Category Archives: Guest Contributor

Going Big: The Avocado Bacon Burger

By Guest Contributor: Mike Majlak

Congratulations, its a monster.

GET THESE THINGS
One pound 85/15 ground beef
One package thick cut hickory smoked bacon
One whole avocado
One head of romaine lettuce
One vine ripened tomato
One package Cheddar Jack cheese
Two potato rolls or hamburger buns
Montreal Steak seasoning
Mayonnaise (optional)

Moderation wasn’t something that ever came very easily to me. My mom always tried to warn me against having “too much of a good thing” but it generally fell upon deaf ears. I didn’t want one solid piece of art- I wanted Notorious BIG posters on every, single part of my bedroom wall. And even as an adult, this is still the way I am. I don’t have a halfway setting. I’m either going big- or I’m going to sleep.

The way I think about and prepare food follows this same pattern. So when it came time to write a post for Shawny and Life on a Couch, I wanted to do an over-the-top creation based on my favorite plate in life- the all-American beef cheeseburger.

Press your own fattie!

I started with some really fresh, not-so-lean 85/15 beef from the local market. The modern health craze we see before us everyday is great- just not for burgers. Every time I eat a “lean” burger I liken it to eating cardboard. Besides, my grandfather Pop-Pop ate 80/20 burgers all day and he made it to a ripe old 91. Eat what you want, just run a little more is my theory.

Anyways- I shaped the meat into some half-pound snowball patties. I like to leave ‘em a little fatter as opposed to squishing into true patties to keep that homestyle feel. I then gave the burgers a GENEROUS (read: anti-moderate) rub of my go-to Montreal Steak seasoning and stuck them under the broiler. I live in Connecticut and there’s no way I was going out to the grill. If you live somewhere where it’s super-warm right now: 1) use your grill and 2) I’m jealous and I don’t like you until May/June.

Don’t wimp out.

As the burgers broiled, I started thinking “How do we bring this thing to the next level?” And the answer was obvious- thick cut hickory bacon. Moderation would say two slices per burger, so I figured we would go with four. Broil up the bacon and put it to the side (you can even do this before the burger to get it over with).

No caption needed here.

Now how do we really step this up? I figured about 2-3 slices of really thick Pepper Jack Cheese (I used some from Cabot that was amazing) would be logical. And then right when you started to get overwhelmed- BOOM! Open up an avocado and cut it into not-so-modest slices. If you want this burger to be super-burly, chop up some lettuce, tomatoes and prep some mayo also.

When the burgers start to approach your desired temp (I hope you like medium-rare), toss the cheese on top and let the broiler start to do its work. Now grab a couple potato buns and toast them just a bit. This is the one place moderation IS a good thing. Nobody likes a burnt bun.

Prep now, smile later.

Check out the picture. Follow my stacking order OR choose a different way. The danger level on eating this thing is probably a 9/10 so maybe eat over a plate (don’t be a slob). Luckily for me, I ate the burger over my Sactionals which have machine-washable covers 🙂

Like reverse Jenga, with food.

Hopefully this avocado bacon burger brings you some happy summer thoughts to brighten your mood. If you really wanna follow my no moderation lifestyle, pair this bad boy with some waffle fries and a chocolate shake. After all, it is the middle of winter. If you start to feel chubby, just put on some sweats and call it a day.

Mike Majlak in the Rockies.

Mike Majlak is a published food fanatic/adventurer/photo-junkie. Follow his antics on Instagram @heybigmike.

Did you give this thing a shot?! Let me know in the comments!

– Shawny

Explain it Like I’m Five: Thanksgiving Apple Pie

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By Mike Majlak

Let me start off by saying- I don’t cook. I’m the classic man. If you gave me a few frozen burgers, I could grill ‘em up and they might just be edible. But if you put me in charge of say, a lasagna- things might not turn out too well. Baking, especially, is something I have no clue about but I am eager to learn. To start off, I will need to buy all the right equipment. Luckily websites like The Buyers Impact (more here)review all different kinds of products so I could find the best tools.

