One of my pet peeves in the industry is when magazines devote a huge spread to (Fill in favorite skateboard team) goes on tour to (Fill in exotic or mundane location). I mean how lame is that when a magazine can’t be bothered to come up with their own ideas so they end up having five pages of product placement advertising under the guise of editorial content, not to mention a full page advert from one of the same spots in the feature. That’s why, when I heard Colin Sharp was going to join his team in Sweden for a week in the middle of their tour, I practically begged him to bring a camera and shoot some pictures. You won’t find a Bacon advertisement anywhere on Skate and Annoy, unless you count the 10% of the time they show up at the top of every page… I thought I was going to be getting some awesome Malmo contest overage… but I got this tour diary instead. I kid, but only because I love. If you think this post graphic looks disgusting, you should see the version with the blue and yellow bacon. My Thanks to Colin for taking the…

Sleestock 2008. So I got hurt rumor has it Finley knocked himself out and got hauled off in an ambulance, he wins. I would have liked to get more footage but circumstance dictated otherwise. Enjoy this stuff I am going to to visit the vicodin couch. Party off.

There’s a new animated Batman movie being released on DVD to coincide with the hype of the live action feature with skateboarding actor Heath Ledger. Batman: Gotham Night has an opening sequence chock full of skateboarding. There was a pre-release rip on the web, but surprise, surprise, it’s been removed. Speaking of copyright infringement, remember the short lived Batman skateboard from Vision? The image above is from the Warner Video where they only show a second or two. If you really want to, you can see it after the jump. – Thanks to Joesf Heffner for the tip

I don’t know what happened, but this was originally supposed to be a Grindline project. There are two appropriate area web presences that should have this info: one is mum, the other appears to be defunct. The city of San Francisco still has outdated information that they are dispensing to the Portero neighborhood community. If anyone knows what went down, please spill the beans. And remember, it’s gotta be true if you read it on the Interwebs™. Jeff “Ffej” Hedges sent in some pictures of Dreamland’s latest, the recently opened skatepark in San Francisco. He also pointed me to a link with some atmosphere (Notice I didn’t say lifestyle) shots from opening day posted by Greg Smith aka Schmitty from Thrasher. I wonder if Jeff has outgrown the “Ffej” references? I’m going to assume he hasn’t until I hear otherwise from him. Check his pics after the jump.

This week’s Shot Of The Week is Marek Litinski at Burnside as shot by his fellow countryman Martin Lucuk. You don’t see a lot of Burnside shots on Skate and Annoy (Yes, yes, it’s because we’re posers…) so why not. Marek’s friend came over from Czechoslovakia the Czech Republic for a Northwest skate session and so there you have it. Check out the Shot Of The Week or see some more Lucuk shots at Cold War Skateboards.

Dan Hughes and friends used Go Skateboarding Day as an excuse for self flagellation. From Bainbridge Island as far west as Port Angeles back across to Sumner up to Bellingham and back down to Crossroads hitting 16 skateparks in all. Check out his write-up at Northwest Skater.

Troy Sliter was part of the crew from the Northwest that went on the road trip this year. His faction split off to hit some Norcal spots. He made a video and slideshow that starts where everyone split up. It’s a mixed bag of tricks… You’ll see a backyard bowl, a major new skatepark with a Ffej sighting, ShawnF crapping his pants at an NHS production facility (kid in a candy store style), some 360’s capped off with spacewalking action and live freestyle that isn’t an interpretive trail reenactment. MC gave a good account of his experience, now you can get the rest of the story…

Grover hung up a roll in at Sleestock… He’s got a broken scapula and clavicle. He’s out six weeks while it heals, and will need some physical therapy. He went to the bone doctor today who told him he was the third “older” patient today with a skateboard injury. So he won’t be skating for a while, but he can still edit videos in the meantime. Anonymous cellphone photo courtesy of Stakbot.

Another installment of Saturday Starrs brings us a newsreel style skateboarding promotional film from 1965, featuring the the Hobie team. I’d like to know who commissioned this film. Newsreel stye films have certainly gone out of vogue. This has to be at the tail end of the genre. When did they start? Some time in the 20’s? I can’t imagine this kind of film today. In any case, The Hobie team is cruising through the tourist attraction in Florida called Cypress Gardens, which was literally at the time just a big garden. At some point in time they added water skiing shows as an attraction too. The visual quality of this film is beautiful. The colors are vibrant, right down to the goofy floppy. Why is the Hobie team all of 12 years old? They must have been hot off the set of Skater Dater. What a strange time in skateboarding.

A potential meeting of tribes, if you will. Longboarders converge on the Burnside (the skatepark) after bombing Burnside, the hill. It starts at the crack of dawn, which is why you probably won’t see any coverage here, even though it sounds like a lot of fun. My wife gets to sleep in on her birthday. Check out Eastside Longboards for more details. [Source: Enemy Combatant]