Rome Snowboard Design Syndicate

Lets face it – Mondays suck. Back to class, back to work, back to the grind. We’d all rather be partying with friends, taking turns at the hill, or maybe just catching up on the ol’ tube. Case of the Mondays hopes to give you some helpful tips to make your work or school week go by a little quicker, because no matter if you’re working or in school – everybody’s workin’ for the weekend.

Rage Mask: For those who keep up on internet trends, you’ll recognize this little guy. He’s the face of “Fuuuuuuuu Comics” aka Rage Comics. When you find yourself in situation where you feel like maniacally screaming “F%@#!!!!!”…he does it for you. Being that I find myself in numerous situations that I’ve related to these Rage Comics, I figured out how I could make it work in real life situations, away from the web. Ever had to answer a question in class just because your teacher could see you weren’t paying attention? Ever had the receptionist interrupt your web surfing session to tell you that “your Mom wants you to call her back after work”? Problems solved.

Rather than bottling up your rage and exploding on some unfortunate soul, why not just identify yourself as “raged?” That way, people will KNOW to avoid you on a Monday. Teacher will stop pickin’ on you, and the receptionist will already understand that you won’t call your mom back. With the Rage face, just simply print and cut out the included Rage face, and watch it work. I’ve already seen it action!

Print this off first!

Fresh bowl of Charms and no milk? RAGGGGEEEE!!!!! Angry breakfast eater avoided!

Comin' home from a hard day at the office with some healthy snacks! Oh no! The integrity of this plastic bag has been compromised! RRRRAAAGGGEEE!!!! Better stay out of the way of the savage shopper!

Just strummin' on the strings with my new pi...oh damn it, I dropped my pick in the sound hole!!! RRRRRAAAAAGGGEEEE!!!! Run for the Hills - this sour serenader is FURIOUS!

Check back next week for a new Case of the Mondays!

-Forester

In 1996 the size of Ingemar’s backside air at Riksgransen blew minds, changed everyone’s perception of “big” forever and landed him on multiple covers.  It’s still pretty damn big 14 years later.

Im staying at my sisters place in NYC for a few days, she recently moved up to 125st. I never spent much time up here, its a cool neighborhood with lots of good food!  Snapped this picture of the world famous Apollo Theatre while out and about.

I was over at Cavan’s the other day getting some things ready for ShredTV. He’s been in snowboarding forever, and is one of those guys who archives stuff. The Noah Salasnek pro model from Sims with the skate trucks and wheels was such an important board — Cavan rode it back as a grom working for EB. And his copy of FLF’s “Gettin’ Some” is sick as well, with Jason Brown throwing a mean shifty.

I was out in lovely Southern California for a few days last week, and one of the highlights of my time there was the opening of the Dennis Hopper retrospective at the Geffen MOCA in Los Angeles. This show was important for several reason: It was the first show under new Director Jeffrey Deitch (jeffrey, and his gallery in NYC were responsible for putting on just about every important artist in the past 15 years). The show was curated by famed artist and director Julian Schnabel. Hopper himself was involved in the process of putting the show together until he passed away back in May, and it is the first time a vast majority of his work is on display in the same place.

I knew that Hopper was an artist, and that he surrounded himself with other famous artist of the time, but man, i had no idea. His photographs act as the centerpiece – 9 huge walls filled with them, all hung salon style. Out from there, in the surrounding space, are his painting, combines, more photos, sculptures and some films. A truly incredible show, and one you should all go out and see if you are in the LA area.

Some iPhotos i snapped while having my mind blown:

online, looking into the lobby space. there was a second pop style sculpture on the other side of the lobby

all sorts of information

overview of some of the photo walls. place was packed!

from a series of images shot in the south

Rauschenberg-inspired combine. photograph with found objects(tissue boxes)

this is a mellow 20 foot tall canvas, based on one of his photos

another wall of photos, mostly artist and gallery folks

2 shots of Warhol at the Factory

Warhol and his 'workers' at the factory

3 shots of artist Robert Rauschenberg getting his tongue stamped for reasons unknown

this film was playing in one of the rooms. It was a 45 second loop of a guy sitting in a lawn chair and getting blown up. Photos left and right are before and after images, and the film projector itself was pretty cool looking

Little did i know that the Geffen has a really solid permanent collection. It was a nice surprise after checking out the show. Few snaps of what i saw below.

Christopher Wool painting. This was done in the 50's kids...

Allen Ruppersberg collage piece. wow.

and finally, a personal favorite of mine, Jean-Michel Basquiat. just amazing

Okay so some of us have been enjoying the World Cup here in the office… there’s a bunch of us that grew up playing the game… ze German office is obviously psyched that they are still in it…

That said, there is definitely a group of people I’m friends with that are mystified by it all.  I thought this was a good demonstration of how the conversation goes…

(The whole clip is good but John Hodgeman comes on at 1:00 and starts the conversation that I’m referring to)

Here’s an email from our warehouse up in the Netherlands:

RE: Holland-Brasil

Dear All,

As you probably know our country plays against Brasil tomorrow for the worldcup.

Match starts at 16.00 hours our time.

