more. random. stuff.

well, it's that time of the week (more like month...wait that doesn't sound so good), where i post all the random pictures i've been finding to take as my own in the city, universe, interwebs, etc. in reality, it's so i can just clear them from my inbox/desktop. let's get right to it then, shall we?

let's get this party started with a classic cover for a classy guy. way to go, Mr. J:

since none of these posts are complete without SOME homage to Lunchbag Art, let's just get it out of the way early on:

these felt appropriate since my Star Wars consumption has recently gone up with my late discovery of the CG "Clone Wars" cartoon (i had to follow "the Wire" with something a bit more fun). who's the cute girl? SHE'S A TEENAGER (so get your head out of the gutter, she can read your mind via her Jedi mind tricks).


this just looked cool. a[n] (incomplete) sketch of a bridge to nowhere (something to do with Oz, i think):

while we're looking at some pretty artwork, see what i scoped out last time i was in my former neighborhood (Eden Park) in Cincinnati. waitaminute...that guys in the GL shirt stole my look. RAMAN SMASH!!!

...so what's this about? more can be found here.

coming soon (hopefully), to a city near you:

saw this outside of the office in the city (a 24/7 mail weighting/drop center), and was happy to find that perhaps the fine men & women of the USPS were finally just getting out of my way + letting me do it myself.


Lego Taj Mahal. OFFICIALLY. i was impressed:

that's right kids, for just $400, you can build one of the 7 wonders of the world in your living room. and they wonder why kids aren't into Lego's anymore (i'm tempted to buy it for my mom to see if she builds it...i wonder if the little lego men come with turbans...and have NO HANDS).


it's been several weeks since i had to bid adieu to my good friend "BSG" (sniff!), but i always liked this spread of biblical proportions (ha!) - it's from a print ad promoting the final season...i think this is still hanging in an oversized frame in my old house (though it would be similar to see a similar one for "the Wire"...the other most awesome television show ever...MAKE IT HAPPEN HBO):

...and i did finally see the Caprica pilot, which was decent (3.5/5...the returning series shows promise)


MOST AWESOME T-SHIRT EVER (and, the newest addition to the Raman wardrobe). quite dope, i know. and NO, it's not from Threadless. i hope to be the only kid on the block with it, because it is pretty much THE AWESOME.

...coming soon to a trendy club/event/gathering near you (where i am, as usual, woefully underdressed)

MOST AWESOME TRUCK EVER:

MOST AWESOME INDIAN RESTARAUNT NAME EVER*:

*(if your name, or your dad's, is Raj):


(while we're on the indian theme) can you find the Blue Boy in this picture?

seriously. go BUY THIS BOOK already. my (blue) boy Rakesh (Satyal) wrote it. it's about a little kid in southwest Ohio who thinks he's Krishna. KRISHNA. as in THE GOD KRISHNA (that lots of newage hippies think is cool). i started it last night, and am very, very, entertained.


aaaaaaannnnndddd finally...

...that's a wrap. so let's just end it with an awesomely appropriate* SP pic (which you should also buy and read...after BB of course...before the movie comes out, so you can say "shyea! the book was sooo much better).

*appropriate, as it pretty much connotes what i just did in the way of (once again) avoiding writing a meaningful blog post (remember those?)

Blue Boy.

i'm not going to tell you to buy this book, but you really should go buy this book (comes out tomorrow):

Blue Boy is written by friend Rakesh Satyal, who also happens to be the younger brother of my friends Rajiv and Vikas.

it follows a young (indian) boy in southwest Ohio who thinks that because he's different (gay) he must be the reincarnation of the god Krishna. and yes, it's "somewhat" autobiographical. while i can't speak for the book (yet), i've always found the brothers Satyal to be both intelligent and amusing, so i expect Rakesh's debut novel to deliver much of the same (and if my endorsement is not enough, have no fear, it's already received a number of rave advance reviews).

for a quick preview/reading, head to MTV Iggy after the jump. but go buy the book already!

blackout.

so for the past few weeks, i slipped slowly into an experiment of sorts. i went on a social media blackout.

this is something many of us will oft claim and consider, and perhaps for my reasons below, or while on holiday to a faraway, strange place (but ultimately never commit to thanks to the growing # of internet cafes).

sitting in the local airport on a sunday, staring at my phone, i decided to simply stop. engaging or paying attention, whether it be via my own updating, or reading anyone else's thoughts anymore (Levar Burton and MC Hammer alike). with little exception, (some official "WIR" administrative stuff) i even let my Facebook consumption drop to practically nill. and to little/no surprise, i quit writing/reading my blogs (sorry Google Reader). casual email and IM stuck around, because, well, i've been on those since i was 13.

