It’s that time of the week again, making up for lost time and pushing the envelope of freshness dating. The Los Angeles Times has a nice historical piece on the Signal Hill Speed Run that has a lot of interesting tidbits of information. For instance, I had read that one year a previously non-skating longshoreman showed up to enter, but I wasn’t aware that he blew off his daughter’s baptism to compete. This article also goes into more detail on some of the hair raising crashes that took place. The amount of mayhem that took place is pretty amazing. In today’s litigation heavy insurance risk climate, that race wouldn’t have made it past the second run of the first year. Yes, this is skateboarding. The picture on the left is John Hutson from Thrasher Magazine of January 1981. The shot of Hutson was actually taken at a different race on the Laguna Seca road racing course in 1980, (Signal Hill officially ended in ’79) Hutson was a first place finisher at both. The shot on the right was poached from Vetter design. Check out the L.A. Times article Board out of their minds. Free registration may be required.

[Source: SkateDaily]

A certain someone I know loves those ridiculously tacky nature shirts with airbrush styled wolves and eagles and bears. He’s been known to frequent many a skate spot wearing a shirt covered in similarly styled killer whales frolicking all over it. Some one at Element either shares his sense of humor or has the same bad taste. They have collaborated with The Mountain on a series skateboards and t-shirts. Seriously? I mean is this a goof or what? What’s next, a collaboration with the guys who make… I don’t know, “No Fear” t-shirts? See if you can make sense of this.

Speaking of the S-Board, there’s also a thing called the Hurricane Board that appears to be trying to avoid patent infringement by switching the rotating connection link in the center into a wiggly spring instead. I say “appears” becasue the web site looks like it has had all the content removed. The “inventor” is a Virginian named No Un Kwak who may not know Kang Sin-ki, but I’m sure he’s seen his work. For some reason, the YouTube videos have embedding disabled. Silly Kwak.

Appearing as Corey Webster: Sebastian Stigar. As Chrissy: Ida Elise Broch. As Hook: Espen Klouman Høiner Yeah, I looked up that “ø” code, although he looks more like a James Spader in Pretty in Pink than he does like Hook in Thrashin. What’s the point? Oh yeah, some Swedes Norwegians have remade Thrashin into a snowboarding movie. The hero of the movie is a hotshot skater who moves to the mountains where nobody skates, so he has to take up snowboarding to fit in. Then he falls in love with the village badass’ girlfriend, who beats him up. Wait, the village tough guy beats him up, not the girl. Actually, this is sounding more and more like Better Off Dead. I don’t know what kind of crazy aspect ratio this film was shot in, but the trailer seems really wide. It helps with the skate stunt double since they never show him from kneecaps up. Hey, want to fit in at your school? A good way to blend in with crowd and not draw any undue attention to yourself is to skate through the hallways at school busting kickflips. This may be just another one of those sports genre Romeo and Juliet knockoffs, but at least they have more spectacular and majestic scenery for the locations. Apparently, they also have more blue locations too. You can watch the fancy film trailer at the official site (Swedish Norwegian) or on Youtube after the jump. Prison Break/Big Lebowski fans will appreciate the casting of Peter Stormare AKA John Abruzzi and the Nihilist casting.

[Source: Snowbroader – That’s no typo either ]

If I didn’t know any better I’d say that was our own MC in that still shot from the S-Board news page above.

S-Board is proud to introduce you to the all new exclusive S-Board AT!!!. This latest member of the S-Board family offers you all the S-Board’s flexibility without the limitations of needing a smooth surface. The S-Board AT has been designed and manufactured in the UK by S-Board Ltd. Check out the new video in the All Terrain section and see what you could achieve.

More extreme wacky skateboards after the jump.

Skateboarding Bet is a short stop action animation made with Legos that look like they came from my set I had as a kid, considering you can get fancy skatepark Lego sets these days. It’s short. It’s here. You might as well watch it. You’re just here wasting time while at work, right?

I once “dated” a girl from Macomb Illinois who was a little bit… out there. This video about a Macomb Illinois skatepark controversy sheds a lot of light on the situation. Not the skatepark situation, mind you.

I love it when science fiction type technology becomes real, and so do you. A cheeky brit (uses the F-word in interviews!) has invented a polymer foam that is flexible until the molecules are excited, and then it get harder faster than a 13 year old boy slow dancing. So far it’s already in use in some sports equipment like shin guards and goalie gloves for soccer. Quiksilver has reportedly made a beanie with the material, called 3do foam, although a web search of the site reveals nothing. (Update: Here’s a buy link, but 6500 Euro is $9,595. That can’t be right. ) Globe shoes has an exclusive action sports footwear license for the material, and is said to be using it for absorbing heal impact without sacrificing flexibility. It sounds like an amazing breakthrough for street skaters, and even bowl riders who have been known to get a bruised heal. Suddenly, knee and hip pads can be totally unobtrusive as well. The foam only works where it is up against a somewhat rigid surface, so it won’t protect you against getting a board to the nuts. Now if they can just get this technology into trucker hats and hoodies, maybe you’ll finally see fashionable helmets at skateparks. You can watch a video of a reporter whacking the inventor on the head with a shovel after the jump. – Thanks to Grumpy Joe for the tip.

I love iStockphoto. I’ve even purchased a couple of pictures for use on Skate and Annoy, non skateboarding pictures, mind you. The big picture on the left came up on a Google alert today, and all it said was “Extreme Skateboarding,” so I had to check. A cursory search for other “Extreme Skateboarding” images brought up 44 inages total, a couple of which were also funny. Funny in that they aren’t very, well, you know, Extreme!™ There’s standing guy on the top right, and my favorite, a kid doing a slide of sorts with his hands planted. In thumbnail view it just looks like an eviscerated torso.. Hold on, that’s not right. The torso is missing, so it’s just a couple of legs and an ass on a skateboard. Wait, the photog has labeled it Headless Skateboarder. Gawd, what a great post I just made.