As if the tears shed of seeing friends depart for the summer wasn’t traumatic enough, the other half of us still have to stress about finals until Tuesday, but that’s not enough to keep me away from forgetting it all and becoming distracted:

1) Ah the Japanese; they never cease to amuse me with their ridiculous ridiculous game shows and roll-junk-up-into-a-ball videogames, so I was delightfully captivated by Uniqlock, the latest video ad for Uniqlo(essentially Japan’s version of H&M) that never ends as long as the clock ticks. Thanks for showing me this Ted. I’ve spent so many minutes of my life watching nonsensical greatness. Plus the music is super catchy:

2) Facebook scrabulous=Internet Scrabble with your friends. So what I’ve lost almost every game I’ve played so far. So if you love scrabble, and you love your friends, add Scrabulous now and start a game with me:

well that’s all for now. BACK TO THE GRIND.

Because of guys like this who grade your bike locking job:
(click to watch)

gatherings of epic proportions like this:
(click to watch)

and kids who think they can tour with the bigs guys. Hey is that a guy in a chicken suit?:
(click to watch)

On the topic of bikes, I’ve been biking here in Boston since January and haven’t loved biking so much since sixth grade when I thought I would grow up to become Dave Mira on my BMX. Since I bike to work everyday I’ve spent $0 on cabs/bus/T and it’s great. Not to mention I’ve learned a lot about bike maintainable, after replacing almost all the parts on my current ride. Monthly Boston Critical Mass group rides are the icing on the cake. What can I say, city biking rules.

I’ve discovered the East Coast Greenway effort, basically a collective effort to map a seamless and traffic-less bike route spanning all 3000 miles of the US east coast from the tip of Maine to the bottom of florida. So when I get home I plan to do some serious biking on my free time, at least biking from Scarsdale to Manhattan and back following the greenway routes through New York or local Scarsdale routes others have sketched out on MapMyRide.com.

If you’ve seen me biking and constantly bug me about wearing a helmet (yes, you. Caroline), know that I’m aware of the dangers of getting hit by cars and dragged on the pavement and do plan on making a hair helmet soon.

Oh, and come May 30th I’ll be at Critical Mass, this time in Manhattan. It will be epic.

Sudhir Venkatesh, a sociologist who for seven years studied violent crack dealing gangs by joining and eventually leading one, asked gang members and friends what they thought about a new law that makes it illegal to recruit someone into a gang:

Darnell (32 years old, African-American) said police should be more creative.

Let’s say you catch one of us — I’d make the boy wear a dress and makeup. Maybe for two weeks. Let the boy go to school looking like a girl. Let him walk the streets looking like he’s gay. I guarantee you, we’d have a hard time holding on to n–rs if you do sh–t like that!

Well said, Darnell.

It’s also worth checking out this NPR article and audio interview of Sudhir Ventakesh in which Ventakesh recounts some of his experiences following around the leader of a violent crack gang. Or if you’re really interested here’s a vid of him do a read from his latest book Gang Leader for a Day followed by a Q&A.

Just look at that badass.

Sweet ginormous roller tags by Gaia and Deep both of which were picked up by Bombin’ Magazine Online.

As long as it’s under a speed of 15mph, that is.

A gutted Buick turned pedal powered shell gets pulled over and cops charge driver with “operating unsafe vehichle.” The drivers went to court and argued their vehicle was not any less safe than bicycles, horse-drawn buggies or a rickshaw, all of which are street legal.

Well the judge recently ruled in their favor so pedal powered buicks are now legal to drive around Toronto. Huzzah! From a news report on the trial: “the defence made a special point of asking the police officer if he had ever stopped a rickshaw or a horse and buggy. To which the officer sheepishly replied that he had never seen a horse-drawn carriage in Toronto.”

Here’s a video of the drivers driving and getting pulled over (click to watch):

yabbadabbadoooo