did it it help that i spent a week for work in my recently-departed hometown? or that i decided to view EVERY episode of the Wire (which is another post completely)? or that an out-of-town friend came for a NY visit? perhaps. but such things have hardly stopped me in the past.

did the world fall apart while was gone? no.

was i any less in the know? maybe (my mom DID get an iPhone).

did any of it matter? not really.

so then why did i do it? as social a person as i can be, it just became too much. when i first started using Facebook years ago, there were relatively small communities, where i could converse, share, and comment in a deferring, delayed manner with a handful of people that i cared about. but before long, more people i knew joined, added me, and it quickly became a broadcast medium for all.

my habits quickly shifted away from Facebook to that of Twitter (though thru linking the two i allowed the prior to see what i was doing on the latter), and i found a small crowd of mine that had migrated over, and the informative, entertaining, but oft-indirect conversations continued. i was soon also following the tweets of the Onion, the New York Times, Darth Vader, God, Mashable, MC Hammer, and yes, Levar Burton (Geordi!). and then everyone ELSE joined. and everyone was broadcasting again, rather than talking to eachother.

i guess i just got tired of the inconsequence of it all. so i stopped.

so during the "blackout," did i read more? write more? draw more? work more? no to all of the above. i just carried on with my life as i had once done before. i still talked to friends. shared things. made plans. i cooked dinner and did the laundry. i even started riding my bike around again.

i'm sure i'll inevitably jump back into the bandwagon of the next big thing in the "social media" sphere...to some extent, it's part of my world (professionally), but even THAT has me begging the question of if i even belong there.

so what's the lesson learned here? none of this social media stuff really matters. the social stuff, sure. people matter. but when the media/medium/technology goes too far (it does have it's place...i feel that it's simply overstepped it's bounds), it becomes a crutch, for something that was already meaningful enough.

we'll see what happens from here.

indeed mssr grimm. indeed.

gearing up for some training i was flown back to give tomorrow. lets hope my esteemed colleagues find that it was worth the "business trip" back to Cincinnati...

super fantastic dinosaur menace!

not just because it sounds like the winner of 1981 Kyoto Film Festival, but rather it's a Monday (and not snowing in Cincinnati)...

and that's for REAL. believe it!

the future?

(my first Threadless shirt, circa 2004)

alright, all Conan jokes aside this post has a somewhat interesting topic: the future.

i was catching up on some marketing posts (shudder) i had been avoiding, when i stumbled on a video my friend Dave shared about Microsoft's vision of the future (2019). but before we go there, i want to share something it reminded me of (by our friends at AT&T, from 1993):

and now, i give you Microsoft's vision of 2019:

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-GB&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5&showPlaylist=true&from=shared" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage">Video: Future Vision Montage</a>

hot stuff, eh? while i usually digest my "near future" predictions with a healthy dose of skepticism, considering, the AT&T spot was about ~80% there, the Microsoft spot is seriously inspiring (that, and i'm a sucker for cute asian kids). your thoughts?

bringing this post back to the highbrow, since we were talking about AT&T, what about AT-AT? an entertaining (& PotA/BSG inspired, IMHO) picture gallery after the jump.

(jump)

it's not easy...

green is my favorite color (and i'm part irish) so from the entire team at ramancoke.com, have a happy (and sober?) st.patty's day

it's a wonder i have a girlfriend. really.

in an effort to organize the random pictures i've spied in recent weeks on the interwebs + in person, i'll try to bunch them into certain themes. let the games begin...

the devil IS cool:

Peanuts is (are?) darker than i seem to have recalled:

big green monsters:

Star Wars geeks outnumber all others at comic book conventions:

the new Star Trek film is going to be SO BOSS:

i can really get into art, literally:

that's all for this installment. hopefully i'll work up the courage to write something of value here next time!

snckrz = not snacklish (or snackulous)

lately in NYC, i've been seeing cabs w/ related terms in the Snickers logo. i thought nothing of this, until i today discovered that they had a campaign promoting the use of "Snacklish. some examples:

sadly, that's not where i made the connection. i randomly landed on Snckrz.com (via a Tweet) - which is (was) a consumer-made (not necessarily a fan made) Snickers logo generator (NOT created by Snickers). sadly, it is being shut down in ~2 hours of this post:

much like Scrabulous, a missed opportunity (by a big corporation).

and that's really all i have to say.

even superheros need to rock out.

that. just. happened.

why the left is right (and pancakes & sausage on a stick is wrong).

last night, as i curled up to enjoy the Daily Show with my lady-friend (a post dinner routine we have), a thought occurred to me: WHY is there no poignant, intelligent humor coming from the Right?

