Finally, someone has answered man’s age old question of “How can I eat my meat, veggies, snacks, dessert and beverage in circular form?”.

Lunchballz.com is a cutting edge website dedicated to helping people eat their meals on the go. From the press release we received, the company has apparently found a way to encase multiple layers of food and drink in an encased, ball ’shell’ made up of various meats.

“Want your beverage, but don’t want your dessert yet? Just insert a straw to the delicious, moist center and suck out your beverage. It’s that easy!”

I’m in love with the flavor combinations that they have sent to the office (thanks again!). Being that I needed a pick me up, I went for the Sloppy Joe with beets/ fruit salad/ pudding mix with a coffee center. My vegetarian buddy Spencer opted for the grilled cheese/tomato/ cookie/ cheesecake and milk center. Even the soda manages to stay carbonated, as it was held in by the sweet lemon-cake layer.  It’s amazing to be able to carry an entire meal and beverage in one hand.

With all of these up’s however, I do have to point out a few fatal flaws. First, Daniel Taylor threw my meal to me, and as i missed the catch from across the room, it pegged an old Beastie Boys poster that was framed (sorry Bill!). While really fun to play with, shaking up the soda filled hot dog ball was a horrible idea; plunging a straw into the liquid center immediately blasted my face, resulting in a sticky mess.

This product is amazing, and I can’t dream of it ever failing in today’s quick moving world. Oh, and while you’re looking around the site, go grab one of their t-shirts.

With the annual Earth Day celebrations set for next week, environmental consciousness seems to be all the rage . Personally though, there are few things that provoke such utter ambivalence in me than environmentalism and its status as a growing force in the global zeitgeist. It’s not that I don’t agree that something needs to be done. I think anyone with any shred of common sense realizes that the current model of “modern living” does not pencil out in the long run when you factor in the finite nature of not just our resources but also with the space in which we are working. However, acknowledging that “inconvenient truth” is one thing, but actually coming up with a solution, not to mention implementing it, is entirely another. Some people say the solution is to start “living green,” which is definitely a nice little slogan. And at face value, it has some merit. But in practice, it’s basically become nothing more than another way to do the same shit and feel better about it. It’s sort of like Christianity: It was founded upon a noble enough principle, but once the idea started to become the institution, shit started to get all fucked up. I mean, how many years did it take after Jesus supposedly taught everyone to love everyone else before dudes were killing people in his name? How many years has it been since the idea of “living green” came about before Wal-Mart changed their logo from blue to green, or Clorox started making Organic Bleach?
Another trait common amongst organized religions definitely shared by the Church of Green is the penchant for those who “believe” to merely select the parts of the church doctrine that they can most easily adhere to and blatantly ignore the rest, all while maintaining an air of piousness. It’s like the militant bike rider, railing against SUVs and cars as greenhouse gas-belching pollution machines, who doesn’t bat an eye about flying home three times a year to see the folks, spewing pollution directly into the upper atmosphere. Or how about the eco-conscious housewife, who makes sure to turn off the lights when she leaves a room to conserve energy and bought herself a Civic hybrid to cut back on emissions, but then serves her family burgers for dinner, the production of which released more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than three hours of driving, and used up more energy than leaving a light on for 20 straight days, not to mention that disproportional amount of localized pollution created by large-scale meat farms and the role of overuse of antibiotics in the beef industry in creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria. I guess it’s the thought that counts, right?
I guess the moral of the story is, however popular the green meme has become, its actual utility is questionable at best. For now, living green will continue to be something you can buy at the store, use in your marketing campaign or learn as a college internship: an ideal. Carbon neutrality will continue to be something you buy on a Web site, like a Christian indulgence. It’s gonna take a lot more to kick mankind’s addiction to consumption than a few melted ice caps, killer hurricanes and deadly droughts. We need to hit rock bottom, man. I’m talking Old Testament style shit. People are too lazy and stupid to do what they actually know is right until they literally have no other choice. We’ll just keep building malls and damming rivers and jacking up our pickup trucks until our eyes are melting out of our fucking skulls and even then, we’ll just invent some better sunglasses, made from 25 percent post-consumer recycled plastic!

