Happy New Year from Skate and Annoy! Thanks to all our contributors, readers and tipsters. We’re working on improvements and additions to the site for a better S&A in 2014. Good health, good fortune and a Dog Cheeze for everyone in 2014! Now go out and skate!

Take off that duct tape and give the crocodile a fighting chance! Apparently, this is how Yemeni teenagers kill time.

To be honest, I am not a big fan of Christmas songs, but this one is different. THE CROSSFIRES recorded this novelty kinda tune in late 1964. It´s a story about a shopping-mall Santa and a little boy with a huge list of things he wants for Christmas, but listen for yourself.

Cool grip tape art poached from the Roundhouse Agency via Facebook.

I’m not one to encourage pushishing corporate sugar water on anyone but this video has some good footage. The best part is they had to hire extras to pretend to be mostly convincing office workers, at least until you get to the 2:00 minute mark. Photos here, and here, video after the jump. Hello Chicago!

Friend of the site Jerome over at Sa ka roulé set up a contest to submit reader designed adverts for the return of Kryptonics Wheels. He’s giving away prizes but it’s all in French and I think I missed the deadline. The ads, curiously, are all in English, but the contest rules and description are in French. If I did miss the deadline to vote (I didn’t), it’s only by a day and not 2 and half decades. The image above is actually one of those submissions. I never really saw any of the Kryptonics in their heyday, the first skateboard magazine I ever saw in my entire life was the September 1984 issue of Thrasher. I did however, meet a skate buddy who gave me his very dog-eared copies of Skateboarder and Action Now magazines. I devoured those magazines like they were scriptures. I haas been skating since the mid 70’s on plastic boards and after finally meeting/seeing real skateboards in the 80’s, I felt it was almost as if I was trying to reconnect to the era in which I started skating, napkin up for the equipment I mostly never had or saw as a kid. The Kryptonics…

If I didn’t know better I’d think this was a gag from GVK. The ad copy is absurd. “The ol’ Mersedes Bends Skatboard Factory?” Seriously? Even if “skateboard” wasn’t misspelled, that would still be a bit much. Twenty dollars will buy you the hottest skateboard you’ve ever seen. Star wheels designed by freestyle champ Ed Nadalin normally sell for $79.95 each (yes, each) but through this ad you can get a complete set for only $12. That’s an amazing 97% discount! Pre-designed configural CAMBER-FLEX? They make a big deal about including sealed bearings, so you know it must be 1976, and it is. Volume 3, Number 1, which is the October 1976 issue of Skateboarder Magazine. My best friend in grade school nada plastic board with a Mercedes logo relief on top, but no name visible anywhere. It always impressed me as a kid. We all called it the Mercedes Benz board. I’m surprised Skateboarder agreed to print this advertisement, it would be the same thing as Thrasher running an ad for Nash…. Oh wait, they actually did that all the time.

A Gift Of Mud: Episode 1, featuring Mark Scott, Tavita Scanlan, Dave Tobin, Jessica Starkweather and Mark Conahan. From Elias Parise