Pulp Free

Now it’s time for this year’s Mindset List. Always there to make you feel just another year older…

This month, almost 2 million first-year students will head off to college campuses around the country. Most of them will be about 18 years old, born in 1990 when headlines sounded oddly familiar to those of today: Rising fuel costs were causing airlines to cut staff and flight schedules; Big Three car companies were facing declining sales and profits; and a president named Bush was increasing the number of troops in the Middle East in the hopes of securing peace. However, the mindset of this new generation of college students is quite different from that of the faculty about to prepare them to become the leaders of tomorrow.

Each August for the past 11 years, Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college. It is the creation of Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Public Affairs Director Ron Nief. The List is shared with faculty and with thousands who request it each year as the school year begins, as a reminder of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this new generation.

The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are “wired” and equipped with the latest hardware. These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence. They will continue to live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. Roommates, few of whom have ever shared a bedroom, have already checked out each other on Facebook where they have shared their most personal thoughts with the whole world.

It is a multicultural, politically correct and “green” generation that has hardly noticed the threats to their privacy and has never feared the Russians and the Warsaw Pact.

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Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.

For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.

1. Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
2. Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
3. They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.
4. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
5. Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
6. Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
7. Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
8. Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce “tax revenue increases.”
9. Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
10. Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.
11. All have had a relative–or known about a friend’s relative–who died comfortably at home with Hospice.
12. As a precursor to “whatever,” they have recognized that some people “just don’t get it.”
13. Universal Studios has always offered an alternative to Mickey in Orlando.
14. Grandma has always had wheels on her walker.
15. Martha Stewart Living has always been setting the style.
16. Haagen-Dazs ice cream has always come in quarts.
17. Club Med resorts have always been places to take the whole family.
18. WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
19. Films have never been X rated, only NC-17.
20. The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents.
21. Students have always been “Rocking the Vote.”
22. Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court.
23. Schools have always been concerned about multiculturalism.
24. We have always known that “All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.”
25. There have always been gay rabbis.
26. Wayne Newton has never had a mustache.
27. College grads have always been able to Teach for America.
28. IBM has never made typewriters.
29. Roseanne Barr has never been invited to sing the National Anthem again.
30. McDonald’s and Burger King have always used vegetable oil for cooking french fries.
31. They have never been able to color a tree using a raw umber Crayola.
32. There has always been Pearl Jam.
33. The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno and started at 11:35 EST.
34. Pee-Wee has never been in his playhouse during the day.
35. They never tasted Benefit Cereal with psyllium.
36. They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib.
37. Authorities have always been building a wall across the Mexican border.
38. Lenin’s name has never been on a major city in Russia.
39. Employers have always been able to do credit checks on employees.
40. Balsamic vinegar has always been available in the U.S.
41. Macaulay Culkin has always been Home Alone.
42. Their parents may have watched The American Gladiators on TV the day they were born.
43. Personal privacy has always been threatened.
44. Caller ID has always been available on phones.
45. Living wills have always been asked for at hospital check-ins.
46. The Green Bay Packers (almost) always had the same starting quarterback.
47. They never heard an attendant ask “Want me to check under the hood?”
48. Iced tea has always come in cans and bottles.
49. Soft drink refills have always been free.
50. They have never known life without Seinfeld references from a show about “nothing.”
51. Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born.
52. Muscovites have always been able to buy Big Macs.
53. The Royal New Zealand Navy has never been permitted a daily ration of rum.
54. The Hubble Space Telescope has always been eavesdropping on the heavens.
55. 98.6 F or otherwise has always been confirmed in the ear.
56. Michael Milken has always been a philanthropist promoting prostate cancer research.
57. Off-shore oil drilling in the United States has always been prohibited.
58. Radio stations have never been required to present both sides of public issues.
59. There have always been charter schools.
60. Students always had Goosebumps.

A quick Sunday out provided us a bit of shopping and a chance to get out of the house… Knowing that being out and about usually involves finding a place to eat, the drive up and down Manchester in Ballwin provided us an opportunity to view a large white truck with the words “Gyros” on the side.

Mmmmm… Gyros.

