Just in case you somehow haven't noticed yet, while our average age is technically a semi-sprightly 23, AtAT's production staff is comprised almost solely of bitter old fossils who don't know what kind of nonsense these kids today get up to, consarn it, but we know they're up to no good. That's right, you young whippersnappers-- don't give us any lip about how you have it so hard these days with your drive-bys and your killer crack and your rampaging mutant gila monsters with laser beam eyes, because when we were young'uns, computers could only display six colors in hi-res mode (which was 280x192, by the way) and even the Apples were strictly command-line interface. So stick that in your new-fangled hippy-trippy "bongs" and smoke it.

That said, we actually just found something that restores our faith-- just slightly-- in the younger generation, at least in another country. According to the Evening Standard, some new market research reveals that teens in the UK have "an honest work ethic," with three-quarters shackling themselves to part-time jobs to pay back money that their parents had loaned them. But we find ourselves liking them despite that revolting development (geez, haven't these kids ever heard of crime?) because "two thirds of British teenagers know how much an Apple iPod mini costs, but more than three quarters have no idea of the price of a pint of milk."

This, of course, reveals a surprisingly well-developed sense of priority among British teens, since the price of milk is, from a practical standpoint, useless trivia. What teen takes his or her own money and buys a pint of milk? If they want milk, no doubt their parents have already bought some, and so knowing that it apparently costs 30p and not "more than £1" (which is what many of them had guessed) would serve no purpose other than to take up valuable space in the brain where one could otherwise store something useful-- like, say, the maximum jail term for grand theft auto. We're proud to say that we, ourselves, haven't the foggiest idea of what a pint of milk costs here in the States-- and, in fact, we weren't even entirely sure what a "pint" was until we looked it up. But collectively we're a walking compendium of far more practical information, such as how long the average adult male can live without either of his kidneys, and how to use pushpins and an eraser to make a little pig.

In contrast to that silly "milk" thing, the price of an iPod mini is absolutely relevant and useful information, since it's a crucial teen accessory that Mum and Dad generally don't pick up on the way home from work and stick in the fridge for general consumption. Therefore most teens are going to have to buy one with their own available funds-- funds that, evidently, most of them borrow from Mum and Dad and then (shudder) work to repay instead of simply rolling uptown drunks for cash, but their own available funds nonetheless. See? Priorities. Who says society is doomed?