From CBC News in New Brunswick, Canada

Skateboarder jailed after refusing to pay fine

A Fredericton man who refused to pay a fine for skateboarding on city streets has been taken into custody and will be sent to jail. Lee Breen, 25, was fined in the summer of 2007 after receiving several warnings. After not paying the initial $50 fine, it was increased to $100. A judge then ordered him in April to pay the fine or be sent to jail for five days.

But he’s not doing it because he’s too broke to pay the fine, he’s actually trying to make a point! He’s challenging the nuisance law under the grounds that skateboarding is not inherently dangerous and provides a environmentally friendly means of travel. About 80 people rallied outside the courthouse as he was taken into custody. Skateboarding is a crime!

– Thanks to Michael Brooke for the tip

Cue Hans Moleman and football to the groin. Here’s a video that’s “trippy” in more ways than one. The guy takes a hard slam, of course, but what’s up with the weird warping footage that looks like it’s been shot underwater or projected onto a wobbly warped sheet of plastic? Warning: Take your dramamine before watching.

Thanks to Colin Walsh Rules for the tip, who still hasn’t figured out to send them in via email instead of leaving them as comments in unrelated posts.

This weeks Shot of the Week is from an Urbana, Illinois parking garage street skating session circa 1988. The skater has since changed his name, and would probably prefer not to be identified, but we can call him Karl. Notice he has ollied on to the hood of this car via a nice cheat where you place your hand on top of the object and scoop the board up and over as you ollie and once your weight has transferred onto your hand. For those of us who weren’t Natas, that’s how you had to do it back then. No that car doesn’t belong to either myself or Karl. This was a pure dick move that I encouraged Karl to do, and he did it well. The brashness of youth.

Check out the full size Shot of the Week.

Another installment of That Place, That Time, This time coming to you from the U.K. and Dean Tyrell. These three pics date from 1977, ’78 and ’79. Dean is the same guy that sent in the shots of the crazy skateable terrain in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

More useless odds and ends. These guys in Massachusetts do touchy-feely performance art called “Zend” on skateboards inspired by stained glass. And speaking of hippies, the Seattle Times wants you to believe that longboarders have a higher calling. Ryan Sheckler gets nominated for a world wide sportmanship award in the action sports category, but loses to Shaun White. I guess there was no category for crying. An interesting note, a guy with the actual name of “Dick Pound” won the “Spirit of Sport” award for his work with the World Anti-Doping Agency. Sounds like spirit alright. According to the North County Times, Andy Macdonald is not a rebel, and he does have a cause. Do you need money? Why not fake getting hit by a car on your skateboard so your buddies can steal a purse while the driver makes sure you are OK? These kids in Vancouver, Washington did. What’s the next Xtreme!™ sport raging in Orange County? Racing Dodge Chargers on electric skateboards. The article “Not Just Any Old Token” does not refer to Dave Chappelle’s race, even if he is the only non-honky in the photo. Some skateboarders in Queens, New York found some humane remains and called 911, further laying to rest the teenage satanic skateboard worshipers theory. Some people don’t need to read a study to know that hurting yourself skateboarding can cost a lot of money, but some do.

There. I’ve wasted enough of my time, so go waste some of yours.

[Assorted tips – Mark Ward, Mike Estes, Poor Richard]

Proving that you can geek out on skateboards in an entirely different way, Clint Rutka is documenting his process of building another one of those one wheeled skateboard Segways, or Nerdway, as we like to call them here. I don’t want anyone to think I’m not picking on the guy, he’ll admit it himself. His Blog is a little difficult to follow the progress on as there is no distinct category for the project, but it seems to be a subset of his skateboard category. Geez, I think he programmed his own blog software too. Here are some, uh highlights:

Video – Source code for the controller – board design – building the frame – Gyroscope problems – more building

I still say he’s cooler than this guy.

Who says vert ramps don’t occur naturally in the “street?” (I smell an idea for one of MC’s skatepark terrain comics.) This must be one of those elliptical transitions that were all the rage for about a month in the late 80’s. Actually, back in the 80’s these support structures for the upper level at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (or ORD) were totally skateable, or at least I was never busted there. Unfortunately, I don’t have any actual skate photos of this spot, as I only rode here while waiting to be picked up. I never made a “skate specific” trip to the airport. These pictures are from when I was traveling back to Chicago in 2000, at which point some sort of skate stopper devices had been added, for how long I don’t know. I remember these being as fast as regular U-shaped slides. Do you have any action shots from this spot? Send ’em in!

They offered to send me some pictures from the vert event in China, and I said Sure, I’d check them out, and see how they went over on the site. They were kind of stingy. Pierre-Luc Gagnon won the vert event (2nd – Andy Macdonald, 3rd- Adam Taylor) and Sandro Dias’ 900 won the best trick. I don’t know if there was a street event, all they sent was vert info. You can read the canned press and see the pics after the jump. Who knows, maybe you are curious about what Zhou Qiang, President of Xingyi New Media Investment Company has to say.

There are large corporate type skateboard summer camps that everyone knows about, but if you want to stay closer to home (Unless you live in Poland) or closer to your (parent’s) hard earned cash, there are usually local options available. The Department (of Skateboarding) has been doing these for a while, and Windells too. Raise you hand if you’ve ever been hit with the buzkill of having a busload of kids show up at your favorite skatepark. I’ve got mixed emotions about pay-to-skate facilities bussing kids around to neighborhood parks. But what about your local Parks and Recreation district? Well they operate the parks (in most cases) so it makes perfect sense. Portland Parks and Recreation has a series of skate camps and learn to skate events going on this summer. You can get details here It’s a PDF link, and you have to sift through it to get all the relevant info, but one interesting thing is that there’s an event planned at Burnside, of all places. Some might find that inappropriate, while others might recognize this as an important step in maintaining relations with the city and a skatepark that is technically still existing on a trial basis. Ok, two more interesting bits, there’s a beginner’s session and an all girls skate jam too.