I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: TOKYO POLICE CLUB “Cheer It On (Trey Told Em Remix)” and “Cut Cut Paste” from Viva Piñata! (2008).

Tokyo Police Club released one of the best LPs of short blasts of rock in a long time.  “Cheer It On” is a great song that name-checks the band and which I could listen to over and over.  It’s a hot punk blast.  This remix totally changes the song (which is better than just tweaking it or repeating the chorus over and over).  Trey makes it a discoey song (with the wah hoo! from “Celebration,” I believe) and big rubber disco bass lines over the music.  It really changes the sound. I like the original a lot better, but I enjoy a remix that actually remixes.

“Cut Cut Paste” is a studio release and it shows TPC in their element–a short fast song.  I love the way it starts out with a shifting guitar sound.  It has a great manic intensity.  Tokyo Police Club is definitely one of my favorite new bands.

[READ: March 20, 2012] Science News Letter

I’ve mentioned before when my company sends out links to articles that are interesting or cool.  Most of the time they are highly academic (that’s the kind of work I’m in), but they also do more general information as well.

So this particular page was sent to us because of the article “Marriages Are Seldom Higher in Leap Year” (since this is a leap year).  There was a tradition in Britain and Ireland that on a leap year, women could propose to men (see the postcard below).

But this article (really only three paragraphs) which is addressed to “Marriage Shy Bachelors” says that only twice since the Civil War has the marriage rate been higher in a leap year (1896 and 1920) in America. And that in 1952 the supply of available unmarried persons has been depleted by the spurt in marriages following World War II.  Rest easy single guys!

Since that was only three paragraphs, I thought I’d share the other articles on this page:

Pets Cleared of Blame For Spreading Polio
That’s right, your pet dog cannot give you polio.

Auto Pilot for Carriers
They finally created an automatic pilot for airplane carriers which would keep them positioned correctly to reduce wind turbulence.

And my favorite:

Census Shows Many Kinds of Crabs in This World.
In 1952, the census showed 4,428 species of crab–the true ones that have ten legs.  The study also showed that there are 8,321 species of shrimps, lobsters, crabs and crustaceans.

Note, as of 2008, according to this annotated checklist from the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, there are 6,793 species.

If you have access to JSTOR, you too can read the articles.