Contemporary interpersonal organization puts me in a difficult position: I hate myself, and yet I want to associate primarily with people who are like me. We all want to expand our social circles, if for no other reason than to increase our access to donor kidneys, but you can’t go around with just anyone. Most people are assholes, and going to a party or joining some community organization is like reaching into a bag containing one licorice whip and 23 garter snakes. Sure, you keep putting things in your mouth, but you also keep wishing you hadn’t.* And yet the occasional gem leads us to persist, even though most people are compatible like a goldfish and a hairbrush. But there’s an upside: you usually find out pretty quick. This week’s link roundup features indicators of compatibility from the subtle to the overt to the viscerally repulsive. It’s a glimpse of the stage machinery behind getting along, or at least a reminder of how bafflingly unrelatable so many people are. It’s Friday, the weekend is upon us, and the world is full of strangers eager to make and then alienate our acquaintance. Welcome, new friends, and hello strangely familiar assholes.

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u00XbTH4QZw

Behold the second episode of Hearts and Brains, here in place of some more useful thing that you were probably expecting to see! The monocled industrialists at Coca-Cola bought up all of Machinima’s promotional space for Super Bowl weekend, which means that this puppy is going to be watched on the strength of its virulence or not at all. If you have a moment and know someone who thinks zombies are funny—and also does not think that jokes about dead hookers perpetuate permissive attitudes toward violence against women*—please make them watch it. Kevin “Xanatos” Cianek did a phenomenally smooth job of animating this thing, and Ben Gabriel’s voice acting is terrific as always. It would be a shame for their hard work to go unnoticed, and for my constant refreshing of the YouTube page to feed my depression spiral rather than ameliorating it. Watch it! Share it! Leave me to die!

Superman has Lex Luthor; Clarence Darrow had William Jennings Bryan; I have whomever just met me at a party—everybody needs a nemesis. An opposite number gives definition and continuity to your life, like the page around the print. If you have no enemies, you’re forced to suspect that you aren’t doing anything worth thwarting. Fortunately, contemporary American culture is chock full of nemeses, given as it is to arranging every concept and endeavor around a series of dialectic* opposites. Most of those people are famous, which, for the normal person, makes the process of selecting a nemesis somewhat daunting. But that’s the beauty of nemetry: because it is, by definition, a reciprocal relationship, having a famous nemesis immediately situates you on the continuum of fame. Just look at Glenn Beck, whose inchoate hatred for the President has made him a figure of national attention. Or, better yet, look at the infuriating video of Bill O’Reilly after the jump, and feel your anger elevate you to the level of irrational commentator, too, if only in the form of yelling at the screen.

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Today is not the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior’s actual birthday, but it is the new day white America has given to him for the purpose of work scheduling. Thank you, Dr. King, for offering your life to create real change in the lives of millions of Americans and provide a three-day weekend/guilt-free conception of society to millions more. As you know, Combat! blog rigidly observes all federal holidays that give us an excuse to knock off work, and there will be nothing of interest posted today. But wait! A lot of people ask me what, when I’m not concocting totalizing theories based on a sandwich commercial I saw once, I do with my day. Okay, almost no one asks me that, but I can often work the conversation around to it. One of the things I do when I’m not et cetera is write a series for Machinima.com, the website where people use video-game source engines and voice-over actors to create animated shorts. The first episode went live last night. Behold! (Warning: profanity, gross zombie, cavalier attitude toward death and social inequality, uncanny valley.)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs6BTBqZFRM

I think it’s exactly what Martin Luther King had in mind.