let's be clear, even though Jon Stewart and his cohorts poke fun at quite a lot - the government, the media, Democrats, Republicans (of course), Jimmy Dean Chocolate Chip Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick - it is perceived, by many on the Left AND Right alike, to be a very LEFT-leaning show. in fact, TDS hardly denies such a thing (contrary to a certain political commentator host on the Fox News Network, which claims to be "fair and balanced").

i would go as far as to argue, that regardless of your leanings on the political spectrum, left, right, moderate, moderate right-leaning, moderate left-leaning, wookie, etc ...ANY fan of intelligent commentary/humor can ENJOY the Daily Show.

but still, WHY isn't this kind of humor appearing on the Right? (warning...this is where my post takes a hard left)

because a large majority of the stuff Jon Stewart + friends are spouting (in a quasi-intelligent, tongue-in-cheek sort of manner) about the right/media is TRUE. and there's hardly a plausible defense/counter-offense that can be offered by the Right. a GREAT example of this is, most recently, TDS's recent coverage of CPAC:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CPAC After Party

Daily Show Full Episodes

people go on and on about a "liberal bias" in the media (completely discounting the fact that Fox News, who has 1/3 the research & media budget of CNN continues, to give Ted Turner's + James Earl Jones' cable news network of choice a run for their money), a point to which i'll somewhat concede. but doesn't that bias exists FOR A REASON?

the marketplace (of news + intelligent consuming viewers) demands and rewards that which caters to their media palette. i'm not defending American media (if anything, i am one of it's harshest critics), but if it does indeed lean Left, than perhaps it is because, in many cases, the Left side of the argument (from an "in practice" standpoint) is more in the moral right ("correct"...you know what i mean) than the Right has been in MANY recent years.

seriously. market forces would have to otherwise dictate that there is a audience who WANTS to consume a right-leaning, humorous, intelligent commentary on the left/media. but to my knowledge, nothing exists to the same level of prominence that the Daily Show does? or am i so far entrenched in my lefty leftliness that i am just completely unaware of such a gem?

am i suggesting that America is a nation of mostly left-leaning ideals? despite our current political + economic climate, i would still argue NO (sadly), quite the opposite. but then again, those on either end of the spectrum usually argues in a paniced, Chicken-Little, call-to-arms, sort of way that the scales are tipping in "the other" direction. i'm just claiming that a majority of those that consume media IS left-leaning, and most of the TV-news coverage caters to that (albeit, either side of spectrum reporting in this country does it in a sensationalist, lowest-common-denominator sort of way).

in summary, i've really said nothing new (or of value) here. if anything, i've made a very sloppy argument that makes very little sense. but to be clear, i've just made my own opinionated observation.

the Daily Show is still quite funny, smart, and entertaining. you should watch it already. but make sure you get your ACTUAL news (with a healthy does of cynicism) from somewhere else. go READ it in print or online (and always from multiple sources). after all, reading takes more mental energy/thinking on your part...allowing you to make your own decision, VS being told what to think by the talking heads on the TV,

so what was the point of this post again? oh yeah, Jon Stewart is funny. i'd appreciate something just as good from the Right.

*(interesting anecdote on the side here. my dAd watches + enjoys BOTH the Daily Show AND the O'Reilly Factor. i have no idea how his head doesn't explode.)

(more to come)

i know, i know, it's been a while since ANY decent posts of substance. for now you'll have to deal with a few cool nerdy images i've pulled down in recent weeks.

this one simply blew me away:

this one left the Trekker in me smiling:

this one re-educated me on the capital of Poland from 1038-1596:

this one reminded me, that as much as i'm a big fan of President Barry, even HE has to deal with the real devils that are out there in our system:

there are some real posts coming, i promise. in fact, i've gotten several thoughts/premises scribbled down (yea, i know you've heard THAT one before). here's a taste of what's most recently been on on my mind:
-examining the multi-generational appeal of bed & breakfasts
-kookie inventions that i predict we will see in our lives
-examining the supposed collapse of the printed media

until then, enjoy a slow-mo walk thru NYC (not as provocative as the still below would indicate, honest!):

oh, the places you'll go.

today is Dr.Seuss' 50th birthday, of which was paid homage by one of my favorite company's (seen above).

as i was recently in Springfield, MA's Quadrangle (home to the National Dr.Seuss Memorial), i thought i'd share a few pictures in tribute (more here).

and fear not, dear reader, while i have more than a few more lengthy posts up my sleeve, i leave you with the following Seuss-ian thought (which yours truly would clearly do well to take heed):

"so the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads."