Last week, me and 4 buddies went to Miami. I’d never been to Miami, but it’s one of those places you have to visit, or so I’m told.
In 9 days we managed to do so much that it’s impossible to make it one coherent story.
So I’ll just try to sum up the weirdest, funniest and interesting things that happened, with the help of pictures as always.
Since this is an even bigger post than normal and It also acts as a journal for us 4 I will keep adding to it until it’s finished. (Pics are click-able *fixed*)
So, Things that happened in Miami Continue reading ‘Miami, and the things that went down (24 of 24)’
Filed under: People, Stories, Travel | 6 Comments
Tags: bahamas, beach, cruise, everglades, hostel, miami, racism, Travel
Plastic Fantastic Persian Party
“My feet are killing me! How is the hell is James Bond able to kick some serious ass, meet hot chicks and save the world wearing these awful shiny black leather shoes?”, I mutter to myself while making the rounds.
Then a voice comes from behind me.
“Ehm..Excuse me, sir?”
I turn around slowly and see a young woman smiling back and with sparkling green eyes staring at me. She is wearing a red cocktail dress. They are ALL wearing a red cocktail dress. Because for tonight, that is the dress code for this fancy Persian Gala. Women are to show up dressed up in red and men are to be in a black suit.
Aria, a student fraternity that consist of primarily Afghan students organized a white-tie party in Rotterdam a couple of weeks ago. This all happened on a luxurious yacht where students would come to dance, have a good time and of course eyeball each other all night long. How could you possibly not? Every person in that ballroom was dressed in their most beautiful attire and very, very much to impress. Some women were actually pushing it a little by wearing dresses so skimpy and revealing that they could’ve easily fallen into the category of high income escort.
But as it was accompanied by this air or sophistication, it probably didn’t matter at all.
Filed under: People, Stories | 1 Comment
Tags: gala, persians, photography, rotterdam, story, yacht
If you are a frequent commuter with public transport as I am, once in a while you are bound to share your vehicle with those people. Those guys who walk, talk and act like they are the most awesome gangsters in, well….the vehicle.
For a while now I have been thinking about venting my frustration of these “real gangsters” and I think I have finally accumulated enough annoyances over the last few weeks that I’m just going to put them here.
However, I believe in Stefan Sagmeister’s quote, which goes:
“Complaining is silly. Either act or forget”
Which is why I’m going to also try to act on this annoyance besides complaining my ass off.
So what annoyances am I talking about? I am talking about the compulsive behaviour that these “real gangsters” MUST display when they are sitting in the tram. I figured that it really must be a compulsive issue because these guys not only KNOW they are being complete douche-bags but still continue with displaying monkey behaviour.
I shall now propose something to you. 1. These real gangsters in the tram don’t have a clue why they are acting this way and 2. They really think that this gangsta/monkey behaviour is cool. How wrong can you be gangsta?
I’ll walk you through this whole thing. First we check out the habitat and the common traits of the real gangsters in the tram. (I wrote the text of the pictures in dutch but the title’s & captions are in English)
1. Real gangsters always check for the ticket inspector
Filed under: People, Rants, Stories | 7 Comments
Tags: fare beating, gangster, monkey behavior, racism, real gangsters, The Hague, tram
Going through the favorites in my browser I found that between a lot of serious articles and funny websites I also found some “feel good” videos. It kinda struck me that I only have 3 of these videos while most of the other video clips fall more in the range of: funny, cool, weird and omg-did-you-see-that-shit kind of gems. There really should be more of the feel good stuff. Don’t you notice that starting your day with a feel good thing rather than a guy throwing a shoe at Bush Youtube clip, it will more likely make your day?
Anyway, here are some of my feel good stuff:
JK Wedding intrance dance
POST-IT love
[youtbe=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWlQeuMrIEw]
High five escalator
(click here if you want to read about it also)
Where the hell is Matt
Free hugs campaign
(A classic)
If anyone has more feel-good stuff, share them. Be it articles, pictures or videos it doesn’t really matter.
As long as it’s warm and fuzzy.
Filed under: Inspiration, People | Leave a Comment
Tags: bush shoe, escalator, feel good, free hugs, high five, improveverywhere, Matt Harding
For happy hours by two
Today I stumbled upon a plastic bag with small souvenirs I picked up in China last winter. Inside are small packages and one of them looks like this:
It says “Health veggie flavor” and just so you know it’s for happy hours by two. Oh, and they also added vitamin E.
There is more where this came from. You also have these other great selections
Enchanting drink flavor, Fruit flavor,
Ice Cream flavor, and of course Green Tea flavor, because it’s a Chinese product after all.
By now, some of you may have already figured out what they are. But if you are still confused about what these little packages are let me enlighten you by presenting the back of the package.
Yes that’s right. Condoms.
Condoms with Vegetable flavor, Green tea flavor, Fruit flavor (this is not that weird actually), Enchanting drink flavor (how would you explain the enchanting flavor to your significant other?) and Ice cream flavor (how is ice cream a flavor really? They COME in different flavors, so how would you even make it ice creamy. Oh man I feel this thought really going to the wrong direction just about now).
Anyway, if you look closely at the back of the package you also see their condom mascot. With the vegetable flavor condoms you get the condom mascot holding a tomato, which of course is a vegetable, so that makes sense. lets take a look at the other ones.
This mascot holds an orange like fruit so it’s fairly obvious that he’s from the fruit flavor packaging.
