Do you find a product more appealing if it’s marketed as X-TREEEEM‽
Do you really enjoy being in places like clubs where the music is painfully loud? I’m talking about “Ouch! That really hurts!” loud? How do you tolerate it? Would the experience be made even more pleasurable if other senses were being assaulted, too, like if you were being subjected to constant needle pokes, shin kicks and ground-hugging sulfur farts? (I’m being a bit judgemental, but I’m really wondering why “pain is good” when it comes to sound.)
For fans of emo and indie rock, does more obscure = better? Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when a band was big, it toured and played HUGE venues; places like football stadiums and municipal sports arenas. Even in small cities, every week there was some huge concert. Now when a band is big, the size of that bigness seems much smaller; all but a few of the largest stars play small venues. Instead of Boston or Journey at a 20,000 seat auditorium, it’s Papa Roach at the House of Blues. With the emo and indie genres, it seems like the less popular a band is, the more popular it is; people seem take pride in being fans of unknown acts rather than big stars. Do you think the quality of a band is inversely proportional to its fan base? Do you stop being a fan when they become popular? Why?
This is a really good observation. I started feeling my disconnect with pop culture about the same time I stopped wanting to watch The Real World – the last season I watched was 1998’s in Seattle. After that, I stopped paying attention to much of teen / early 20s stuff.
I hadn’t thought of this before, but you’re exactly right for me. By 1999, I was no longer with it. And I was only 20.
Honestly I don’t remember, but I know it was within the same year (1992, my coming of age time in music). I got “Wish” and “Standing on a Beach” first, though.
I don’t know but that may only be because my family disliked the show so no one ever watched it. I know MASH, though.
The Cure Test is not bad. I’d recommend a couple of other cultural milestones:
–Did you get your first e-mail address before or after you graduated from high school? (Before: Y, After: X)
–Did you listen to Nirvana (or were you aware of them) before Kurt Cobain died? (Yes: X, No: Y)
–Were Saturday morning cartoons ever a big deal to you? (Yes: X, No: Y)
Your question raises another question: are the big acts that could fill HUGE venues like football stadiums an endangered species? Granted, there are older acts like U2, Madonna, and the Stones who can still do this but has anyone come along in the last ten or so years who can do this? (Maybe Green Day can do this right now but I’m not so sure.)
Groders and heshers: in my hometown, they were the guys and girls who wore denim jackets festooned with patches of their favorite metal bands, leather vests, scruffy jeans and black concert t-shirts. They were huge fans of heavy metal. In the 1980s, it seemed like tens of railroad overpasses in the city had “SLAYER” spraypainted on them. Many of the male groders and heshers were into the muscle car scene.
"I took the fuckin’ stock 383 motor out. From the cylinder bore I had the block bored an additional .060 and fitted with new fuckin’ TRW forged pistons, had the block fuckin’ align bored and decked, installed a fuckin’ Crane valve train, had the fuckin’ cylinder heads ported and polished, had the fuckin’ crankshaft turned .010/.010 and then fuckin’ re-hardened before fitting fuckin’ Clevite 77 rod and main bearings, had the fuckin’ connecting rods rebuilt, and fuckin’ shot peened for surface hardness, and then de-burred the entire fuckin’ block. I installed a set of fuckin’ Hooker headers and fuckin’ Mopar Hemi mufflers, while on the incoming fuel side I used a fuckin’ Holley 780 carburetor wit hfuckin’ mechanical secondaries. I replaced the standard 3.23:1 rear axle gears with a set of fuckin’ 4.56:1 gears and modified the fuckin’ rear suspension with a fuckin’ pinion snubber over the center of the fuckin’ differential. Know where I can score good weed? "
Wiggers and ricers: needs no description. Icy Hot Stuntas, yo.
“Yo, I threw a chip in it, know wha’ I’m sayin’, stuck a spoiler on the back, yo, out on a fart pipe and and put lots of stickers on the windows, know wha’ I’‘m sayin’?”
Did your childhood/teens home have any appliances, carpet/flooring or wallpaper containing the colors pea green, orange or goldenrod? Gen X.
Did your childhood playground consist solely of metal bars and tanbark, with nary a colored plastic in sight (McDonalds playground does not count)? Gen X.
Another good watermark would is how you react when you hear the Cure’s “Killing an Arab”
GenX: You know it’s a reference to the book “The Stranger” by Albert Camus
GenY: You recoil at such a blatantly politically incorrect song that obviously is mocking the Muslim community and our involvement in two wars in the Middle East.
