+  Defeater‘s lyricist/singer Derek Paul Archambault discusses war and the influence it had on his writing on their latest EP Lost Ground.

+  Al from Dangers makes a few sober critiques on Love and the romanticizing that goes along with it.

I have not had sexual intercourse in more than two years now.  I’ve made a good habit of entering into relationships I know won’t work out and lamenting their unavoidable demise with what can only be called “gusto.”  What I know about love I have learned mostly from Zack Morris and Kelly Kapowski, Winnie Cooper and Kevin Arnold and, ashamedly, Dawson Leery and Joey Potter.  This is, perhaps, the result of paper thin walls and the healthy, multi-cultured libido of my father figure.  I can, for instance, discern with great accuracy the pleasure groans of a Puerta Riquena and Columbiana and, to a lesser extent, the details of the love act (hole, speed, position).  What I must be saying is: a revolving door is no place for a child to play.

There was a detailed plan that I concocted at the age of seventeen.  Whatever parts of me that were capable of marriage were to wed no later than age twenty-four.  The mate was to be the bourgeoning beauty I was already at that time years-deep into.  We would get tattoos instead of rings, elope like alcoholics, and spend the wedding money on a trip up Kilimanjaro.  She was to continue her painting endeavors.  I, my music.  A child was likely, certainly no later than by age twenty-six, and his name (it was to be a he) would under no circumstances be a regurgitation of my own bloodline (see also: aforementioned paper thin walls, cocaine, feelings of abandonment, etc.).  We would buy a house, small, cottage-esque, near enough to the ocean that it would sometimes smell like dead fish, and we would teach our offspring the ways of Black Flag, Dischord Records, and, above all else, John Stuart Mill.  There would be no nanny.  Sex would be often and remarkable.  Meals home-cooked.  Traveling relentless.  Money scarce.  Hearts bursting.

Read the rest HERE.

And to stay within the theme…

+  In Helmet Social Networking: One Influential Ex-Generals’ vision of Future War

Scales isn’t one of those futurists who think technology replaces the human dimensions of war. He’s harnessing technology precisely to address some of soldiering’s most immediate and human dimensions: emotional strain.

“What does a soldier need? ‘I’m lonely,’” Scales says. “As the battlefield expands, the space between soldiers expands geometrically, and primal fear escalates. The need for psychic glue increases an order of magnitude.” Which is why he’d like to have veterans, translators, cultural experts and battle buddies all connected in a social network for war.

“Soldiers don’t break from hunger, thirst or poor leadership. They break from emotional collapse,” he says. To keep that from happening, “maybe someone far away, like [National Security Agency headquarters] Fort Meade, could monitor [troops] for emotional and biological signs — heart rate, galvanic skin response, a tremor in a soldier’s voice — and then aggregate it into a dashboard.”

Scales also believes infantry units should spend years together, instead of “sending out a pickup squad that’s broken up every 18 months.” Like football players, the various members of the unit should have specialized skills that mesh together. And like some pro athletes, those troops should practice group “visioning” — creating mental images of their wartime goals.

“Empathy,” not aggression, should be the new must-have trait of any military leader. And soldiers need to develop a respect and an affinity for foreign cultures. Scales believes current U.S. ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry best personifies this comfort, which is why he calls it the “Eikenberry gene.”

+ Gourmet Grilled Cheese near Baltimore: Fuck Yes

+ Tooth pulled out with RC car

Click here to view the embedded video.

Five of the top career fields for the future.  Nothing that surprising, but if you’re looking for a career change then become a nurse.

+ Buy Coffee

and insulate it with an endothermic reaction…

Get a free heatswell HERE.

+ Buy Furniture

Brent Comber

+ How will Obamacare affect you?

Here’s a nice concise rundown of how the new healthcare system will affect you.

+ Late Pass on the Tickle Fight

How did I miss this?

Representative Eric J. Massa, who resigned from Congress amid allegations of sexual misconduct, vehemently denied any wrongdoing during a television appearance on Tuesday even as he described having tickle fights with staffers in a house they shared.

(via NYTimes)

+  The new Balance and Composure song Kaleidoscope is soo fucking good.  Listen to it HERE.  They’re releasing a split with Tigers Jaw in May which features 4 new songs from both bands.  I’m really looking forward to that.

+ 4Chan founder interviewed at the TED conference.  Nothing really profound happens in the interview but it is interesting to learn that he started the site at 15 and he doesn’t look as nerdy as you would think the founder of 4 chan would look.

+ This is pretty amazing.  The Bloom Box is a small wireless device that can generate power without being connected to the grid.

Depressing Things

+ Girl sings a cover of Tik Tok by Kesha on youtube and gets flamed horribly.  People on the internet are pricks.  StreetBoners has some funny stuff to say about it.

It’s more abuse than anyone in human history has taken. She’s like an experimental crash-test dummy for a bleeding-edge form of online punishment: rapid-fire, anonymous, continual, explicit, targeted, specific. It’s life-changing, serial-killer-making EGO DESTRUCTION.

Even the worst American Idols are not exposed to this degree of punishment. Their millions of mocking viewers can only laugh in their livings rooms — they can’t directly lash out…

Observations:
A) WHAT the fuck is wrong with her parents that they could expose her to this? This girl is not just overweight, she’s also got some kind of developmental issue. WHERE the fuck are her parents? The trailer can’t be that big.

