Dubbed “The end of slideshows” Animoto is a very tidy web application that instantly creates fun little video slideshows of a photo gallery. It is very clean and easy-to-use, comprising of two simple steps – upload images and pick a background song (you can pick from a simple selection of provided songs or upload your own), and a then just wait out a few minutes of rendering time. Within minutes I’d created a neat little video slideshow of my boy, shown above. It’s free to create a short 30 second video (12-15 photos recommended), and $3 to create a full length video or $30 for an unlimited amount for a full year and for $5 per video you can download it DVD quality. There’s also a professional license for $249 per year which gives you everything included at no extra charge as well as allowing a call-to-action button, white labeling the video, free commercially licensed music, and of course all the videos you make are approved for commercial use.

And once you’ve created the video it’s available to post to any social media (using Clearspring) or embed in your blog. And you can create a remix, which can be a one-click automatic process, or you can edit the remix – revolving images, adding text, spotlighting, as well as adding or deleting images. This is the one-click remix I made of the above video:

It wasn’t the ideal product for us to use for this particular project, but I was very impressed with the concept and the execution and it’s something I will be keeping in mind for the future. For personal use I think I could have a lot of fun with it – converting family photo albums, and work party or street barbecue photo mashups, and the fact it comes as an iPhone app and I can instantly create the videos from my photo reel on-the-go, as well I have all the ones I’ve previously created with me at all times, is pretty awesome.

So of course way up there on that list was the Ramones! Way, way, way up there!

But how do you go about doing that? Does something “Ramonesey” for a kid, or better yet for a baby, even exist? And if it does where can you find it? This is exactly what I asked myself, and this is how I’ve managed to do it:

1. Ramones Teddies

So when I first started searching I figured the most likely thing that would exist would be a Ramones teddy bear. I don’t know why, but I could picture some uber-fan out there that took it upon herself to dress-up a teddy bear in jeans and a biker jacket, with a crazy big black wig and maybe even some rose sunglasses, and sell it to the masses. Well maybe something like that exists out there (and if it doesn’t, it’s a damn good idea which you can have for free, gimme a heads up and I’ll be your first customer!), but I didn’t search long enough to find out. I came across the Ramones Toxic Teddies and my search ended there! These little guys are great, they’re about 3.5” in height and very well detailed, and whilst they really do look like they’re porcelain they’re only plastic, so they look like the real deal whilst they sit there on display but are battle ready to be beat and thrown about when the kid wants to play. This is the first thing I bought for my kid, when he wasn’t but three months in his moms belly, and when I told my cousin I’d bought him something she asked if it was an Iggy music box! Which it could have almost been (again, you can have this idea for free, and I’ll be your first sale!), I love that she knows me so well! And I’m pretty intrigued to see what he does with them when he’s a little older; I used to have Cowboys and Indians figures, Knights and Castles, and Star Wars figures and Transformers. I wonder if the brat will play Ramones with Johnny, Joey, Deedee and Marky?!

2. Ramones Lullabies

This was a present from his uncle Garcia, who had it for a while because we didn’t run into each other, and I could tell he was super excited to give it to me. But I didn’t think it was going to be any big deal. I mean you find out your friend’s having a baby and you buy them a little something, a little token of acknowledgment that you’re excited for them, but really what could be so great about a baby gift? Right? Wrong!!! There is the Ramones Lullabies CD! This is one of the most amazing gifts I have ever been given. I was blown away. I am so glad my baby has this in his life, and I get to put him to sleep listening to some Ramones classic! I will say that it was sort of painful listening to the songs at first, I mean here’s a band known for playing their music four times faster than everyone else, and these songs are like 20 times slower (on the glockenspiel and with no vocals). But it’s all good fun and certainly makes feeding the little guy a bottle in a rocking chair in the corner of a dark room a little more entertaining. And I love that the Ramones are finally getting the respect and notoriety they deserve; the label now has a whole ton of bands lullabyified, but the Ramones was one of the first CD’s they put out.

2. Ramones Onesie

There’s not much to say on this, I mean it’s a frickin Ramones onesie! If you’re a rock-baby and you’re gonna own one onesie then let it be this! The crest of the Ramones – Johnny, Joey, Deedee, Tommy we salute you! And we’ll probably throw up on you too! It’s a little too big for the tyke right now, it’s for 6-12 months and he’s just 3 (awww), but man am I looking forward to getting him in that thing! I bought it from a wicked store near me called Funky 7 that sells the greatest selection of t-shirts, and maybe I could have found a smaller size online somewhere, but I’m happy to support my local community. Oh and I bought Garcia Jr. a Fuel onesie there also (Metallica is to Garcia as Ramones is to me!). Who knows maybe in a few months when Jackson is old enough to wear his onesie he’ll also be ready to upgrade from the lullabies to the originals?! Well at least the slow ballads!

Of course whilst I’m being serious about all this, I’m also being tongue-in-cheek, just like a Ramones song!