That being said, the culinary craft is not lost in my family. My mom Robin (the same mom who brought you the ultimate Macaroni n Cheese walkthrough) is constantly trying to teach me a thing or two about her passion. She invited me back into her kitchen to showcase the perfect apple pie to gobble on right before you slump down into your favorite couch for your annual L-tryptophan sponsored sleep session.

First she sent me to the grocery store to pick up some ingredients. Between scrolling Instagram and text messaging, I was somehow able to grab them correctly on the first try:

Ingredients
4 pounds Granny Smith apples, peeled, quartered, and cored
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon orange zest
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed orange juice
1/2 cup sugar, plus 1 teaspoon to sprinkle on top
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
Pie Crust (follow recipe below)
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Cut each apple quarter in thirds crosswise and combine in a bowl with the zests, juices, 1/2 cup sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Roll out half the pie dough and drape it over a 9- or 10-inch pie pan to extend about 1/2-inch over the rim. Don’t stretch the dough; if it’s too small, just put it back on the board and re-roll it.

Fill the pie with the apple mixture. Brush the edge of the bottom pie crust with the egg wash so the top crust will adhere. Top with the second crust and trim the edges to about 1-inch over the rim. Tuck the edge of the top crust under the edge of the bottom crust and crimp the 2 together with your fingers or a fork. Brush the entire top crust with the egg wash, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon sugar, and cut 4 or 5 slits.

Place the pie on a sheet pan and bake for 1 to 1 1/4 hours, or until the crust is browned and the juices begin to bubble out. Be sure to leave slits in crust exposed to allow moisture to vent out! Serve warm.

Pie Crust:

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) very cold unsalted butter

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1/3 cup very cold vegetable shortening

6 to 8 tablespoons (about 1/2 cup) ice water

Dice the butter and return it to the refrigerator while you prepare the flour mixture. Place the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse a few times to mix. Add the butter and shortening. Pulse 8 to 12 times, until the butter is the size of peas. With the machine running, pour the ice water down the feed tube and pulse the machine until the dough begins to form a ball. Dump out on a floured board and roll into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Cut the dough in half. Roll each piece on a well-floured board into a circle, rolling from the center to the edge, turning and flouring the dough to make sure it doesn’t stick to the board. Fold the dough in half, place in a pie pan, and unfold to fit the pan. Repeat with the top crust.

Yield: 2 (10-inch) crusts (top and bottom)

I wish I could take some credit for the baking that was involved in this pie, but I really can’t. Instead I’ll take this time to personally thank all the beautiful mothers out there who make Thanksgiving dinner so easy on all us guys. Love ya mom!

Thanks to guest contributor Mike Majlak for sharing with us. Do you usually bake your own Thanksgiving Day dessert?! Let us know in the comments!

–Shawny, Founder of Lovesac & Life on a Couch

The Emotional Bond Between You and Your Couch Is Real.

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By Casey Mullins

Four and half years ago I documented the history of the unsightly green couch I inherited when I married my husband. I thought it was ugly the first time I saw it and I still think it’s ugly every time I walk into my bedroom. “If it’s so ugly why don’t you get rid of it?” Because I’m emotionally attached to the ugly hunter green couch that leaks oil on my carpet and threatens to swallow you whole if you sit on it wrong. It’s where my husband and I had our first kiss, it’s where we sat for the first 10 years of our marriage and it’s been in every place we’ve called home since 2000.

In my 14 years of marriage and 9 years of parenthood I’ve learned you must be very careful about what you bring into your life because there’s a very good chance you will end up with an emotional bond to it and find yourself struggling to separate yourself from the memories associated with it. The chair I’m sitting on this very moment is bright orange and hideous, but it belonged to my husband’s favorite grandma and it’s where I slept through both of my pregnancies when I couldn’t stand being in bed anymore. There’s no denying it’s ugly, but there’s also no denying how comfortable and well designed it is.