Thankfully I haven’t met an gyro that I haven’t like but upon pulling into the parking stall in front of the restaurant - we got a bit worried… Nobody inside and handmade signs in the windows. But heck - we hardly try anything new and they did have gyros. What the heck… We went inside, but paid with cash! LOL

With minimal expectations on quality eating - I have to say we were both really delighted with our gyros… It’s always nice to be surprised… Now - this isn’t a steak house or anything… But with Philly steak sandwiches, burgers, dogs - and gyros… for a decent price (and decent fries!) - we’ll surely make a trip back when our adventures take us down Manchester…

I used to swim when I was younger… Younger as in grade school & junior high. Lots of really early mornings to swim before school. Then weekends spent going to swim meets all over the region. I have a few medals and ribbons and what-nots. Even some nice heat-winning Coke and Pepsi cans… So you can obviously expect I’ve been really excited that the Olympics are finally here and so much attention being paid to the men and women’s swimming events. (Although I’m traveling this week so I’m really missing out on all that HD coverage!!)

So with the fantastic 4×100 freestyle relay Gold-place finish of the US Men’s team on Sunday night - I thought it would be a fun effort to see just how fast I was compared to the world record time that Jason Lezak laid down on the last leg of that race (I know, I know - it doesn’t count as a world record since he didn’t have the first leg… but it is “still” the fastest!)

Jason swam his 4th leg in 46.06 seconds. That’s 100 meters. Of course, my swimming efforts at the Lodge are in yards. The pool is a bit larger than a wading pool… (It’s also a cool wave pool… ) That makes one trip down the lane at 25 yards. How slow do I float down those lanes? A lap for me down and back is 40 seconds (the first time… it’s slower after each lap!) The makes it roughly 42.12 seconds for 100 yards - for grins cut that in half for 21.06 seconds for 50 yards… In which I swim in 40 seconds… My 100 meter swim would be about 87.49 seconds… or close to 53% slower.

So while I’m barely keeping myself from falling 9 feet to the bottom of the pool - Jason would already be back at the shallow end of the lap. Wow - that’s fast! (And yes - I’m slow… - But I will try and find some of my old times from many years ago and have some fun at my own expense.)

Congrats in any case to the US Olympic swimming teams! And yes - I listed Phelps (because of the picture) even though it’s more about Lezak’s time… Either case - they’re BOTH super fast!

Sometimes that just feels so right. You have to love SpongeBob SquarePants & Patrick Star…

Need your fix of Olympic goodness? Supposedly some 3,500 hours worth are going to be broadcast this year from China and sufficed to say, one person can’t really get 250 hours of coverage in a day just to make average. Thankfully technology has come to the rescue in terms of fulfilling Olympic gold for those of us couch potatoes glued to the TV.

Now that I’ve fulfilled my need for a new HTPC, I’m able to put to good use my Vista Media Center as well. By downloading a cool application from TVTonic, you can down download events and highlights for display right from Media Center. Cool enough is that one of the “channels” available is for HD content. There’s no HD samples to view yet - so I’m going to take a guess that it’ll be 720 instead of 1080… But it’s cool nonetheless. I took a quick spin of the interface this afternoon and I’m pretty impressed. For a free service that’s probably tracking my viewing habits (which is okay for right now) - I’m happy enough to keep it connected for the next few weeks. NBC & Lenovo are both feeding the content and sponsoring the effort, which means embedded commercials… But so far I’m able to fast forward through the commercials and get into the shows pretty quickly.

Next up was the summer release of TiVo’s service update. Probably not really related but it was waiting for me this morning as well. TiVo has a section that will automatically create season passes based on Olympic events… Pretty nice deal as long as I removed the SD channels from the duplicated HD lineups. Being a fan of TiVo since the early days - I’m really looking forward to making room for all of the HD glory of the Olympics by having both HD tuners stuck on Olympic coverage. With the 500 GB extender add-on, I think they’ll be room for some 87 hours of recordings if I let my other shows slide… I know I won’t need that much - but it’s good to be in 1080 this year around… And that it’s on NBC… (Still can’t figure out why Charter and KMOV can’t play nicely for HD rebroadcast rights….) The whole process does wish that everything was in HD… Knowing that in order to get all of that Olympic goodness into our living rooms next week - they’re taking over a few other channels that just happen to only be in SD…

So let the John Williams fanfares begin… 08/08/08 will be here in less than a week!!