Wow! I passed that with flying colors! Do I get extra super duper Gen Xer points for not having purchased ANY Cure LP after Disintegration?
A couple more tests:
–If you had a broken console TV and had to put the 19 in. on top (I saw this on “Everybody Hates Chris” and laughed my ass off because we had to do that at one point)-- Gen X
–If you ever had to change channels with a pair of pliers – Gen X
–If you have no idea what a “console” TV is – Gen Y
–Did you get your first e-mail address before or after you graduated from high school? (Before: Y, After: X)
After.
–Did you listen to Nirvana (or were you aware of them) before Kurt Cobain died? (Yes: X, No: Y)
Yes
–Were Saturday morning cartoons ever a big deal to you? (Yes: X, No: Y)
Yes
Did your childhood/teens home have any appliances, carpet/flooring or wallpaper containing the colors pea green, orange or goldenrod? Gen X.
Oh yeah.
Did your childhood playground consist solely of metal bars and tanbark, with nary a colored plastic in sight (McDonalds playground does not count)? Gen X.
Yep.
Did you watch Soul Train? Gen X.
mmm…no. But I watched Star Search. Does that count?
[QUOTE=Ghanima]
Did your childhood/teens home have any appliances, carpet/flooring or wallpaper containing the colors pea green, orange or goldenrod? Gen X.
QUOTE]For appliances at least, that first one was usually called ‘avocado.’
If during your high school and college years, MTV programming consisted of primarily music videos, you’re Generation X. If MTV was a youth/young adult lifestyle station with primarily episodic programming, you’re Generation Y.
If most of the concerts you attended as a kid were held in football stadiums and sports arenas, you’re Generation X. If they were in theaters and clubs, you’re Generation Y.
If you watched music videos on channels other than MTV, VH-1 and BET (Night Flight on USA, Friday Night Videos on NBC, local over-the-air music video channels, etc.), you’re Generation X. If you don’t remember music videos airing on regular television stations, you’re Generation Y.
if, while growing up, there was a television set in your living or family room that didn’t have a remote control, you’re Generation X.
If you ever bought an album on cassette, you’re probably Generation X.
If you grew up when “fart” and “sucks” were considered profanities, you’re probably Generation X.
Elmwood clearly knows what he’s talking about. On the other hand, if you were on the bleeding edge of the curve… I had an e-mail address in the mid 80s. I saw the Ramones in a club… of course, you can guess which club.
And nice imitation of the metal crew… that wasn’t an imitation. You got it all right… yeah, that’s the right parts, in the right places, doing the right things.
Thing is, even kids these days can and sometimes do the same thing. It’s just hard to tell because the result either looks like nothing, or looks like subdued ricer.
These days, though, you’re talking about what you did to the semi-trailing arm when you lowered the car, creating toe-steer, which gives you trailing throttle oversteer at the limit, so you had to increase the spring rate at the same time, to reduce wheel travel. Something more modern, you have to relocate the pivot points with some offset bushings, or you can slot a new location for the control arm mounting points.
Then you have to consider mitigating lift and dive by moving the front suspension pivot points, but not enough to get wheel hop. You get too much anti-dive and anti-lift, though, you get nonlinear steering response… like on a WRX.
Add in anti-squat and your center o’ gravity calculations can take up a few pages.
We’re not even considering the Ackerman and camber curves, or what you have to do for proper corner balancing. This kind of thing was wizardry in the 80s… now it’s just hard.
Heck, these days we even have to consider plug relief machining at the top of the piston just for a clean burn under compression ratios of 14:1…
Never thought much about it, but I think you’ve nailed it. If “projects” on your car mostly involved the drivetrain, you’re Generation X. If “tuning” your car mainly involved the suspension and brakes, you’re Generation Y.
A few more:
If you lust after a 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge, 1970 Plymouth Superbird or 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle LS-6 SS 454, you’re’re Generation X. If you drool at the thought of a Nissan Skyline GT-R, Subaru Impresa WRX STi, or Honda Civic SiR, you’re Generation Y.
If the engine of your dream car is measured in cubic inches, you’re Generation X. If it’s liters, you’re probably Generation Y.
If your auto projects involve making a car as stock as possible, you’re Generation X. If it’s accessorizing and tuning to make it as customized as possible, you’re Generation Y.
And I was only 20.