Over the last four years the history of our green couch has grown, it supported me through another pregnancy, became my favorite place to nurse my new baby and continues to be a staple piece of furniture we rotate around as we go throughout our daily lives. The brown couch we chose for downstairs has its own budding history as well. We have over three thousand square feet and a dozen rooms in our home but on any given night you will find all four of us piled up downstairs on the couch (six if you count the cats.) We were sitting on the couch when we told our oldest I was pregnant and we’ve all taken turns being various levels of sick, injured, sad, happy, or bored on it.

We spend a lot of time visiting historic places throughout our travels, pausing for a moment to remember the momentous occasions that happened there and wondering what these historic monuments would say if they could talk. More than ever, our couches are a central part to our story as a family and as silly as it sounds, we’ve started to regard them as the overstuffed sentinels they are. Not a day goes by that one of our couches goes unused, even when we’re out of town we always return to evidence of the cats making full use of them in our absence.

Have you ever stopped to think about an important couch in your own life? Who has sat there, what stories has it heard, or what grand life events has it been witness to? What did it feel like, smell like, or sound like when you sat on it?

Think about it for a minute, I can promise you’ll think of something. It’s a great question to ask loved ones as you’re traveling around this holiday season, you may learn bit of new family history and begin to regard grandma’s plastic wrapped floral couch in a whole new way.

8 Strange Candies You Won’t See Trick-Or-Treating

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By Mike Majlak

We all remember the excitement that built up around Halloween when we were kids. Trying on costumes, carving pumpkins, maybe even a haunted hayride- all added to the anticipation surrounding many children’s favorite holiday. Now as adults, much of that excitement comes from “manning” the door and handing out candy to children that might remind us of a time when life was just a little more carefree than it is now.

Carving pumpkins is just so hot right now.

The night of Halloween itself, when most kids go trick-or-treating, holds the highest level of tradition, ritual, and intrigue. Every time the doorbell rings and we must pry ourselves off the beloved couch, we feel just a little bit of that youthful energy so freely exhibited one crisp night each and every autumn.

Much of the excitement for adults on Halloween comes along with choosing which candy we will hand out to the kids of the neighborhood. We all remember being kids and how we loved Old Miss Winters for giving out King Size Snickers bars- or how we skipped right past the next-door neighbor Frank’s house because he just gave out those stupid Smarties that nobody could possibly like. There have always been the Halloween mainstays- the Snickers bars, the candy corn, the Sweet Tarts. But here are 8 strange candies that you may not have ever seen- and maybe for good reason…

8. Sigmund Freud Head Pops
Lollipops shaped to look just like Sigmund Freud and taste like watermelon- but operate free of any of those pesky copays or sticky coinsurance situations.

Sigmund Freud Lollipops

7. Chicken Sucker Candy
A lollipop in the shape of a rotisserie chicken that has a very strange orange flavor and eerily offers none of the same protein advantages as your normal chicken breast.

Chicken Sucker Candy

6. Forked Eyeball Suckers
Not really sure who’s idea this one was, but it’s pretty gruesome. Cherry and raspberry flavored eyeballs on the end of a popular kitchen utensil begs the question- “What the fork?!”

Hey man, you got something in your eye. It's a fork.

Forked Eyeballs Candy

5. Idaho Spud

Ok, so this one really isn’t that strange. A chunk of chocolate filled with marshmallow and sprinkled with coconut. I could actually go for one of these right now…

Idaho Spud Chocolate

4. Zombie Food Chocolates
Small morsels of milk chocolate molded in the shape of human brains, feet, and anatomically correct hearts that ooze red caramel when bitten into. These are sure to satisfy the Walking Dead fan in the family.

Zombie Food Chocolates

3. Box of Boogers Gummies
A terrifyingly disgusting box of gummies that pushes the envelope of what is even edible. They even feature three distinct flavors: Snottermelon, Sour Green Boogy, and Lemon Loogy. If you somehow have these for Halloween, you picked a real winner! If gummies are your thing but you’d prefer something a bit more healthy and beneficial for your body, you might want to shop at Green Roads for their edible CBD collection.

Box of Boogers Gummies

2. Gummy Flesh Fries
Watermelon flavored gummies made to resemble sawed-off human fingers. You may want someone to offer you a “hand” with eating these. I guess that’s not really that funny. Whatever.

