The Smarmy Carny

Feeling young and sprightly? If you do and you're well out of college, you may want to review Beloit's annual College Mindset List. Recently released was the Class of 2011 mindset list. It puts into perspective how the world is different for young adults today.

I appreciate this list because it doesn't simply list what happened the year that this group of college freshmen were born. Anyone who has read a "year you were born" list knows that they are essentially useless because you don't remember anything that happened when you were 0 years old. This list shows you what kids may not be aware of and even how they might view things differently than older generations. For instance, what do you think of when you hear "Tiananmen Square"? Most college freshmen think of it only as an upcoming Olympic venue.

Here are 15 selections from this year's 2011 Mindset List. In all, there are 70 items, so check out Beloit's annual College Mindset List for the complete list.

Class of 2011:

• What Berlin wall?
• Humvees, minus the artillery, have always been available to the public.
• They have grown up with bottled water.
• Russia has always had a multi-party political system.
• No one has ever been able to sit down comfortably to a meal of “liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
• Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
• Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
• Stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have always had corporate names.
• High definition television has always been available.
• Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.
• MTV has never featured music videos.
• Jerry Springer has always been lowering the level of discourse on TV.
• They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.
• The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
• Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling.

Here are 15 additional entries for the Class of 2010, in case you're wondering about the current sophomores:

Class of 2010:

• The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
• They have known only two presidents.
• There has always been only one Germany.
• A stained blue dress is as famous to their generation as a third-rate burglary was to their parents'.
• "Google" has always been a verb.
• Milli Vanilli has never had anything to say.
• There has never been a "skyhook" in the NBA.
• Carbon copies are oddities found in their grandparents' attics.
• Reality shows have always been on television.
• They have no idea why we needed to ask "…can we all get along?"
• They have always known that "In the criminal justice system the people have been represented by two separate yet equally important groups."
• They have always been able to watch wars and revolutions live on television.
• They are not aware that "flock of seagulls hair" has nothing to do with birds flying into it.
• Disneyland has always been in Europe and Asia.
• Television stations have never concluded the broadcast day with the national anthem.

Craving more? Read about the Class of 2009 Mindset List and a summary of the Mindset Lists for the Classes of 2002 through 2008.

Desktop Tower Defense

A month or two ago, I discovered the world of Tower Defense (or "TD") games. If you Google "tower defense games", you'll find an assortment of variations on the theme — some truly fun versions, some poorly planned, and some boring. The lure of a quality Tower Desktop game is that it is as much fun as playing Warcraft, except a lot simpler.

Possibly one of the best TD games is Desktop Tower Defense over at handdrawngames.com. If you play on Medium or Hard level, you can submit your name and score. You can also submit your score to a group scoreboard — feel free to type in smarmy for the group name and you can compare your score with me and others! If you want to learn more about what strategies work and the best towers to upgrade, play the Fun Mode "10k Gold" game and have a blast! The best feature in this game is that you start with a clean slate, and you work however you want to.

If Desktop Tower Defense is a bit too tough, you might prefer Flash Element TD. Instead of having to build a blockade, the baddies in this game follow a pre-set path. You can't build on their road, but you know exactly where they'll be going. If you can get the Combo Towers activated, you'll really start having fun.

Both Desktop TD and Flash Element TD will apparently be coming together at Casual Collective when it is launched. The site will also feature a multiplayer game called MPDTD (Multi-Player Desktop TD) that is basically Desktop TD with a few features that allow you to compete with other players.

Honorable mention goes to Onslaught 2, which is a fun TD game, but I keep running into a bug where my towers just stop shooting at the bad guys. The gameplay on this game is fun, especially if you get the hang of the combo attacks. Let's put it this way — if Onslaught 2 didn't have this bug in it, this post would be titled "Three Tower Defense Games Worth Playing."

Thanks again to all those who read my posts as I participated in Blogathon 2007, posting 49 posts in just 24 hours. Sponsorships are now closed, and I received 10 pledges for $135.00! The money I raised this year will be going to One Economy Corporation. (In 2006 I received 8 pledges for $141.00 to benefit the Make-a-Wish Foundation of America.)

Here's a little peek at the spike in blog traffic for the two weeks leading up to and through the Blogathon weekend:

How does this compare with last year? Things weren't too much different in terms of visits, but I had 17.7% more visits than last year. There are other stats that are more favorable for 2006, but I don't want to bother with those.

In case you were wondering, these pretty graphs both came from Google Analytics.

Final Blogathon totals: 10 pledges for $135.00