Archana Ramachandran

My video really doesn’t do them justice, but Ideal Soul Mart is amazing. Fantastic live performers (and I’m too picky to begin with). Check out all their music on their MySpace page. 

My rainboots and duck umbrella are no longer rainy day essentials.

Check it - these two guys in Japan are developing an internet umbrella dubbed Pileus. 

Besides being ridiculously cool in concept, the new-age umbrella features a large screen, a built-in camera, motion sensor and GPS (yes!). And they threw in a digital compass for kicks.

The digital umbrella will serve as a social photo-sharing device (hooray for Flickr) and a 3D map navigation system. 

I’m diggin’ the story behind the name as well:

I can’t wait to buy a Pileus!

Thank you Flickr for [art-ing] up my life.

Although if you read that really fast, it’s like Flickr is [euphemism] gassing up my life. 

Element rings… 109 reasons to love creativity + science

[What's a pirate's favorite element?]

I swear, we are headed into the Great[er] Depression. Gas prices are so high, Utah state employees have shifted to 4-day work week. 

Nameless nobodies no faces were recently spotted around some classy British social events. Apparently it’s all a buzz marketing ploy for Lotus, a high-end sports car that, in my opinion, isn’t even snazzy. You gotta give the creative team some serious credit - it’s got everyone talking and me officially creeped out. 

The Fail Whale no longer fails to disappoint - what was initially a reaction of ‘are you freaking kidding me’ when the big blue mammal popped up is now subject to laughter and jokes heard ’round the web. The Fail Whale (henceforth FW) is now subject to casual mockery and inside jokes among Twitter elitists. 

And why should it not garner all this attention?

. there are not one but TWO fan pages

.. you can proudly display the FW on your car or your chest or your…offspring?

… wikipedia has a page dedicated to the phenomenon 

…. it’s the subject of interpretative art

….. way more creative than saying i’m slammed

…… and clearly everyone on Twitter is talking about it

I love that so far, the FW has been androgynous - no one calls it he or she or he-she. But if you could, WOULD you give the FW a gender? And if so, what?

… and decided July is going to be mellow. But I could just be saying that because I’m super jazzed about this Friday. Or the fact that I could purchase an Oasis ringtone. How great would it be to hear this song blaring from my purse:

Oh yeah. Mellow is so the way to go.