Flesh Fries Gummies

1. Meatball Bubble Gum
And coming in at the number one spot is bubble gum that tastes like bubble gum- but looks like meatballs. Yes, like meatballs.

Meatball Bubble Gum

Thanks to guest contributor Mike Majlak for bringing these ridiculous candies to Lifeonacouch.org. Would you ever try any of these? Let us know!

–Shawny
Founder, Lovesac & Life on a Couch

Family Couchday 2.0

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Guest contributors Romy Raad and Natalie Neumann (Rad & Neu) are culinary adventurers who look at food the same way we look at the couch- as something that promotes happiness and brings us closer together. We are pumped to feature them here- head over to their blog for full version of this story (with recipes!) and a ton of other intriguing foodventures!

We, Romy and Natalie from radandneu.com, were absolutely thrilled to spend a funday with Shawny and his family in his beautiful countryside farmhouse!

Couching n’ Snacking was the theme of the day – by joining forces we created a joyful family outdoor experience, featuring four of our healthy, kids-friendly radcipes and some fabulous Lovesac products.

We prepared the snacks together with the kids, who discovered the fun of cooking as a team, while learning how each ingredient adds some magic to the plate.

Thanks to Shawny’s outdoor lounge setting, a regular couch afternoon was turned into a beautiful and lively outdoor experience – enjoying delicious finger foods with a side of sea breeze.

The detailed recipes for the healthy bites can be found on our blog www.radandneu.com alongside other rad&neu insights!

DIY Games for Parties

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Hello! Darleen here from Darling Darleen! I’m a friend of Shawn and call his wife one of my dear friends, and I’m excited to contribute this month to Life on a Couch.

This past weekend, we had a house full of family from out of town. Family time is so important to us, so this past weekend has been so fun; all we had to do to entertain us was Try Some Board Games! Every evening after we’d get kiddos to bed, we’d all congregate around the couch and laugh the night away with a good old-fashioned game night. We’ve got a cupboard full of board games, but many times we keep the laughs abundant by just playing card games or classic games like Pictionary or charades. We also have a HqDartBoard which has really bought out the competitive side in us all and because it’s electric, there’s no worry of sharp darts being left out.

All the essentials to get the games going!

It’s good to have a little healthy competition between family members or even friends! Maybe a little bit of low stakes wagering too! For this you could learn how to play live casino blackjack and have a “casino night” instead of “game night”. DIY games are a great way to liven people up, lighten the mood and get people talking. So when I host game night, I like to serve up easy-to-eat finger foods or party nibbles to keep attention on the game. I tend to go for the parlor food route and serve a cheese and meat plate along with a variety of nuts. Don’t forget the drinks!

Don’t forget the meat and cheese!

When it’s just myself playing, or perhaps my husband and I, there are so many games we can play. The list is probably endless! Sometimes we take ordinary games playing up a notch and decide to use online casino games to try and win a little money but to also seek a thrill. At first, we had no idea what we were doing so I had to search what does it mean when a game has a max bonus, or what does it mean when someone has a full house of cards, but now I’d say we’re somewhat experts! However, it’s hard to play those games with love with such a large group of people. Some of our favorite games are DIY games, or ones that we make up because we usually have a large group, or maybe we’ve played it somewhere before but they usually aren’t in the books.

Make up the rules as you go along!

Here are a few game suggestions that will get you and your party rolling on the couch in laughter.

Friends, food, and fun!

Nertz Playing cards-this is a great card game with multiplayer and a combination of Speed and Solitaire. It’s fast pace and quite addicting!

Scrabble with teams-each team begins with 7 letter blocks and makes words in a crossword fashion. Once one team using up all their 7 letter blocks, they shout out take two tiles and everyone takes two tiles from the center pile of upside-down word tiles and then continues to add the letters to their crossword. When the first team has used up all their game pieces and there are no more to draw, the game is over.

Dictionary-similar to Balderdash but you use a real Dictionary instead!

Bunco-it’s not just for girl’s night! A fun dice game to play with a group of people.

