No, this isn’t a leak from the set of the new Star Wars movie. It’s the airport in Tampa, Florida. Like other airports with good skate terrain, I’m sure TPA is not a bust. – Thanks to Sparky for the photos

Hey, have you heard of Thrasher? Yeah, me either until just recently, but I guess they’ve been around for a while. I thought I’d throw them a bone by directing some web traffic their way. I hope they succeed. The images above are from the always entertaining Certified Pieces of Suck, and this compilation has some actual LOL moments. I only wish they’d tell you where they are located.

This is an almost identical copy of the Vision ‘Street ghost’ deck from 1986, originally designed by John Grigley. The only thing the bootlegger changed was ‘Vision’ into ‘RB SKEBO’, whatever that means.

Here’s a gallery of photos I shot from Tigard 2009 and Pier 2009 contests, good times, enjoy… Oregon Bifecta 2009.

With the addition of this latest Roller Sports ad from 1975, there’s now 101 vintage skatemag advertisements in the gallery. It’s also easier to sort through the various companies and products available. I’ve added (8) dropdown menus that are visible on the top and bottom of the archive pages as well as at the bottom of single ad pages, underneath comments. I plan on refining the way the previews show up on the archive pages, I’ll probably make the thumbs smaller, possibly ditch the categories and show more per page. Right now they show up just like a blog post, with the latest addition at the top of the page. Use the dropdown menus to sort by company, rider, product type, year, decade, magazine, specific magazine issue, and photographer when credited. At 101 ads, I’m still not finished with the two issues of Transworld and Skateboarder magazine that I’ve taken them from. So far it’s only 70’s and 80’s, but eventually I’ll add some from the 90’s as well. Check out the ski trainer in this Roller Sports ad. I wish there were better pictures of it. I guess I could troll issues of ski magazines from 1975 to see…

I was standing in the beer aisle in the hipster grocery store and I cracked wise about the 80’s music playing over the PA. It was vacillating between hair bands and pseudo new wave. I guess new wave is a type of hair band as well. The guy stocking the shelves started telling me a story about a DJ playing Journey at a hip hop show when I noticed he had a tattoo with a Rodney Mullen graphic on it. You don’t see too many freestyle tattoos, so I commented on it. Then he shows me his Lance Mountain Future Primitives tattoo on one leg and Grosso graphic on the other. During this exchange I noticed his Green Bay Packers tattoo, which made me think of Wisconsin and the Turf, launching a whole other conversation… We could have shot the shit all night if he didn’t have to get back to work and I didn’t have to get dinner. Nice to meet you Jason!

Skate and Annoy is your source for L’ile Perrot skatepark coverage, can there be a doubt? The sanctioned DIY skatepark in L’ile Perrot, Quebec has a new pour scheduled this Saturday, rain or shine. Say hi to Kevin if you go. I only wish Skate and Annoy could cover the DIY scene in every small Canadian town.

As I was adding a cool Dan Wilkes and GSD advert to the archives I remembered that Tracker Trucks has a book coming out chronicling their 40 years of history. You might have watched Jim Gray’s humorous and in-your-face video about it on Facebook. Early reviews are good, but some readers claim that the pages don’t turn. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!

New Deluxe Flex-o-thane Super Grip Sport Fun! I’m surprised they didn’t also work the word “surf” into the packaging. I will never tire of skateboard accessories mounted on the blister packs of yesteryear. It’s a replacement skateboard (excuse me, skate board) wheel with built in bearings. I’m not sure what you were supposed to do with the oversized bolts though. They are way too long to be used as kingpins and wouldn’t work as axles.

Troy Sliter sent me this picture a long time ago. Very skate-able public art in Melbourne, Australia. I feel like I’ve seen this in a magazine since then. Hm.. Apparently “skateable” is not a word according to my built in spell check. Art is a word. A four letter word. I am just rambling.