C'mon. No one picked us up for today? No one?!? This the A-game, people. What do we have to do to get some love. Stay tuned for next week. We're bringing the heavy artillery, and if you don't like it we're coming after you.

Accounting for Slackers: Is a Bachelor’s Degree Worth the Money?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that, over the course of an average career, an individual with a bachelor's degree would earn $376,000 more than someone with an associate's degree. Sounds like a good enough reason to trade up from Barstow community college to Chico State, no? But is it really worth it? Lets take a closer look at the figures.

Right off the top, deduct an average of 25 grand for the extra years, including tuition, room and board, books, bus tickets, concert tickets, drinking-in-public tickets, bribing the Cancun police to unchain your roommate from Pedro el Executioner, penicillin, clean sheets, and keg replacement fees. (Add a few more thousand for a private college, the six-year plan, or an upgrade to top Ramen from the regular kind.) Ok, say 50 grand total. That leaves $326,000.

In addition, deduct for each of the following:

$1,000
D Average
Acquired alcohol/marijuana habit
Investing profits from hemp lanyard sales in Enron stock.

$5,000
Acquired ecstasy/ketamine habit
Date rape arrest
Legal fees regarding topless photo on "Girls Gone Wild in Wildwood, NJ" packaging.
Liberal arts major

$250,000
Acquired heroin habit
Date rape conviction
Keeping the baby
English major

Add $1,000,000
Phi Beta Kappa Key
Young Entrepreneurs Club membership
MBA degree
Plagiarism (Journalism majors only)


Not counting the above pitfalls, and assuming the average career is around 40 years long, that amounts to an extra $8,150 a year for the bachelor’s degree holder. That’s not too bad, depending on whether or not one’s expectations reach higher than Michael J. Anderson’s fedora. Oh, and while we’re at it, don’t forget to deduct 40% for income tax, FICA, and state and local taxes, which leaves $4,980 a year, or approximately $14 per day, barely enough for a room on the methadone-free wing at the local YMCA.

It’s better than nothing, that extra 14 bucks a day, right? Oh, better not die, or you forfeit it all.

"Losing Entry in The Kicker's Michael Jackson's Nose In Prison Contest"

It just so happens I am the on-board medical expert at LasagnaFarm.com by virtue of my day job at Mount Sinai Hospital. When I'm not hitting on rich divorcees in the psych ward, I like to browse our extensive back catalog of Rhinoplasty Quarterly. Michael Jackson is going to be just fine behind bars. Let me try to explain this without cumbersome medical jargon: His mouth and nasal cavity will be routinely pumped with enough semen to maintain sufficient epidermal form and promote cartilage growth in case he bangs his nose making license plates or belt buckles.

Update: The Young Manhattanite sends The Farm a follow-up resulting from a previous Gawker Post!


Oh. My. Shitness. Get this. Tonight I got emails notifying of messages in my JDate inbox. I rarely received any during the one month I paid for a premium membership and there hasn't been a peep since I cancelled my subscription. I assumed my account was deleted but I guess profiles remain without fee.

Without hesitation I log in cause I fully suspect something juicy (I hate to reveal this of my people, but yes, there are more than a handful of girls with member names using some variation of "jewcy") awaits me due to today's Gawker post with my "Jew girls trolling the personals, pretty fuckin' beat" comments.

The reason for this expectation lies in the painful admission that my JDate profile says something like "young manhattanite, old soul. short-distance runner, long-distance thinker. part-time writer, full-time eater..." and even once cited my original Friendster departure interview. It seems very possible someone made the connection. (Also, don't mock the bio blurb. If you saw the shite on this site, you'd understand the temptation, nay, need to write like a retarded poet.)

Turns out I now have to pay a $28 monthly fee to access premium membership "benefits" again like reading messages. Jesus, why do they have to be such fuckin'...ok, I'll stop. (Sorry mom.) Anyway, of course I pay, since my curiosity is more tweaked than a drunken game of Hide-The-Afikomen. Alas, there are two messages and sure enough, first one's a dud:

"hi lower east sider,

i couldn't resist writing to a fellow david mamet fan. i loved that movie. i also live downtown. you gotta love the neighborhood!"

Young, dumb, and full of Purim. Perhaps she's trying to lure me into a date to beat the matzo balls out of me? Doubtful, but please don't gimme any shit about the Mamet crack. Everyone knows Jews love to reference other Jews. Maintaining cultural relevancy is part of our world domination plan. Though I think I hate the neighborhood now.

Second message...Yahtzenberg!

"Are you the Young Manhattanite in the interview mentioned on Gawker.com about returning to Friendster and said Jew girls trolling the personals are pretty fucking beat? If so, I'm sure you think it was clever and funny to say that but those are really hurtful and damaging words. I cannot believe anyone would attack women like that, especially of your own religion. The New York City dating scene is tough enough without assholes like you. Do us all a favor, stop pretending to be a real Jew and please don't try to date any or use us as a witty punchline."

Oy fey. Is that the Anti-Defamation League I hear knocking on my mezuzah ready to charge me with first-degree JRape? Relax, my curly-haired honeys of HymieTown! I respect you all like our tribe elders taught us, just stay on your side of the synagouge.

In all fairness, she's got a point. I wonder if she has any fake Jew friends to hook me up with.

