I found out about this from a non skater, you know, a civilian. Turns out the new indoor park is next door to one of those warehouses full of inflatable bounce houses for kids. My informant was there for a kid’s birthday party. I went to go check it out on a Saturday but nobody was there. The place looks like it’s still under construction. From what I can see, it’s standard indoor street course type fare. Basically a one hit back and forth affair. From my vantage point ( standing on the roof of the SUV backed up against the roll up door) it also looks like really close quarters. There’s also what appears to be long miniramp with one end bowled in. Before actually seeing this place I thought it might ease the pain of The Department shutting down, but I’m fairly certain it’s not going to fill that gap. Ripzu is admittedly run by parents of skateboarding children looking for a sterile environment for kids to skate. Not that the Department is especially gritty. The rates seem high but this place might actually survive based on the fact that a lot of parents are already going next…

Zarosh Eggleston is busy building his own little skatopia called Cachagua Land on hill top in California. Helping to fund it along the way, hand screened Platipuss skateboards from the multitalented artist himself. I saw this DIY concrete extravaganza in a video before. I can’t recall what it was in though, maybe Strange Notes? Spend some time trolling around Platipuss (sic), there’s a lot of interesting goings on going on over there. Zarosh accepts donations for concrete.A big enough donation will net you a limited edition t-shirt or deck. Of course you can buy one one of the others outright too. Check out his screen rig up top. I’d love to pick his brain on that. That, and why he strayed from the traditional spelling of Platypus. – Thanks to Eric Shea for the tip.

Elmo is getting to be a regular here. His stance is getting better. Chutes and ladders… I was thinking it would be fun to make an oversized Chutes and Ladders game board based on stairs and railings, and using Tech Deck figures as the game figures. The metaphor doesn’t quite work with skateboarding where sliding down the railing is a positive experience and not a punishment. – Thanks to Mark Pendergrass for the tip

The S&A secret agent form Amsterdam found these mannequins at a http://www.desigual.com store in Amsterdam. I say “secret” agent because he comes from a country with a comparatively liberal attitude towards sex and drugs, and yet he feels it’s best to remain closeted about being an adult skateboarder. Sorry Matthijs, you’ve been outted. It’s not a choice, you were born that way. Come to Portland and live your lifestyle out in the open. Congratulations on your excellent taste in grip tape.

From the Flickr photostream of Andy J Miller’s. look for it on a t-shirt somewhere.

Stock image photos of hipster skateboarders and photoshopped stickers of social networking icons. Not much else to say about this login screen for Yahoo mail, except… – Thanks to Andy, Andrew, G… … and Nik for the tip.

Fred’s family has a permission pool and has always gone out of their way to accommodate the skaters that session there. Unfortunately, their house was destroyed by fire recently. The skateboarding community is trying to give a little back this Saturday with a benefit bash at the bowl. Any money raised goes directly to Fred’s family. The location is 7385 Road 6, Firebaugh, California. Check out the flyer.

A few weekends ago I got a bee in my bonnet that resulted in wasting a lot of my time trying to duplicate the artwork on this Brand-X Weirdo board. I’m pretty sure Bernie Tostenson is my favorite skateboard artist. I loved those mid 80’s Weirdo boards, as well as the late 70’s and early 80’s Sims boards he did. I decided to try and replicate the Weirdo.

The new iPhone has a nicer camera than the old ones. I have a 3G, and it’s truly an art to get a usable skate photo with it, but the prize is all that much sweeter if you manage to get one. I had an idea a few years ago to make a print edition of a skate zine made entirely with cell phone pictures. It was several years ago actually, because I was still gainfully employed. MC bought a cheap stick on wide angle adapter for his phone. I think Mark said someone ought to make a camera with a phone, instead of making a phone with a camera. Still, there’s something to be said for the aesthetic. You make the most with what you have, flaws and all. Crappy plastic film cameras are all the rage. The image above is from an iPhone camera review of sorts on Boing Boing. The new iPhone camera has a bump in the megapixels and possibly even a faster shutter mechanism with reduced lag. Pretty soon people are going to start hording vintage iPhones for the camera effects like Holgas. Maybe there will be a Hipstamatic flim/lens combo in the future that…

Phineas & Ferb is a so-so cartoon from Disney. They’ve got some toy sets out with the two of them on things like rocket powered surfboards, and of course a skateboard. The figures look cool, but the pegs on the bottom of the longboard were kind of hard to fit into the holes. The plastic is soft on the legs and the bodies are top heavy, so they bend over a lot and can’t really stand up on their own.