Things-Everyone writes out a response like “things you wouldn’t do in front of Grandma…” or “things you wouldn’t do in high school….” Then put it in a hat and everyone guesses who said what. Fun to make up your own prompts!

Headbands-the adult version of Hedbanz. It’s a silly game and we like to make up our own cards and usually tape to the back of a person. Good to play this game…while playing another game!

Enjoy playing your next DIY game night with friends or family! I’ve included in this post a generic score sheet that you can download and use for your game night party! You can download it here.

Team Scrabble

What are your favorite games to play for game night?

Couch Food: 7 Steps to Mac & Cheese Perfection

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We’re all just looking for a little bit of comfort. [Guest contributor: Michael Majlak]

As someone who truly believes that a good meal can transform the human soul, I’ve been spoiled with a mother who can really kick it up a notch in the kitchen. I probably never really gave her the appreciation she deserves for creating some insanely impressive homemade dishes.

Comfort on a plate

It’s one of those cliché arguments you have with your friends as a kid, and I couldn’t imagine it any other way. Every child should go through their adolescence thinking that their mom is the best cook in the entire universe. I can remember almost getting into physical fights with other kids that thought their mom made better meatloaf than mine!

One dish my mom has had perfected since my birth was this gooey, ridiculously delicious Mac & Cheese. Since we’re quickly slipping into the season for food that will keep us warm, I thought now would be the right time to bring you the recipe for a plate that anyone can make- and EVERYONE will enjoy. My mom, Robin, walked me through the whole process in 7 simple steps and I’ve laid them out below with some pictures to get your mouth watering just a bit. Throw on some sweatpants, follow the recipe, and bring a big bowl of this cheesy masterpiece back to your couch for an ultimate comfort session!

Just don’t try to say yours came out better than my mom’s…

Gather your ingredients

Robin’s Mac & Cheese aka: the ultimate comfort food!

1 lb. Cavatappi Pasta
6 oz. Gruyere Cheese
1 small onion
12 oz. New York Extra Sharp Cheese
3/4 stick butter
1 tsp. fresh ground nutmeg
1 tsp. fresh ground black pepper
Salt to taste
2 cups milk
3 Tbs. flour
1/2 cup Panko Crumbs

Boil some pasta

Preheat oven to 375º
Bring water to boil in large pot; add a splash of olive oil, cook pasta until almost cooked.
Grate cheeses, nutmeg and chop onion.
Melt butter in saucepan add finely chopped onion, cook slowly until onion is translucent. Add flour to butter/onion mixture and heat over low for 2 minutes stirring constantly.
Heat milk in separate pan or microwave until hot.
Add milk to pot with butter & onion and whisk until hot [do not boil]. Add cheeses, nutmeg, salt & pepper to mixture. Blend well and when smooth pour cheese sauce over pasta in casserole dish. Top with Panko, salt and pepper.
Bake 30 – 35 minutes or until golden brown and bubbling.

The money shot

Sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle that Panko

Bake it to crusty perfection

Enjoy!

— Michael Majlak

“Reading Set Me Free”

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With all of the distractions of our modern life, we bring in guest contributor Eric Bennion aka “The DiaryDad”, who reminds us the importance of reading on the couch as a family…

The couch acts a reading classroom…

Spending time on the couch with my family can mean any one of many activities is going on. We have movie time there, sometimes we play a few video games from it, we have even been known to throw impromptu dance parties around it. Our couch is definitely a place where we come together for good family fun. One of my favorite “couch activities” is reading. I like to read my books there, my wife and I enjoy curling up on weekends for a good Sunday afternoon read; the best however is when I read to my boys. In the last year we have completed the first Percy Jackson Series, a book on Greek mythology, and King Arthur’s tales. Just recently we began The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and almost every night they ask if I am reading a chapter (more often than not they convince me to read them two).