B) WHAT the fuck is wrong with humanity? It’s so great to see how people REALLY act when they have anonymity. It’s like staring into a stranger’s eyes from a subway platform once the subway doors have closed — you each know the other guy can’t physically get to you, so all bets are off.

C) Every ten comments or so, someone surfaces who can’t bear the raw and terrible honesty of nature. They tell her how beautiful she is, and how if she keeps at it, she can make all her dreams come true. These people are worse than the haters; by giving her these droplets of hope, they are keeping her addicted to the punishment channel like a smack addict crawling through a burnt-out poppy field.

What a clusterfuck.

+ If you’re worried about the economy read this article and figure out that the future is looking bleaker than you had imagined.

Last spring, an organization called JobNob began holding networking happy hours to try to match college graduates with start-up companies looking primarily for unpaid labor. Julie Greenberg, a co-founder of JobNob, says that at the first event, on May 7, she expected perhaps 30 people, but 300 showed up. New graduates didn’t have much of a chance; most of the people there had several years of work experience—quite a lot were 30-somethings—and some had more than one degree. JobNob has since held events for alumni of Stanford, Berkeley, and Harvard; all have been well attended (at the Harvard event, Greenberg tried to restrict attendance to 75, but about 100 people managed to get in), and all have been dominated by people with significant work experience.When experienced workers holding prestigious degrees are taking unpaid internships, not much is left (for everyone else.)

+  A new way to treat cancer without hurting surrounding tissue:  shake the cells to death.

+  25 ways to overcome a creative block.  Interesting read.  I like the guy who includes a dinner recipe.

+  Take your friends money using your iphone and their credit card.

+  Benn Ray, from Mobtown Shank, offers you a list of his favorite comics of 2009.

+  Awesome idea.  Curtain made from film slides.

+  Sarah Silverman pisses off nerds at the TED conference by doing her usual insulting comic routine.

Apple announced a new device called the Ipad today – which is basically a 9 inch iphone with a nice UI that can browse the Internet, play videos and run apps.

I’m excited to see where comics and graphic novels will fit into the fold when this device blows up and everyone on the planet owns a digital book device.  Imagine a comic book where each pane is animated and the text bubble from an explosion explodes across the screen as you flick your finger across the word.  Nerd boner.

+ Ampere

Chug life did an excellent post on Ampere, a hardcore/punk/screamo band from MA, which features download links for all of their releases.  So many splits!  Definitely pick up All Our Tomorrows End Today - 11 songs that blaze by in 10.5 minutes of intensity.

+ How to live a longer life

Taken directly from The Skeptical Hypochondriac

“Dan Buettner studies Blue Zones, areas where people tend to have the longest lifespans. In this article and video he explains some of the things he’s discovered.

We found that all five Blue Zones possessed the same nine lifestyle characteristics. Among them: a low-meat, plant-based diet (all of them ate a lot of beans) and a ritual of “downshifting” each day. They experience the same stresses we do — kids, health, finances — but they managed it through daily prayer, meditation, ancestor veneration or city-wide happy hours (like the Sardinians).

The secret to longevity, as I see it, has less to do with diet, or even exercise, and more to do with the environment in which a person lives: social and physical. What do I mean by this? They live rewardingly inconvenient lives. They walk to the store and to their friends’ homes and they live in houses set up with opportunities to move mindlessly. They do their own yard work, hand-knead their own bread dough, and, in the case of Okinawa, get up and down off the floor several dozen times a day.

There’s more, but you probably want to walk around the block a couples times before reading it.”

“Punknews.org and Paper + Plastick have teamed up to auction off some great stuff for the Haiti disaster relief effort. These auctions are verified by Limited Pressing and all proceeds will be donated to Doctors Without Borders.

Check out the discussion on Punknews and if you have any questions, contact us.”

They’ve already raised over $2,500 dollars.  If you’re looking to fill in some gaps in your record collection and support a good cause check out some of the auctions.

Here are some good ones to start with:

+ Thursday – Full Collapse (Test Press)

+ My Heart to Joy – Seasons in Verse (White LP)

+ Fall Out Boy – Take this to your Grave (Test Press) – this is just for you Zac

+ Lifetime S/T (Test Press)

Chug Life posted the 1994!/Spires split.

+ Nic Cage as Everyone

This link is intended for my friend Matt who has a profound appreciation for, and bares a striking resemblance to, Nic Cage.

+ Waste of Money

A $250 dollar toaster that took 15 years of research to develop.  Beyond stupid.

+ Google > Apple?

Everyone’s head is exploding over Google’s Nexus One Smart Phone.

+ ReKnit

A great idea that may be making some mom a bunch of money.

+ Meticulous Frame by Frame

Although I think the animation in this video is kind of hard to follow, the amount of work that went into creating this piece is commendable.

+ The Art of Letter Press

+ Ear Farm Best of 2009

There are soooo many BEST OF 2009 lists floating around the internet at this very moment.  The only album I’ve listened to on Ear Farm’s list is Axe to Fall by Converge – so that leaves me with 14 albums to check out.

+ D-Bag Brother Rats out Slutty Sister

Angsty teenager gets revenge on sister by posting her “hook up list” on facebook.

“I heart facebook like you heart cock.”

OOF.

+ Worlds Best Dancer

The dudes in this video love 3 things:  Meth, Kiss and Techno.

+ Mayo Clinic researchers show brain waves can ‘write’ on a computer in early tests