Friend of the Farm, Robert Saunders of ProcrastinationNation.blogspot.com, did a press pool interview with Al Franken Monday night at Vanderbilt University. It would have been better if he actually took notes, but here's his review of Franken's take on the newly warm and cuddly, repentant Rush Limbaugh:

Different folks asked about that in the interview and the speech. He was pretty funny about it. He said it was clear that Rush had gotten some of the standard addiction therapy and demonstrated about *this* much understanding of it. His serious comment was, "from the guy who said my friend, the late Jerry Garcia, is just another dead doper..." (There was more to it but that's what I remember.) Another quip he made, "Since Rush said drug addicts should get the maximum sentence, I hope that Rush asks for a maximum sentence in the worst Florida prison with a black guy who has heard Rush's Donovan McNabb comments."

(Ed--Ouch. Let me get this straight, Franken's the liberal?)

Friend of the Farm He Who Shall Remain Nameless let us in on this little web site, which is a bunch of kids (aka evil adults maquerading as tweens) trying to be nice nice with the RIAA.

Send Them Back!!"

Note the clever use of the double exclamation point. These "kids" almost had me fooled by this, until I realized real kids use three exclamations points, not just two. Silly adults, kids are dumber than you think. Three exclamation points and I would have taken step three to heart, well assuming that I could figure out how to fax my mp3s:

"3. Load your fax machine with the paper. (Hint: Most fax machines can only load 10-20 pages at a time. Can you figure out how many batches your MP3s will take...without using a calculator! :)"

Review of Last Week's Guided By Voices Show at Warsaw by Friend of the Farm, Jami of Whatever-Whenever.net, over IM

WW: oh man
LF: oh woman
WW: i must tell you about the gbv show last night
WW: julian casablancas was at the show
WW: like right next to us
LF: drunk and stumbling?
WW: yes
WW: he was
WW: and bob pollard pretty much just talked to him and
teased him the entire show
WW: and then
WW: julian got THROWN OUT
WW: for smoking
LF: weed?
WW: cigarettes
LF: was he putting them out on people?
WW: no
WW: just smoking
WW: the bouncers didn't know who he was
WW: and people started booing
WW: they wouldn't have cared if it were like, me
LF: maybe it was more an anti- smoking ban boo
LF: and less so about julian
WW: nah
WW: people were getting kicked out right and left
LF: which of course gives everyone the opp to say "i
was kicked out of the GBV show with julian casablancas
for smoking! can you believe that shit??!!"
WW: right

Gawk'd

(Thursday) Friday (and Saturday) nights for The Farm hands usually involves channeling our Ted Nugent's id to beat up our Rosie O'Donnell's ego. We pride ourselves on how adroitly we avoid the media tractor beam that sucks up even C-, D-, and E-level celebs into its gaping any-attention-is-good-attention-loving maw. When weeks, even years, go by without receiving any party invitations we have only ourselves to blame. (Not that we enjoy leaving our ranch (the sheep, in particular, miss us) but it would be nice to know someone with just two legs cares.) So when Jami said I could tag-a-long to the Fleshbot party at Nick Denton's fleshpad, I jumped with All Joy of the Lion at the chance to float in this East Village media aquarium with hammerhead snarks and publishing bottom-feeders. If "shooting fish in a barrel" is too cliche for you, how about "dropping grenades in the lake" -- which aptly describes the explosive damage I've done to my reputation. Go here to see Jami's play-by-play and color commentary. And now for my take . . .

The evening's highlight for me was the Gawker Media reunion in Denton's pissoir amid a sorry mess of cheap designer jackets left in a peculiar Star of David pattern. (No excuse people, APC even had a sample sale that day!) I snuck in with a casual "Is this the bathroom?" and a Caligula-meets-Nero-meets-the-Coreys chorus replied, "Apparently." After drinks and winks were exchanged (but alas, nary the much-needed reach-around), I found myself in a daisy-chain backrub session with the GM class of '03.

Here's a look into the fishbowl:

Nick Denton: glazed-over yet confident, became very zen-like. He recited more koan than Mr. Miyagi (e.g., "If Paris Hilton fucks in the dark and no one is there to get it on film, how will I go on!?!")

Choire Sicha - drunk with power/gay with powder

Peter Rojas - busy working the light show

Jonno - impressive set of pecks, even better moustache

Elizabeth Spiers - incoherent mumbling in response to repeated questions about new workload and wake-up call

Gaggle of interns - all fighting over who gets to hold the spirit straw

I blended in nicely at first when I said I was circulating a proposal for a new Denton project: Meshbot -- a men's fashion blog aimed at heteros and the men who love them. I won't say what position on the clock I held in this touchie-feelie concentric circle but for those new to such group activities, always brace yourself when someone yells "two-minute warning!" -- Such a call means you're either at a frat party about to turn circle jerk or a circle jerk about to turn real messy.

Overall, the details are hazy but I think Nick kept asking Elizabeth to take her coat off and stay awhile (she didn't), Choire barked orders like a coxswain, Jonno gave us all a primer on the wonders of petroleum-based products, and I kept asking "Can we listen to the Pixies or something?" Pained disgust (everyone's) at my presence was soon followed by bowel-moving irritation (mine alone). I was promptly asked to leave the room when my coke ran out.