The saga of Caz’s ramp continues. When assembled, The ramp is 75 feet long and ten and a half feet deep in the deep end. It’s half shallow, half deep with a connecting hip section. You can see pictures and video of the ramp in it’s various states on Antigravity Press, and supposedly on the Plywood Benders site. I never skated this thing but heard about it every now and again. It was a private operation in a barn somewhere, then it was supposed to be some sort of a skate camp type operation that never got off the ground, and lastly it was being assembled in an indoor skatepark in Troutdale Oregon that never opened due to permitting problems. Now it can be yours if you have an extra $10,000 and a really, really large garage. The pictures form the Craig’s List post makes it look like a Noah’s Ark episode of In Search Of. In fact, isn’t that Bigfoot in the upper right hand shot? Let’s hope that thing get’s sold before the rain hits. Thanks to Joe Martin for the tip.

Yeah that’s the legendary Natas Kaupas hawking those incredibly crappy looking plastic sunglasses. Head on over to the Skateboard Archives and check out the, uh, print media archives. It’s a very loose collection of old skateboard magazine covers and assorted pages within those magazines. The real treasure is the funky old advertisements for long defunct or soon to be huge companies. There are lots of shots of pro skaters in questionable poses, a ton of vert riding with pads and helmets, obscure hard goods manufacturers (Rannalli Trucks anyone?) and all kinds of good stuff mostly centered on the 80’s and early 90’s. Also interesting are all the mail order shops with completes going for $99 and up. On the downside, the archives are not well organized or very consistent. The detail pages are not quite big enough to read everything, but it’s still a fascinating trip in the Way Back machine. Right, Sherman? Check out The Skateboard Archives.

Cooky Cucumber is no kook. She’s on a skateboard, but her friend Katie Carrot on the balance board… well, we can’t vouch for her. Actually, these gals may not even know each other, I think Mr Potato Head is playing the field a little bit. “Hey baby, nobody said we were exclusive!” 2025 Update: At the time of the original post there weren’t many images of this anywhere. Today there are all kinds of images available, so I’ve updated some of the low res pics. It’s funny because if you do an image search a lot of them are from this original post.

One of the best WTF marketing crossovers, Zenetti, a company that makes tacky fancy rims for shallow people obsessed with automobiles and the bling lifestyle, now has a skateboarding team. Zenetti the automotive leader in wheel design has teamed up with Dominic DeLuca of the world famous skate shop & streetwear boutique; Brooklyn Projects; to form the wheel industries first ever official skate team. This is not your typical sponsorship scenario, where a company just giving a skateboarder a set of wheels, poses for a picture and you never hear about them again. This is an official skate team with a complete partnership, including magazine features, show appearances and advertising campaign. We have some of the top skate professionals in the world representing our brand and feel that our partnership will help elevate the industry and spark a new trend. These athletes were hand picked by Dominic and Zenetti for their trendsetting style as well as the fact that they embody what Zenetti stands for as a brand; superior performance, cutting edge style, and class. They hope the team will “help elevate the industry and spark a new trend.” Which industry? Who knows? Is the new trend to use demographic…

I don’t know who or what Don Don the dog is, except that he shows up on a bunch of crap that you can buy, kind of like Paul Frank’s Julius. In this case, Don Don’s stomach has been replaced with a surgically grafted alarm clock, and he’s standing on a skateboard. 24$ at Karma Kiss.

We need more shots for Shot of the Week – that little picture that appears on the front page on the right side. Check out other shots to get an idea of the info we need. I’ve got one more shot lined up (by J. Grant Brittain, no less!) and my wife is about to have a baby so I won’t have time to track more down. Even though you’ll be side by side with Brittain, the shots don’t have to be AWESOME (at least not yet!), just pretty good, or unsusual, or interesting, or not by me! Although Grover is more embarassed of the shirt he is wearing than his maneuver, Benihana flyouts will not be accepted. This job pays absolutely nothing, but a web link to the site of your choice. Don’t nominate someone else’s shot either, I need direct permission from the photographer. Send small thumbnails of potential S.O.T.W.s to editor@ this fine web site.

Earth Patrol Media shows us what happens when second (and third) string skateboard company moguls get in to the Dew Tour. Unfortunately, they were unable to abscond with the effigy of Ryan Sheckler, or burn it. Can you believe they want to sell you Dew Tour skateboards for $80? These are not completes mind you, just the deck. It’s ironic that the graphic on the deck is a bunch of robots. Maybe they’ll make one with lemmings next time. Check it out.

This skateboarding cow is from a series of advertisements for McDonald’s in China that features exercising cows. A few advertising blogs have spotlighted it, but they don’t appear to know anything about it (other than who made it) and never seem to point back to the source of the image. It took me a few days to find someone who reproduced it larger. Check it out after the jump.

Sure, you could buy some riser pads that light up for $17 a piece (!) , or you could go to Instructables for the details on how to bust open some bicycle safety lights and wire them up so it looks like your wheels are glowing. This way you won’t be violating any patents.

I put in a brief appearance at the Vancouver leg of the Drop-In with Airspeed’s Geth Noble yesterday. A handful of people showed up, and it was a good time. I don’t know if he learned anything useful, but he listened and skated well. I hate to disappoint Danimal, but I only took a few pictures. You can see them all after the jump.