Almost, but not entirely like the episode of the Simpsons where Homer gives Marge a bowling ball with his name on it. At least this Justin Bieber themed Mother’s Day gift came with the receipt. Give it up for Hot topic. Boo Ya! Oh snap. Don’t go there.

Paul Frank’s Julius the monkey dreams about skateboards on the inside cover of the 2008 book Only in Dreams.

Oh Icee bear, who shall remain nameless because it apparently doesn’t actually have a name other than “Polar Bear.” How I love you neo-Igloo Caps type face and your permanently retro identity. You’ve been holding out on me for so long, always on an ice surfboard, and in the past decade, an ice snowboard. Countless are the times that I’ve put a crick in my neck doing a double take while passing an Icee machine, only to find that it was still just a snowboard. I’VE GOT NOTHING AGAINST SNOWBOARDING. I imagine I’d love it if I was still doing it. Talk to me again in a year, my son is dying to go snowboarding on “Mountain Hood.” Icees are perfect on a hot sunny day, so it only makes sense the company is based in a really hot, arid climate like… Ontario, Canada. Huh, there’s no city there.. Oh no, that’s Ontario, California. I thought about lifting this sign from the Icee store at the mall, but the teenager behind the counter was so intent on providing good customer service that she wouldn’t leave me alone long enough to filch it. Turns out you can download a crisp semi-high…

I was at the mall yesterday, accumulated material for at least four posts. I should hang out there more often. There’s like 15 stores dedicated to various aspects of my “lifetsyle.” I got to see an iPad in person. I was dubious at first, but they really are greater than the sum of their parts, ie. an oversized iPhone. The display is really bitching, and it’s hella thin. I say “hella” because I’m overcompensating for the fact that I feel old because I couldn’t figure out how to play Touchgrind on the iPad.

Nissen is a girls clothing brand in Japan. This commercial is airing in Tokyo. That’s all I have to say on the subject, except thanks to Jeff Thompson for the tip.

Smokey Bones Bar & FIre Grill seems completely at odds with the kids menu that John Egertson picked up. There are jiggle girls and bunny suits over on that dot com. Meanwhile, the kid’s menu looks like it was farmed out overseas. Not just the character style, but the text too. Man, what a find this one is though. Its… it’s… perfect.

Haven’t heard from the Puehse Twins lately, wonder what they’re up to? Making movies that I’m going to have to hide from my kids because if they ever see this, I’m going to have to watch it 100 times. The DVD release of Nic an Tristan Go Mega Dega! is June 8, 2010. – Thanks to Simon Mrozinski for the tip.

Earth Ace, your favorite skateboarding astronaut has some footy. Unfortunately it’s the recurring theme of whiny kids becoming heroes. Unlikeable characters you haven’t seen since the most vertical primate. Seriously, this is one annoying protagonist. I know this is meant for kids, but it’s really kind of funny that on the one hand, he can’t win a skateboard race with a bully, but on the other hand he’s an astronaut charged with saving the solar system. It starts with a nice Thrashin’ style downhill race.

Well, Xtreme Fun anyway. Maybe someone already trademarked “Extreme Fun.” Blastems have a great name that could only be made better by adding the word “sugar” in front of it. However, it isn’t going to happen, because It’s a healthy-ish, or something like that.

You might have noticed I haven’t been updating as frequently as usual for a the past couple of weeks. It’s because I’ve been swamped with things in the real world, and I’ve been spending a lot of my S&A time tinkering with a redesign. I got sick of looking at the old site. It had hadn’t changed considerably since 2006 when I launched the blog part of the site. The old look was cobbled together as I went along. It wasn’t really meant to be long term, but things got away from me and it was “good enough.” I almost went with a prepackaged theme, but that would have been too easy. This new one is a work in progress, you’ll notice a lot of missing items that will start to reappear in the next week or so. Some details may change from day to day for a while too. Eventually all the static pages will be brought into the new look as well, but for now it’s still legacy. I’ve got a few little gimmicks I’m considering, like I might make some adjustments under the hood to allow you to chose from a couple different theme variations, including “Skate…