Lifestyle & Culture at dissociatedpress.com

Lifestyle & Culture

The Rise of the Millennials

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on July 25, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Friday, July 25th, 2008

What could be worse than the slackers of Generation X? Their successors, the “Millennials”.

As a member of Generation Jones, the rise of the millennials has been more than a little unsettling (partly because it evokes images of precious garden flowers gone awry). I remember in the early 80′s being mortified to hear people roughly my age saying things to their three-year-old children like “where do you want to go for dinner tonight, honey?” and “do you want to go to the grocery store now dear?”. It was evident even then that the weird group of poorly-parented ex-hippies that we call baby boomers were going to raise some seriously weird children. Well, here we are in 2008. Those same kids are now out in the work force, as evident in this hilarious Radar Magazine piece which details how Kevin Colvin, a “Millenial”, got busted via Facebook after telling his boss that he had to miss work for a “family emergency”. Although many are calling them the “Precious Snowflake” generation, I prefer to call them the “Padded Playground Generation”. From a Darwinist point of view, their average intelligence was drastically lowered by the fact that their dumbest weren’t killed on the deathtraps my generation called playgrounds. Their brains are being destroyed by technological distractions, and excessive exposure to Barney has made them autistic . What impact will this generation have on the world as they enter the age of leadership? Who knows. I guess it couldn’t be any worse than what the Bush era leadership has done, but they still scare me. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that this oft-forwarded e-mail sums it up for me: THOSE BORN 1920-1979 – TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930′s, 40′s, 50′s, 60′s and 70′s… Read the rest of this entry »

Eat Like a Caveman

[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 19, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

Forget Dr Atkins, forget South Beach, the latest hip diet lets you get in touch with your inner caveman.

Hey America: are you fat, lethargic, stressed out, and always suffering minor ailments? Well, stop thinking like a caveman and start eating like one. I didn’t realize it until a friend pointed it out to me, but except for massive amounts of chocolate, coffee, and cigarettes, I eat a Paleo Diet. And I feel great. Our friend George pictured here has it all wrong as usual. Lay off the corn, for starters. Otherwise, the basic idea is simple: we only started eating many common foods with the advent of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, and evolution hasn’t had time for our organism to adapt to the diet. Therefore, eat things like lean meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, roots and nuts, and don’t eat so many grains, beans, and dairy products. Also watch the salt, sugar and processed oils. For recipes and lots of links to other resources, visit PaleoDiet.com. Friends of mine who actually subscribe to the specifics of the diet say not to be obsessive about it; as soon as you start lowering your intake of grains and dairy a little, you actually start losing your appetite for these foods. The same friends also recommended The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Food You Were Designed to Eat. Happy hunting, grunting and gathering!

Detroit: Turning Fords into Plowshares?

[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 11, 2008 by admin in Clean & Green, Lifestyle & Culture

Friday, July 11th, 2008

A non-profit called “Urban Farming” has innovative ideas for sustainable urban renewal.

Having grown up in the shadow of Detroit’s Beirut-like inner-city crumbling buildings, it’s exciting for me to find out that someone’s working on an innovative and green idea for re-vitalizing parts of the city. Urban Farming is a non-profit whose mission is to “eradicate hunger while increasing diversity, motivating youth and seniors and optimizing the production of unused land for food and alternative energy”. Sounds to me like a great prescription for many of Detroit’s problems. This BBC News piece has a nice overview, and Urban Farming’s media page has many more press links.

Hottest New Redneck Trend: Gay Cage Fighting

[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 8, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture, Popular Media

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Sacha Baron Cohen creates an uproar in Arkansas with his kissing cage fighters.

Forget this weekend’s NASCAR schedule, we got us some Gay Cage Fights to go to. Some Arkansas cage fighting fans were a little disappointed last month when the fighters they were watching ripped each other’s clothes off and kissed instead of beating each other senseless like good rednecks in cages should. “Disappointed” might be putting it lightly; they apparently began to throw chairs and beers at the ring as the frisky cage fighters made their getaway. It turns out the whole event was staged by Sacha Baron Cohen for an upcoming film project. The Smoking Gun has many more details here. If you find things like gay cage fighting intriguing, be sure to see yesterday’s post about Napoleon’s penis. I just like typing that. Napoleon’s penis.

You Know What They Say About Men With Big Empires…

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on July 7, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture, Popular Media

Monday, July 7th, 2008

Find out in “Napoleon’s Privates: 2,500 Years of History Unzipped” by Tony Perrottet

As I a teenager, I wasn’t too crazy about history, because I thought “history” meant copying down the dates my surly, alcoholic 8th grade teacher wrote on the blackboard, and then forgetting them at exam time. If only he had possessed the insight to engage our perverted, pubescent minds with the more intriguing, human aspects of history. Like, Napoleons’s penis, for instance. In the words of Tony Perrottet, author of Napoleon’s Privates: 2,500 Years of History Unzipped (available in er, hardcover), “…the French government had been given the opportunity to buy what might have been the most famous sexual organ in European history…they didn’t touch the penis. They wouldn’t have anything to do with the penis.” Read or listen to the piece on NPR, or buy the book here.

« Older Entries | Newer Entries »