Awesome faux-billboards from BP faux-twitter account

Way-Fakers

What I had hoped to pull off

The other day I was tooling around on Amazon.com after purchasing a book someone had recommended.  During this process I recalled that Amazon sells tons of stuff, and thought I’d look up Ray-Ban Wayfarers.  You know, the classic glasses like the ones above…

My thinking was that since Wayfarers cost $150-ish each, and my head-shape can best be described as “impressively unique”, that’s a pretty risky investment.  After all, everyone wants to avoid the big-head/beady-eyes look.

So when I stumbled across several vendors for faux-wayfarers, I thought “heck, why not?”.

On Friday these bad-boys came in the mail:

my very own wayfakers

Looking pretty good, eh?

Probably looks like I could pull off Tom Cruise in Risky Business, no?

Well, that’s a tall tall order, and nobody gets to see me sliding around in my boxers. Not for free at least.

But still, I thought it was a pretty decent look:

That is, until I showed them to the GF.  She pointed out that one of the silver screw-cover things is missing on the left side.

It was all down hill from there.

Damn, knock-off manufacturer.  Can’t even at least try to fake the details?

RIP my $2.00 investment in this experiment.

Comics…

For a while now I’ve been tossing around an idea to do a series of blog posts about why I love comic books, and how they apply to life.

I say “tossing around an idea” because the more I think about it, the more psyched I get, and thus the more complex it seems and bigger it becomes…and I never finish…

In the mean time, in accordance with my on-going minimalist slant, I’ve wondered how to get my love of books & comics to match my love of not having a lot of stuff.  So I sent a question to twitter superstar, and current holder of every nerd’s dreamjob @agent_M:

So I checked out the link he supplied, and came across a bevy of shelf porn.

Now, comparing that to my one-and-only bookshelf:

(Yes, that IS a live shot I took just for you)

I started out going for hard-back books that would look good on display, though clearly I ended up filling the space with various other things.  Suppose it’s time I allocated more resources towards more/bigger shelves.

Sometimes I just feel like including a crazy picture

“This is one of those times” said Capt Obvious.

Hungry…

This week work has been pretty busy and I haven’t had much time to stop during the day.  This means my usual breakfast/coffee break has been impacted, and clearly this does not make for a productive employee.

So, for the last two mornings in a row I’ve had nebulous plans to get up early and head over to Matt’s Big Breakfast before work.

I say nebulous because even though I had a plan, good ol’ sleep won out.

Today my alarm went off at 6am, I figured I could be out the door by 7, hit Matt’s and catch an 8:15 train to work.

Then my mind conceived that 10 more minutes of sleep wouldn’t be the worst.  After all, I had just hit the snooze button, right?

Right….

Right?

As it turns out, I had actually turned the whole alarm off.  I realized this when I woke up 75 minutes later, wondering where the hell my delicious breakfast was.

Turns out, dreams are NOT as fulfilling as a great breakfast.  Even when you dream of bacon.

So now, all I’m left with are memories…. and hunger.

Damn you, Sleep! I should be having some of this:

It was so good that this was all that was left by the time the camera snapped.

Vacation like a Hobbit?

or

“6 days 7 nights in your own personal Bag End”

Tell me that’s not what you think of when you see this:

As INHABITAT says:

Architect Matteo Thun has designed this striking eco-friendly hotel to be located on a mountainside in the National Park of Stelvio in the Italian Alps. Composed of a series of underground buildings linked by undulating green roofs, the complex takes advantage of passive design principles and ground-source heat pumps to conserve energy. In addition, the construction of the units, the way the units are situated on the site, and the materials used have all been carefully considered to minimize the complex’ impact upon the environment.

So that all sounds good, but one has to remember what Tolkien said about living in such a place:

“In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a Hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.“

– The Hobbit, “An Unexpected Party“

Great Idea we need here

I first heard about Seedbombs when Jeff from @truckingoodfood mentioned them a few days ago.

Then low and behold what I found in my RSS reader today, from INHABITAT:

Guerrilla gardeners in San Francisco have some new ammunition with the recent installation of the city’s first seedbomb vending machine! Designed by L.A.’s Common Studio, the re-purposed gum-ball machine is set up in front of Bi-Rite Market in the Mission District, where it vends “bombs” containing seeds and compost encased in clay. All they need is a little bit of water and they will sprout – toss one into an abandoned lot or even a pothole, and voila: green space.

