter will be “returned” to the recipient and you, my friend, will have 42 additional cents in your pocket. Go nuts!

~jeff

NOTE: as pointed out (so obnoxiously) in the comments, this is only likely to work if you live in the same state as the recipient.

ALSO NOTE: this is probably illegal.

Back when I was in college, there was a “certain kind” of video all the guys in my apartment used to watch. I think you probably know the kind of video I’m talking about: fainting goat videos. This specifically is the QuickTime movie that used to send us all into helpless paroxysms of glee. OK, it still does.

However, in my search for the original fainting goat movie, I have come across this video, which examines the fainting goat phenomenon quite comprehensively and I suspect will be known to future generations as the ‘Citizen Kane’ of fainting goat movies.

Enjoy — and keep in mind, while no goats were harmed in the making of these films, mind your umbrellas all the same.

~jeff

Somehow, if you combine Alanis Morissette and The Black Eyed Peas you get awesome.

…by Dan Le Sac.