I know these are easy targets, but sometimes there is something to be said for executing the idea, no matter how simple it is. I like these celebrity fuckup models from Think Skateboards. On the left is the Britney Spears series, and the right is the somewhat older Jailbait series.

[Source - Sirj Skateboardiing]

People love to complain about the frequency of advertisements in Thrasher and Transworld. When I first started reading Thrasher one of the things I liked about it was pouring over all the small ads in the back for all the obscure companies. When I acquired a stack of old Skateboarder and Action Now, looking at all the ads for funky skateboards and accessories was more interesting than the actual articles. Now I’m going to propose that you check out a magazine full of nothing but advertisements. Concrete Wave has been publishing a Buyers Guide for some years now. If there’s one place where you can pour over ads for obscure companies making odd skateboard products, this is it. Take the ad for Paris Trucks (Insert Ms hilton rides hard joke), above right. Who knew there was such a company? OK, lot’s of people that probably travel in a different circle. It’s actually a funny advert. They’ve decided to make an environmentally progressive “green” skateboard truck. In order reduce the carbon footprint as much as possible, they’ve gone to the extreme lengths of not actually producing the truck. I am amused.

The buyers guide is a print issue with no less than four alternate covers. The one above features a rad Dan Bourqui photo of Steve Stedham. The format has been changed up a bit and as a result is a lot more interesting to look at. The print issue goes to subscribers and is free at skateshops that carry Concrete Wave. You can also download a 27MB PDF here.

We get all kinds of great skateboarding business opportunities sent to the SnA corporate offices.

Dear Sir/Madam,

How are you? I hope everything goes very well at your side.

We are a specialized manufacturer and exporter which mainly deals with various kinds of skateboard shoes. Attached are some new styles of our products for your reference, pls check. If any interest, pls don’t hesitate to contact with us.

Any comments from you will be highly appreciated.

B.Rgds,
Steven
TOPWAY INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD.
Quanzhou City,Fujian,China

Conahan does a lot of artsy fartsy stuff, some say he even likes saxophones. He’s got a pretty cool shirt design at his home base, Antigravity Press, called the Pool Pirate. It’s analog baby. Since we (OK, I) also want to appeal to the two street skaters that might read this site, I’ve come up with a more digital version called the Curb Pirate. To be fair, I made it out stuff I had laying around, including a cannibalized a font called SkulCApz, whereas Mark actually, you know, drew his utilizing some sort of skill set.

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Getting ready to take a trip to Florida with my two and a half year old kid. Need to buy him a carry on bag. Must fight competing urges to barf and/or buy an Elmo skateboarding suitcase. See it larger after the jump.

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Someone at my daughter’s school was trying to sell this flimsy p.o.s. and when there were no takers he gave it to her. She was appalled and brought it home before anyone could see her with it. Cummins Industrial Tools rechristened Tools now will sell you this deathtrap made in China to their high standards for $9.99. I’m guessing that means their standards when they were high on drugs. The shrinkwrap is probably adding significant strength to the deck. Those plastic baseplates are inspired by the old Tracker Ultralights. I am tempted to see which will last longer, the Cummins Bravo or $9.99 worth of beer.

Granted, the site is named Hypebeast, but they are reporting that the Disney corporation has Christian Hosoi to design some limited edition skate decks and apparel. No actual confirmations yet, so maybe it was just an excuse to make that cool graphic. Old Walt must be (rock and) rolling in his grave, except for his cryogenically frozen head. - Thanks to JF for the tip.

I’m not a fan of the photo sequence in skateboarding. I prefer Henri Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment approach, which means I miss a lot of shots. I was following Gizmodo with some interest for news of a new camera from Casio called the EXILIM Pro EX-F1. It’s a high resolution (six megapixel) camera that has a burst rate of 60 frames per second at full resolution. In case you don’t know your megapixels, 6mp is good enough for any skate magazines cover without a crop. Basically, it’s got a buffer for 60 frames, you can cram them all into a one second burst of 60fps or spread them out as far as 12 seconds, or 5 frames per second. You’ve probably seen the strobe light flashes of a still photographer in real life or at the very least in skate video. I believe those huys are usually shooting around 8fps, or maybe a few more. Here’s another interesting thing about this camera, it’s got a feature called pre-record that buffers a few frames before you even hit the shutter button, just in case you are still a little slow predicting the action. Ever seen a video grab printed in a magazine? Sounds absurd, but it’s been done before. The It’s also got a high speed movie recording option at 300 fps, 600 fps or 1,200 fps, although at lower resolutions. Surely this camera has a sky high price to match it’s impressive technological capabilities, right? Wrong. It should be available later this year for a MSRP of $999. The fact that there are hordes of skate photographers out there has not been lost on Casio. They’ve got video and still skateboarding on the product web site.

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Stop the presses! The days of slipping, banana peel-style off the top of your deck are over. Ferrari has made an important advance in friction technology. Apparently, the grip tape on this Ferrari branded skateboard is also coated with some sort of magical anti-slip material, which would make it even gripier than regular old grip tape. I hope they didn’t use spray-tack on griptape, otherwise my patent dreams are over.

The Ferrari skateboard features a seven-layer Canadian maple board and stretches 79 cm by 20 cm. The Grip Tape on the upper surface (with Ferrari logo) is coated in an anti-slip material to improve grip. A stunning Ferrari red finish, the Italian tricolour and the Prancing Horse logo adorn the underside. The skateboard also has black 54 x 36 mm polyurethane wheels custom moulded with a red stripe. The Ferrari skateboard comes in a stylish red nylon carry bag too.

Ferrari has been slapping their logo and PMS color matched red paint on host of mediocre non-automotive devices such as laptop computers for several years now. Further diluting the brand name with a mediocre skateboard must have seemed like a good idea to them as well. Who makes those trucks and how hard are those wheels? Who cares, because it comes with a stylish red nylon carry bag! Count me in. I’m sure this $169 bargain will be available from the Ferrari Store for a long, long time, but just in case it isn’t, there are pictures after the jump. Seriously, who is this aimed at? I guess this would be the skateboard James Spader would have ridden in Pretty in Pink.

[Source: Be Sportier]

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Dear Sirs We are one exporter of landwing in Shandong,China. The landwing is new wind sport way. It can help the player of ln-line skating and snow skating to move by wind power on the land. We have two size Landwing as follow: Effective Area Size 2.8m2 297cm*140cm 3.9m2 340cm*155cm If you are interest this products. Please contact us freely. We can send some pictures for your reference. Hope your early reply. Best Regards Jinsheng Qu Weifang Ruifeng Artex Co.,Ltd.
Weifang,Shandong,China

Turns out by “snowskating” they mean skiing. Sure, the product is called “landwing” but the web site is Landsail.com.cn. It’s all in Chinese and I can’t read it anyway. Sometimes I feel sorry for these guys. This gentleman emailed me a bunch of rollerblade pictures unsolicited, and then took the trouble to send skateboarding shots when I asked if he had any. All for naught.