Read more: First Seedbomb Vending Machine Lands in San Francisco! | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

This is a pretty genius idea.  If there were a mix that could survive unassisted in our city, I’d scoop that up right away.

How to Act like less of a boring jerk.

Warning: long, quasi-neurotic, self-revelatory post below.

Let me start with a mea culpa here…

(Is it me, or are a lot of my posts starting that way?
Am I trying to appease some minimalist lean while still sticking to my resolutions to improve my writing?
It’s not clear, but I disgress…)

…. there are often different “versions” of myself that I present to people.

I know we all have our “work selves” and our “relationship selves” and our “close friends” selves.  Those are societal roles we need to maintain to be able to sort out our acceptable behaviors and not all live like dirty hippies.

I’m cool with those.

What I’m talking about a shift in the Ryan I present to people that depends entirely on the number of conversations we’ve had previously.

I am confident that anyone who has spoken to me 4 or more times knows that I am far from a “wall flower”, and usually by interaction 9 or 10, you’re thinking “this guys kinda  dick, but I also kinda like having him around”.  (that’s right about where I get ya hooked…ha ha)

However, if I’ve talked to you less than 4 times, good luck getting a whole lot out of me.

Typically when I meet someone for the first time, I rarely talk at all.

I’m not sure if it’s a learned technique to “get the lay of the land”, or if it’s more of a sub-conscious thing of not knowing what to discuss with this new person I’ve just added to my memory banks, and so, in turn, my mind draws a blank and says “just nod and give short answers… that’s the best we’ve got Cap’n”.

(yes, I imagine my mind calls me Cap’n, Crunch-style)

Today, I’m pretty sure the awkward-newness vibe goes on for about the first hour or so I’m speaking with somebody.  Yes, I know not holding up my end of a conversation for up to an hour is pretty shitty of me, and probably has lead multiple people to think I’m either:

1. Less than interesting
2. Pompous and blowing them off

Not to say there haven’t been times when one or both of these claims weren’t true, but that’s still not the type of first impression I want to leave on someone.

This seems like a good time to tell you a little story.

Here in Phoenix (where I imagine most of you live, but if not, hey, come on down.  We’re recruiting new awesome people all the time…), we have an event called #buzzcation.  I say “we” but really other, more compassionate people organize it, and I just show up, drink, donate, and try not to drink so much that I tell people stupid things, like reasons why I’ve unfollowed someone on Twitter….

However, before I attended the first such event, I was pretty sure I’d pull the ol’ wallflower card, and even liquid courage wouldn’t give me someone to talk to folks about.

That’s when I realized that my quietness was really bound up in a desire to not seem like a tag-along, or an irrelevant sycophant.  Sure, once I get to know people, it’s pretty easy to build upon common interests, but prior to that, how to you unlock the “what do you like” box?

Maybe you make little fact sheets and pass them out?

No, that’s stupid.  Don’t do that.

(well, if you want to try that and let me know how it works, go ahead….)

So, we’re still in the same spot.  How does one go about “being one’s self” without knowing which bits are going to be fun and which bits will get you snapped at for laughing at the wrong thing?

Lately I think I’ve settled on, “ask better questions”.

I tried this out a few times lately, mostly when I met people who I was “aware of” before we met (bloggers, people about town, etc), basically people I really didn’t want to seem like a doofus around.

So instead of going the doofus route, and definitely not wanting to go the “pretentious” route, I thought I’d stick with “interested is interesting”.

One of two things would happen:

1. the person I just met would bounce from topic to topic in a roughly organic narrative until such a point that I thought I could contribute consistently to the topic at hand,
2. the person I just met would employ the same tactic on me, tossing a few questions my way, and then my ego/pretentious side would kick in and I’d start talking about something I was passionate about that day.

All in all, I’m still not sure I make a “great” first impression, but hopefully it’s better than the first two options above.

And if not, I’ve still got my devilishly good looks to fall back on.

I feel like there’s a social experiment or two in the works there.

cool new Banksy

Tim Gunn, Super Hero Critic

Found these fun videos the other week.  Of course I dig it anytime someone has a discussion about the merits of certain superheroes, or ..well…. anything comic book related, really.