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

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 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

Not much to report lately. Tradeshow season is over, and i’ve just been grinding on the new collection. Slowly chipping away at it, but fear not, you’ll be getting photo teases in no time*

To prove that i’m not dead, here are 5 images from recent web lurking that are worth looking at. Dont fool yourself kids, this stuff was most likely done before you were born. Timeless indeed.

*and by ‘no time’ i really mean sometime this summer.

Twitter? Yup, right here.

Christmas was great! Couple days to hang with the family, eat lots of home cooked food and take naps, lots of naps.  This year was pretty mellow, got to spend a good amount of time with my whole family.  I always love going to my dads house in NH because its a shine to my childhood.  He doesn’t spend much time there and I haven’t lived there since middle school so my room is exactly like I left it almost 15 years ago.  I took a few snapshots.

The other great thing about Christmas is getting cool stuff from the people you love.  Ali hooked it up with this amazing decorative type poster from Jessica Hische.

And, in the spirit of giving, I present to you, the annual gift of song 2009.

http://www.zshare.net/download/702898939c9cf344/

Enjoy,

Shawn

Paul here once again. Sorry it’s been a while. I can blame getting my posting re-started on the dealership where I took my car for its 45K service yesterday. Kind of a random detour but I’ll explain. Arriving early for my 7:30 AM appointment I’m anticipating maybe a little over an hour of sitting in the “lounge” drinking coffee, checking and responding to a few overnight emails and maybe taking Wiley for a spin around the lot to check out some cars (the new Oldsmobile’s are in early this year btw). About 2 hours into it as I watch the mechanics take their second smoke break and NOT work on my car it’s dawning on me that I may have been mislead a week back when the scheduling lady said they could “fit me in first thing next Friday” and I “could just wait till the car was done if I wanted”. I’m not sure who she knows who would “want” to wait for 3+ hours for anything let alone a car while it’s getting worked on but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know them. Accepting that my options were limited I settled in and took a stab at getting this post started – just wrapping it up here on a balmy Saturday morning.

So we’ve received quite a few emails asking questions on camber technologies – specifics about what they are and what they do. As always we suggest digging through the site – there is a lot of info on all the Rome technologies but I’ll try to go into a bit more detail on the Artifact and the Artifact 1985 models here.

VS.

The reason these boards are great to talk about with respect to any camber questions is that for the most part these boards are pretty much identical – they are built for the same rider profile, designed for the same type of use and are constructed in the same manner using nearly the exact same materials. The primary differences are in their camber profiles and a few construction details that should help to illustrate how adding some form of rocker to a board effects its performance compared to a positive camber board. Because this is the primary difference, the Artifacts are a great test platform for riders to compare and contrast these differences and understand better which type of camber profile might be optimal for their riding objectives.

So to start here’s what both boards have in have in common:
- Both boards are True twin shapes
- Both boards are built with our Pop Core Matrix, StraightBiax Laminate and Impact base.
- Both boards have Bronze edges with a +3/-3 degree Jib edge bevel for catch-free box, ledge and rail slides.
- Both boards share dimensional specifications – running lengths, waist widths, sidecut etc.

Where the boards differ is in their camber profiles, the Artifact with our Positive camber and the Artifact 1985 with our Reverse-Jib camber and the addition of a dose of Pop Rock technology to compliment the difference in camber profile.

Looking at the Artifact design details as a baseline we can focus on the differences in the Artifact 1985.

The Reverse-Jib camber profile on the 1985 version consists line consists of a flat camber profile through the middle of the board to just under the binding mount area and a mellow reverse camber profile from there to the end of the running length of the board.

The Reverse-Jib profile provides for a stable platform between and under foot which is great for initiating and landing tricks, locking in on rails, etc. and a tip and tail that allow for effortless presses, butters and virtually catch free tips and tails.

A direct consequence of this rockered camber profile is a reduction in ability to pressure the tips and the tails of the board so we’ve added a Glass Reverse-V Stringer to the tip and the tail to counteract this. The addition of the stringer increases the power transmission from the binding mounting area to the tail of the board which enhances the ollie pop normally lost with rocker. We used the Reverse-V configuration because we want to add pop without increasing the boards torsional rigidity as this would negatively impact the buttery ride that all Artifact boards are famous for.

At the end of the day both these models are great for what they are designed for – jib heavy parks, late night urban rail sessions and finesse heavy technical riding that riders like LNP and Eiki are known for. They just get there in slightly different ways.

Check them both out and let us know what you think.

[p]

p.s. Hope everyone has a happy and healthy Holiday Season. And stay safe out there.

I got kinda sidetracked with this project. Something about 16 hour days, and 9 of them in row that took priority. but I survived the push, and I’m back to visually rambling. Here’s some of the latest.

“It’s Always Greener…Right?”

“When Cartoons Cry”


“Everything Must Go!”


“Christmas Spirit”

No doubt regarding the Sticky Fingers album cover.

I love that Mick contacted Mr. Warhol personally.

Here are a few recent visual ramblings in my effort to fill this book in 365 days or less. Some simple (or advanced, in my case) math tells me I started this endeavor roughly 35 days ago, and I just filled my 33rd page. I guess I missed a couple days, but I have been traveling a lot recently, so that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Not much you can do about it, anyway.

“Franz Kline Can Suck It”

“The Easiest Way to Make It”

“What Happens When the Rainbow Ends in the Middle East”

“Hold Up!”

I returned from my latest trip to Austria and the board factory last night, and was greeted by some awesome mail from this past week.

First up was a little gift from Seth Neefus’s new project, the Free Life Center. A few months ago, he sent out a link asking for people to help them raise funding for this new project – a traveling art, music and sculpture instalation. I threw them some cash, and i got this nice care package from them – a nice 3 color screen print from his partner Mark Warren Jacques, a cool little zine about both artists and their project, and a small little pencil sketch from Seth.

Next up was some goods from this year’s Notch and Notch 1985 artist Niall McClelland. He started up SEER Editions not to long ago as an outlet to publish works in a non flashy, newsprint/zine style. These are some shots from the first few. The work in here is pretty beautiful, and works really well in this medium. Get your hands on them if you can – it’s well worth it.