Ahh, the green tea mascot. Holding up the teacup with apparently green tea in it. No surprise there.
I know what you’re thinking, that this is the ice cream condom mascot.
But actually no, its the enchanting drink flavor mascot. I guess this is how enchanting drinks look like in China. Like a sundae dessert.
Which means that the last condom mascot here is for the Ice cream flavor package. Yes, you are correct, that is a heart the condom guy is holding up there, somehow representing the ice cream flavor. I’m trying to spin this in a way so that it’s logical that a condom mascot is holding up a heart to represent a ice cream flavor…but all I get is “everybody LOVES ice cream”, which isn’t going to win any marketing prizes anytime soon.
Well, there you have it, condoms with unique flavors. Some with even added benefits like vitamins for that extra healthy boost. If you happen to be in China and see more weird flavors, let me know.
I personally would like to see Durian flavor, Tofu flavor (smelly tofu even) and sushi flavor. Those would be awesome.
Filed under: Design related, Inspiration | 3 Comments
Tags: condoms, design, flavor, health.vitamin E, ice cream, package, veggie, weird
What’s In My Bag
In response to IYL and Ellen’s post about what’s in their woman’s bag I took a look in my own bag and found these things.
From left to right the first item is also the biggest one in the bag, my Nikon D60 camera that I try to take with me wherever I go. I don’t have a special bag or pouch for my camera because that kinda slows down the spontaneous picture taking, so that’s why I put in inside a wool winter cap. I realize it’s a bit ghetto, but then again you can go from zero to shooting pictures in about 5 seconds, so that kinda justifies it though. Next to it is an extra lens cap that I forgot to take out of my bag (good thing I’m taking inventory now)
The gray thing is a dust blower for cleaning the camera lens and the I use the lens cleaning pen for those tougher stains. In the dark blue pouch I keep a screw-on macro lens in case things need to be photographed up close. I really did not know I had that many SD memory cards in my bag. That’s 8GB worth of memory in there (not counting the 4GB already in the camera itself) When on vacation/travel you often don’t have the time to make backups, so extra memory really is a life saver. Then next to those; a handy remote controller to take pictures wireless, extra battery pack, small table tripod and a USB stick.
Now then as for those other things. Apparently I have 4 tissue packs in my bag with ALL of them already opened and ranging in depletion. Those little brown tissue packs are actually from Shanghai when I was there in November. I can’t believe they are still in there after all these months and all this time not noticing them. They look tired from all those months laying in my bag. I for the love of god do not know why there is also another dutch blue tissue pack in my bag. This one is more recent so I must have been like “oh I’m going to be on the road so I need a pack of tissues, not knowing that it’s Chinese equivalent were already there. Don’t they just look politically incorrect with the dutch one being taller and the Chinese shorter XD? Do take into account that although the tissue Asians are smaller they outnumber the dutch one a hell lot more. Then there are two 3Volt batteries next to the tissues. I remember buying them somewhere in Hong Kong in December but why……never mind, they’ll prove their use someday in the bag.
Then there’s a receipt from the HEMA store from January 28 for some notepads… which is now in the trashcan as I write this. Next to that a small Chinese notebook that I picked up in a Hostel in Guilin-China. One of those items you pick up because they are free and seem as if they will be useful in the future for taking notes but they never really ARE, therefore taking up space in the bag next to the Asian tissue brothers and the white dude. And finally a black “Hot Rock” notebook that I picked up at the PolyU in HK. The sturdy paper is excellent for sketching and writing.
As for wallet, phone and keys. Those just go in the pockets of our pants, as they were originally designed for. You know, context sensitive jeans if you will. But with the fashion evolution of skinny jeans I realize that this isn’t an option for most women.
So if carrying a bag with all this crap in it helps you wearing the un-apologetically body curve showing jeans by all means, carry it. As for men wearing skinny jeans, you need one of those purses too dude.
Filed under: Uncategorized | 4 Comments
Tags: camera, Hong Kong, tissue
Life instructions iconisized
I’ve recently come across the works of an graphic designer who goes by the name “TRUE”. He took the widely displayed subway stickers, redesigned it and turned them into life instructions for people who happen to notice them. The redesigned stickers are so simple, funny and inspiring that I wished I thought of it myself.
Left: The normal subway version
Right: True’s version
Top: The normal evacuation instructions
Below: True’s version (recreated by Chris Glass)
Top: Subway version
Below: True’s version
I came across these in a TEDtalk by Stefan Sagmeister. If you have the time, do check out his talk: Stefan Sagmeister; Yes, design can make you happy
Filed under: Inspiration | 1 Comment
Tags: design, Inspiration, stefan sagmeister, subway, TED, True
Redirecting stuff
I’ve been quite busy these past few months and that’s probably why i’ve neclected this wordpress blog thing for a while now.
The only thing that i occasionaly update is the bookblog page. As for the picture blog, i’ve switched to flickr for photo updates. So if anyone want to see some more pictures, head out to http://www.flickr.com/photos/raphaellochan
I’m also working on another photo website with some friends and that’s actually a pretty cool project so stay tuned
update:
it’s up and running now!
It’s the http://ourawesomephotoblog.blogspot.com
And it’s about us (amateur) photographers who take turns giving each other photo assignments. There are a lot of other similar websites out there but we wanted to make one ourselves, so here it is. Let’s just hope it will be fun and stay fun.
Filed under: Inspiration, People | Leave a Comment
Barabana's glasses 