I can’t remember how I found this, but I ended up watching the trailer for Born to Skate and getting stoked on the different terrain and approach to a skate video. It was supposed to be an independently released feature-length film. It’s multi-discipline as well, featuring street, vert and even freestyle in the trailer. Of course, it’s over a year old and from Germany, so I have no idea whatever happened to it. It looks like it’s worth checking out though. Source: Design You Trust

Rip City’s indoor bowl is almost finished, but the sessions are not going to flow freely until an arrangement is reached with the next door neighbors. It seems like the construction and skating is just too much noise for the business that shares a wall with them. What sort of business needs a cap on the decibel levels? Are they doctors, lawyers or accountants? It turns out the spoil sports operate a juggling supplies operation with mostly online sales. Nope, you heard right. Skateboarders are disturbing the jugglers. At this point in the post I’d like to publicly heckle my friend Shawn Fendick for owning juggling supplies and a unicycle. Am I some sort of clown that amuses you? Yes.

I forgot about this Christmas tree made out of skateboards, sent to me by Jungle Jim Kuiack. At first glance I thought it was just an oddly shaped fake Christmas tree.

If I could I’d have you all over for cocktails and fudge. Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Ramadan, Kwanza, or Flying Spaghetti Day… Just be happy and enjoy yourself and your family and friends. Thanks to Rich for shooting this. He had a better shot but my beard was completely covering my face. Enlarge-o-rama. UPDATE: MC has a video clip.

This Christmas ornament is from a company called American Greetings. This is their 2009 “Son” ornament, as you can see from the bottom of the beaver’s shoes. The hook is on one of his shoes, but he balances fine on his board without it. I managed to get a decent picture of this because I didn’t break it in the process, unlike the last time I photographed an animal skateboarding. Enlarge-o-rama.

There’s not much I can say about this “invention,” except I particularly dig the shoes and pants in the close up shot. A sharp dressed man can sell anything in Swartz Creek, Michigan. Skaterhusseindave, we expect a full report. I am selling a custom built board with a caster wheel on one end that will allow the user to spin around 180 and 360 degrees and a closed wheel on the other end. The board is made of red oak with 24 gauge Aluminum in the middle. Custom skateboard comes fully assembled. Each board is custom made upon order thus the long delivery time. Since each board is custom made thus no returns will be accepted. The seller doesn’t explain what the casters or rubber stoppers are for, so you are on your own there. He has zero transactions on eBay so far, so you can be the first. – Thanks to Matthijs van Wijk for the tip.

From Hallmark, circa 1985. I’m not sure who made the decision to have the Raccoon on a skateboard, but I’m glad they did. There’s a shot of the box after the jump. Depth of field is too shallow in this shot, but I dropped the ornament and broke the wheels right after I took this so that’s as good as it gets. It’s the day before Christmas and my tree already looks like it is about to spontaneously combust.

This installation known as Ghost Parking Lot existed in Hamden, Connecticut from 1978 to 2003 (or 2007, depending on the source) yet somehow never ended up in a skate video or photo layout in a skate magazine, at least not that I am aware of. If it did, someone please enlighten me. This looked like a great spot for street skating. The shots above were found at Whoadude. They appear to be photos from when the installation was relatively new. Roadside Attractions has more recent photos that make the place look pretty decrepit. Apparently it was pretty hard to maintain. It did appear on TV shortly after it opened, and ironically, there’s a kid in the crowd who rides up to the location with a skateboard and a bewildered look on his face. – Thanks to Julian Gilbert-Davis for the tip.

Well, this started out as a way to appease our Jewish readers who may be sick of all this Christmas paraphernalia, but I couldn’t resist the pun, and so… well. There isn’t a lot out there connecting Chanukah with skateboarding. You can find a gross of generic Chanukah skateboards on Zazzle that had about as much effort put into them as well, me trying to find a good litereary device to… never mind. I did find this skateboard-themed menorah, and a statement on the Anti Defimation League web site talking about Vans shoes: An e-mail rumor long circulated on the Internet suggests that the maker of Vans skateboarding shoes is anti-Jewish because some of their shoes come with a pattern resembling a Star of David on a portion of their outsole (bottom). Some of the more conspiracy-minded e-mails suggest that this pattern was created by the company to put Jews down (“step on Jews”) or that the company was “founded by neo-Nazis.” ADL has concluded that there is no truth to any of these allegations. While ADL understands that the use of the Star of David pattern in this context may be offensive to some, there is no factual basis…

OK, I know this sort of falls outside of the scope of this website, at least I think it does, but I’m not sure anymore. So maybe this is the first and last time I post a commercial for Tony Hawk’s Huckjam bikes, unless there’s skateboarding in the future ones. Listen for his celebrity voiceover at the end. That almost looks like Tony as the mad scientist. It’ll be hard to tell from the Russian YouTube video quality. I can’t figure out how to delete an RuTube video, much less make it higher quality. My four year old loves riding his bike, and he knows who Tony Hawk is, sort of. He got really excited about this commercial. As he emphatically relayed it to his mom, “Tony Hawk makes bicycles. They’re for boys like me. They’re my size. They don’t have training wheels. They’re just for boys like me.” Come on product review!