Here’s a link to a super uplifting post on io9.com called 12 Ways To Prepare For The Next Great Depression. I’m going to start stockpiling coffee and dried meats.

Get out of your mortgage before the housing market collapses any further. As this site says, if you paid $300,000 for your house and it sells for $200,000, you could end up not owning your house and owing the bank $100,000.

Buy some cheap land in a rural area. Build a house, or just get a used RV. Either way, make sure you own your home free and clear, so you can live rent-free and mortgage-free for as long as you need to.

Go off the grid. Get your own power generator — or, better yet, some of those solar helium balloons. Or some wind turbines. Don’t be dependent on the power company to keep all your necessities running.

Cultivate some skills that will always be in demand. Become a decent electrician, handy-person, carpenter or cook. There may not be much need for someone who understands content management systems during a total economic shutdown, but someone who can build a house will always have a place to crash.

Go read the rest and start saving that canned food.

SXSW is without question both the busiest and best week of the year. We arrived late afternoon today (Tuesday) ready to start drinking Lone Stars, eating BBQ and working our collective asses off getting tons of content and meeting virtually everyone there is to meet.

SXSW 2008 looks to be better than 2007 (not that SXSW 2007 sucked or anything) since Red Bull is back this year with the Red Bull Moontower (at SXSW 2006 the Red Bull House stole the entire show). Now we really don’t know what’s going to be going down over there (we’ll let you know after we find out) but we are certain of one thing - the Red Bull Moontower will be the place to be for SXSW 2008. What we do know is this:

Anchored by the Red Bull Energy Station, the Alamo Draft House Rolling Road Show and a solar stage, the Red Bull Moon Tower will be a mix of a musician compound and a high-end party where anything can happen.

More on all that throughout the next few days especially since I know we’ll be there until the 4am mark nightly for the next four nights. The first thing we had to do after a drink at the hotel bar was hit up Ironworks BBQ for a completely amazing dinner. I think I want to move into that place and just spend my day eating, at the least I think I need to eat there at least once a day for the next week.

Some 143 million pounds of ground beef (that’s a lot of meat balls) has been recalled by Westland/Hallmark Meat Company out of Chino, CA. The move is probably more out of a need to save face in the realm of public opinion than out of a genuine health concern, however.

On Jan. 30, the Humane Society of the United States distributed a video that exposed the company’s cruel practices in its raising and slaughtering of cattle. It is believed that much of the meat has already been consumed, but the risk of the meat being tainted by pathogens such as mad cow disease is very low.

Agriculture officials said there was little health risk from the recalled meat because the animals had already passed pre-slaughter inspection and much of the meat had already been eaten. In addition, the officials noted that while mad cow disease was extremely rare, the brains and spinal cords from the animals — the area most likely to harbor the disease — would not have entered the human food chain.

The video not only illustrated the company’s inhumane practices, but also raised questions of the meat’s safety since cows that are unable to walk run a high risk of contracting mad cow disease. The video features Westland/Hallmark employees “kicking sick cows and using forklifts to force them to walk.” In a statement released on the Westland/Hallmark Web site, president Steve Mendell wrote:

Words cannot accurately express how shocked and horrified I was at the depictions contained on the video that was taken by an individual who worked at our facility from October 3 thru November 14, 2007. We have taken swift action regarding the two employees identified on the video and have already implemented aggressive measures to ensure all employees follow our humane handling policies and procedures. We are also cooperating with the USDA investigators on the allegations of inhumane handling treatment which is a serious breech of our company’s policies and training.

The recall was called voluntarily, and the Department of Agriculture has temporarily suspended Westland/Hallmark as a supplier to federal nutrition programs. Also, charges of felony animal cruelty have been filed against Westland/Hallmark employee Daniel Agarte Navarro and misdemeanor charges have been issued to Luis Sanchez.

DJ Souljah and Smif N Wessun killin it. I don’t claim to know jack shit about hip-hop, I only know what makes me rock. This track is ill, dig.