I think reading to and with your children is such an important activity. There is great freedom in developing the skill and ability to read. If it fosters enough enthusiasm in them to read – any maybe write – their newfound love could lead them to pursue literary careers when they get older, like becoming a line editor, copy editor, or maybe even a writer! When I was a little tyke I remember wanting to read. I wanted to read so bad I felt like it was killing me. My workbooks were hard, my flashcards were hard, my phonics lessons were hard; but then again I was only 5 years old. I saw people reading and wondered what it would be like when I didn’t have to ask someone to read a story to me. I wanted to know if there was something I was missing. I wanted to stop feeling like I was being held back by this inability to make funny black marks on a white page make sense.

They’re getting pretty good!

One day after weeks or months of struggling through phonics exercises and letter recognition with my mom and grandpa, I decided to have it out with a book. I walked up to the bookshelf grabbed a copy of “Fun with Dick and Jane” and went to the couch in our basement in a winner-take-all showdown. Either I would conquer that book or my brain would explode… and yes I read the hell out of that book. Then I proceeded to read the hell out of it to anyone that would listen to me. I read it to my mom, my grandparents, my dad , my brothers, and if I could have caught the mailman I would have read it to him too.

The great thing about that moment is that it set me free. Sure it was just a “Dick and Jane” book and sure it really lacked substance, but I couldn’t be held back anymore. All the knowledge that was out here in the world was available to me because I was a reader. I began reading books with gusto, and to this day there is great comfort for me in the pages of a good book.

Reading to the boys on the couch…

I remember watching this same phenomenon in my children, specifically my youngest. I remember watching the frustration as he worked to make meaning from those funny marks on the pages. When it finally happened I was more than happy to listen to him read the same story to me as many times as he wanted, because I knew. I had been there and it was a huge defining moment. Now both my boys are avid readers. So much so that it is a punishment to make them go to bed without the opportunity to read. One of the best “go-to” adventures for us is a “quick” walk to the library to load up on new books to read. Those trips never take us less than an hour even though the library is 5 minutes from our home and we never come home without a bag (or two) loaded with new books to read.

Whether at the library, the beach, at a park, in their bed- or on our couch, I hope that my kids never lose their love of reading. It has been fun to see the things that inspire them. What’s more, it is comforting to know that they have the same freedom that I gained those many years ago. Learning to love reading is one of my favorite fathering moments and it is definitely a hallmark of my family’s “Life on a Couch”!

For more “Dadventures” from Eric Bennion, go to his page at www.diarydad.com!

What’s the last book YOU read on the couch?

— Shawny

Rock Festivals: Do I Even Have to Leave My Couch?

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With concert feeds available on demand right from your phone, tablet or TV, what’s keeping you from just watching a festival from home? [Guest contributor: Michael Majlak]

Boston Calling festival stage

This weekend I left the comfort of my fluffy couch and trekked with a group of friends to the Boston Calling Festival in the heart of Beantown. The festival has bloomed into a massive event in the three years since it started, mainly because of its unique location in City Hall Plaza and its ability to pull massive artists and infamous food options. This year’s festival would be headlined by Jack Johnson, Death Cab for Cutie, and Modest Mouse, and would be catered by some of Boston’s legendary food vendors.

It had been years since I had been to a real festival. But upon walking up the concrete steps and entering upon the red-brick of City Hall Plaza, I immediately noticed some of the staples I had been so used to seeing. You had the company reps handing out free granola samples and various swag. There were the free-spirited hippies spinning hula hoops around their waist and of course the four or five people who sported their trusty tie-dye tee and corduroy pants. Then there were the lines. There were lines for merch, lines for food, lines for beer, and lines to use the most-dreaded of all things- the festival porta-potty.

Boston Calling festival grounds

Even with all the usual suspects, sights, and sounds of the modern music festival, one thing immediately caught my attention. There was one thing added to the equation. This “intruder” I speak of most likely sits within arm’s reach of you right now. You use it countless times a day, in fact some people rarely ever put it down. You may actually be staring at it right now, holding it tightly in your closed palm as you read this post. That’s right, I’m talking about the new staple of the modern rock concert- the smartphone.

Now, technology has progressed a lot since I last went to a concert, I will admit. There have been amazing developments like better speakers that make the music sound even better and Visual Display Systems being put around the festival so even if you’re at the back of the crowd, you can still see everything. But there are some parts of modern technology that cause a lot of controversy and the presence of mobile phones at festivals is definitely one of them.