We are allowed to leave the office at 15.15 hours to see this match with family and friends (or in the pub) and I will certainly use this option.

If you have any urgent matters, please let me know overnight.

Anyways, hopefully your country is still in it and they have the tactical nuance to keep progressing in the tournament unlike ours.  (kudos to Pat Morris on the “anthem”)

The past week has been super warm here in VT, so I think we can put aside any thoughts of any more late season storms.  (Man I swam in Foster’s the other day…hard to think I was riding pow just a few weeks ago)

It’s like 4 am and I can’t sleep right now so I figured I’d do a post that I’ve been meaning to do for a couple weeks.  This is the “the one picture alone isn’t enough to blog about at the time but hopefully all these random pics from the whole winter will come together as a good blog” annual retrospective blog.

I’m pretty sure I’ve used none of these pics before so feel free  to call me out if I have…

Went up to the mountain to do some "work" last fall...this was the day...effin' beautiful

This was my quiver of decks this year...P-Mania 59 was my pow board... that's my OG Design that I use as an early season hiking board on the right... I also rode an Agent 54 this winter as my skate deck

Sully holding court during our Winter Sales Meeting... That's a 2011 Smith boot in the upper left

Stared at this pic for a while wondering what the heck it was of...then realized I must've been on first chair...I'll get there early, but getting first chair on a good day at Stowe is definitely a sport that I don't generally win

This pic kind of sucks as it's back into the light...but it really has grown on me...It's also a great moment: having just hiked the chin with anticipation of the drop in

Different day but the whole world is in front of you when you're ready to drop...

Capt. Al lives in Boston now... I generally take pics like these to text to Al to vibe him on what he's missing out on...This unfortunately also shows what kind of winter we had...these pines would have been covered in another year

If you were wondering who Capt. Al is... well, he's this guy shotgunning a Hawaiian Punch before the 050601 party... Who else would he be?

Classic Stowe Locale

Another shot from the 'Brook... Smuggs in the distance

Morning Alpenglow...no Photoshop here...real deal

Anybody who lives in the mountains knows that inversions never get old...there is nothing better than being in a foggy/cloudy valley and breaking through to bluebird up top

Every year we do Ride with Rome days... This is the only pic I took...

We caught some beautiful days at Carinthia at Mount Snow (which is really doing a ton of things right BTW; if you are from the east and haven’t gone, I’d highly recommend it)   Here’s a video that tells the story much better…

What better way to end a season than with a party...Fenway may have the Pesky Pole, our parking lot whiffle ball game had the bonfire George built

The new Rome SDS tee shirts are coming off of the presses and we’ll be shipping them soon. They’ll be available at your local shop by July 1. Click on the link in the top right of this page to find the shred shop closest to you.

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So a month or two ago, I wrote about Spring rituals…

Well, as much as we might be known for other kinds of  spring rituals, we try our best every year to do a good solid Spring Cleaning…

Cleaning supplies in hand...

To do a good cathartic clean you have to embrace a certain ruthlessness...

First Floor "Before" shot...

First Floor "After" shot...

You have to get aggressive and move furniture...we found a Lilliput under the couch on the left...

Like a lot of things in life sometimes you just have to commit…when you do, you’ll be more than happy that you did, once you’re proven successful.

Little over a week ago in Vermont we got a little bit lucky and got around 20 inches of snow in the mountains around the Rome office.  A bunch of people from the office headed to Stowe to hike and enjoy some late season pow.  (I personally went to Bolton, was the only car in the parking lot and got my car booted…. that’s another blog-post though, which will include a liberal amount of swear words.)

Brendan O'Shea

Anyways, we decided to run a quick contest where we left the highback of a Rome 390 Boss binding up at the top of the hill, and the first person to grab it would get some new boots to hike in next year.

Jonathan Kiraly was the first person up there to grab the highback and score a pair of 2011 Libertines with the PureFlex lacing system.  Thought I’d shoot some questions his way.

Hi Jonathan, where are you living and stuff, how often do you get to Stowe?

I’m living in Burlington, going to UVM.  I got about 60 days in, 40 of which were at Stowe, hiking 3 days, including the day I won some boots.

How was that day?

Woke up at 6:15am, left Burlington at 7am, began hiking at 830am.  Did not expect to beat the hardcore Stowe locals. There were already a few people riding down when we pulled up.

Was it worth it?

Of course, can’t beat fresh tracks and face shots on April 28th!

Did you know it may snow on Sunday? (this was before the Rome FOR, or friends of Rome party)

No, I was not aware of this possible snow, but I will definitely be keeping a close eye on this and wouldn’t miss another chance to get some more turns in.  See ya tomorrow at the party!

Well, Sunday’s snow was no April 28^th, I heard 14 at the top of Stowe, but didn’t see any photos. The party was a really good time.  I’ll post some photos of that party soon here on the blog.  And if you’re in them partying too hard, and email me asking me to take them down, I’ll ignore your email, and next time we see each other I’ll say something like, “oh yeah, I’ve been having email issues, it must have ended up in my spam folder, which will be a lie. (photos by Mike and Paul, same day Jonathan hiked though)