Festival-goers on their smartphones

Everywhere I looked, there it was. Kids on the way into the show were presenting their tickets via online ticket app. They were checking their account balances on the Bank of America app, watching for rain on the iPhone weather widget and scouring the concert lineup on the Boston Calling website. The effect of social media was even greater. A girl climbed up on her boyfriend’s shoulders not get a better view over the endless sea of people, but to take a selfie to immediately post on Instagram. The #BostonCalling hashtag lit up Twitter with every minute festival detail being live-blogged through 140 characters. People checked in on Facebook and sent Snapchats to their friends of Roxy’s Grilled Cheeses and videos of The Neighbourhood performing “Afraid”. The impact of the smartphone and social media was impossible to ignore.

#BostonCalling Instagram page

With all of this technology- the live online video feed, the Instagram video, the endless pictures on Twitter and Facebook, I started to wonder if I really even had to leave my couch. Could I have just kicked back with feet up on my ottoman, grabbed a cold drink and watched a live feed of Modest Mouse on my MacBook? Since the advent of modern technology, so many have begun choosing to witness events from the comfort of their living room. And to be honest, who can blame them? If social media allows you to do this, then why shouldn’t you make the most out of this opportunity? If anything, you could be helping the people who are posting to get more Instagram followers, especially if you really enjoy their posts. This is also a bonus in itself. The things that social media allow you to do in this day and age are just incredible. Could I have saved the money spent on travel and the time waiting in lines? Could I have avoided the aggravation of being stuck in a torrential downpour amidst thousands of pesky concert-goers and just cheered on from my warm, dry sofa?

Just as I started to truly ponder this, I was grabbed by a friend and herded in with a sea of other fans in front of a large and dimly-lit stage. A few minutes later, Brand New (a band I have worshipped since my high-school angst days but never got a chance to see) appeared on stage and proceeded to strum through one of the loudest, most passionate concert sets I have ever witnessed in my entire life. Every note seared directly into the heart of myself and everyone around me. Right at that moment, surrounded by 22,000 other ecstatic fans, I understood why I needed to be exactly where I was.

Modest Mouse performing at Boston Calling

Simply put- yes, you can experience a festival from the comfort of your couch. You can read about the acts, you can see pictures of the food on Instagram, and you can even watch the performance feeds on sponsored websites. But there’s one thing you cannot do. You cannot feel.

No one can describe to you the feeling of the bass drum pulsating through your body during your favorite band’s explosive encore. You can watch a live feed, but you cannot feel the camaraderie of 20,000 Death Cab for Cutie fans swaying back-and-forth upon hearing the first few strings of “I Will Follow You into the Dark.” You cannot feel the cold sweat rolling off your favorite beverage as it battles tirelessly against the midday sun. You cannot taste the food, you cannot feel the breeze upon your face- you cannot be there, unless you are there.

Me taking in the vibes

As someone who watches quite a bit of online media, I’m not putting down catching some cool stuff on your laptop or TV. But I also understand that this life is fleeting. The reward offered from getting off the couch and witnessing life first-hand is worth the extra effort or a little discomfort. You may forget things you have read, or things you have seen, but you’ll never forget the way things made you feel.

Boston Common Flag Memorial

With that being said, everyone needs a place to fall back to, a safehaven for the mind, a landing pad after a rigorous trip. It was an unforgettable adventure, but now I have a date with my couch…

— Michael Majlak, Author: The Essential Foodie blog

A note from Life on a Couch founder, Shawny Nelson: Thanks Mike for your post. I agree completely. “Life on a couch” does not advocate more time on the couch–we advocate better time on the couch! There is certainly much more life to be had off the couch and out of the house. It is precisely the exhaustion from a good music festival, the soreness from a week at the lake, or the fatigue from a day out in the sun that makes flopping on the couch at the end of the day so appealing–so incomparable. We believe that the quality of our life on a couch is directly proportional to the quality of our life off the couch…so go, get out, attend, experience…run, jump, dance, laugh and live it up! That’s life on a couch.