I got a tip about this Cisco advert and managed to catch it on my DVR without realizing it, but I accidentally deleted it before I could digitize it. I was waiting to catch it again but it seems like it only aired on one week. Cisco commercials show up, but it’s always a different one. Since then, discussions have popped up all over. So I finally decided to pull it of the Cisco web site. There are additional spots that didn’t air on TV. I’ve put them all together in one vid so you don’t need to wait through the intermissions. Where to start on this… it’s too easy. The main thing they are trying to sell is the fact that with Cisco Networks you can be in touch with everyone on a project almost instantly, no matter where they are. Ironically, the ad agency who put his together couldn’t have been more out of touch with skateboarding culture or history. – Thanks to Tracy Sigler and Paige for the tip.

Yeah, it’s got nothing to do with skateboarding, other than a few incidental shots each episode, but as far as mindless entertainment goes, it’s regularly good for a few laughs, so I guess I was wrong about the Rob and Big show. Plus I always liked the theme song from the Courtship of Eddies Father. Or maybe I had a crush on Mrs. Livingston. Hello, Mr Eddie’s father. Let the hate mail commence.

OK, Officer Salvatore Rivieri doesn’t just hate skateboarders. He hates radio controlled cars, or maybe street artists or most likely himself, because he’s been driving that ridiculous go-cart police car for at least a year. Another video has surfaced of officer Rivieri serving and protecting. Apparently this guy has a very short fuse. Here’s hoping he gets an attitude adjustment via painfully boring and embarrassing anger management counseling, or better yet, an old fashioned pink slip. What a dick. – Thanks to Eric Cherry for the tip.

Finally got a decent capture of this old Wonder Woman episode. I’m distilling most of the non-skateboarding parts out of edit. There are bits out there on the Interwebs&trade, but this will be the most complete. Wait for it. It’s worth it.

There are quite a few bamboo based boards out there. According to some sources (more on that in a few) the skateboard industry has surpassed the hardwood floor industry as the number one world consumer of hard maple trees. lets put that into perspective. If properly cared for, a hardwood floor can last 100 plus years in house, while a skateboard isn’t going to last a year unless you’re just using it for transportation. Now consider that a maple tree takes 28 years to mature for use commercially. Sustainability is big in industry right now. It’s even creeping into skateboarding, mostly through the red headed stepchild of skateboarding, longboarding. I’ve seen a few of them up close and they don’t look quite ready for prime time, at least as far as short boards go. It sure would be great if a decent shortboard could be made out of bamboo. There’s a TV program on the Science Channel called Invention Nation where a bunch of hippies the show’s hosts travel the country in a biodiesel powered van and investigate cottage industry inventors of green technologies. It’s a short bus, but it’s green, not yellow. Comet Skateboards was featured on the Less…

Tony Hawk is so famous he even made it on Celebrity Baby Blog, where they point out that he’s expecting his fourth child with his third wife. That means another appearance on MTV’s Cribs must be in the works since the first two wives got theirs. Do you want to watch video of tony Hawk rubbing his wife’s belly? (No.) He’s surprisingly jovial considering the freelance TMZ cameraman/celebrity stalker is a complete moron. “Are you happy with how the elections turned out?” Seriously? There’s more, but it’s for fanboys only. I believe this is exactly kind of crap that Paying in Pain is warning you about. – Thanks to… my wife(!) for the tip.

Just because Tony Hawk has financial stake in ShredorDie.com doesn’t mean he has turn over every embarrassing bit of memorabilia, but it looks like he has to some extent. I was sent to Japan to be on a show called “Incredible Kids” (or something like that) when I was 14. They asked me to demonstrate tricks, but to change some of the names to be “Japanese friendly.” I was just excited to be overseas on my own, so I went along with it. Tony says he was 14 at the time but he looks more like a 12 year old Macaulay Culkin in some of these shots. It’s pretty entertaining stuff. Part of the show has Tony attempting a few launch ramp gap jumps over an increasingly large number of audience members. No, the distance doesn’t get any greater, they just stuff more people in between. It’s pretty crazy how young he looks. It’s even crazier that these people think helmets will help them if Tony comes up short. Tony even grabs for the jumps. Nowadays he’d ollie it or 360 air over it. Check out the takeoff ramp. It looks like one of those old Firestone metal frame and…

I’ve been watching Fuel TV more and more lately. I have the DVR set up to pick up “skateboard” in the title and descriptions, that way I don’t have to sift through all the extraneous wakeboarding, motocross, BMX and snowboard programing. I’ve blown it off for a couple years because I figured it would all be watered down X-Games drivel that I just don’t want to sit through. There is still a little bit of that in their skateboard programming, but for the most part it seems like they are in tune or at least sympathetic with the “lifestyle,” as if someone in programing actually skates. It’s mostly street oriented but they do throw in the tranny and vert occasionally. In general they have a respect for the history of skateboarding, meaning they don’t offhandedly dismiss everything that happened over two years ago. It’s not perfect by any means though, but surely acceptable for a daily dose of skateboarding on your TV. Of course, these are probably the “good old days” of Fuel TV, akin to when MTV started and used to actually play music videos. In five years Fuel TV could end up being a hugely popular channel full…

Yes, this is old news, thank you. Because the media portrayal of skateboarding it’s not enough of a zoo already, pro (?) skateboarder Chad Knight is supposed to be appearing on the January 6th premier of the revamped version American Gladiators on NBC. I have that question mark in there because I don’t know anything about Chad. His official web site is blocked by the content filter where I work (?! – Hey, I’m on my break!) but according to this outdated (and not dated) interview with Chad in Skateboarder, Chad turned pro in 1997 an had a model on the now defunct INC. skateboards brand by Syndrome. Currently he’s on 1031, which is ether a shop or a clothing line or who knows what since the mailing address is in California but you have to buy everything from Beer City in Milwaukee. Kristian Svitak seems to be the main perpetrator. Hell, I don’t know. Wow, it’s hosted by Laila Ali and Hulk Hogan. Why isn’t Mike V. on this? [Source: BuddyTV]

There once was a TV series called Brainchild on the Science Channel that seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. There are a few mentions on discussion boards dating back to 2003, but that’s about it. Each hour long episode had three or four different inventions and their history highlighted. This particular episode dealt with Extreme!™ sports and featured skateboards, snowboards, and jet boats. There’s about five minutes of footage in the skateboard section, so as you can imagine, it’s pretty vague. The thing that is most interesting is that it features interviews with Kevin Thatcher (I can’t beleive that I kind of have to explain that he was the first and most beloved editor of Thrasher…) as well as Frank Nasworthy, the “inventor” of the urethane skateboard wheel. I always scratch my head when he gets credited with inventing the urethane skateboard wheel, since they were actually invented and used on rollerskating wheels first, and in the 70’s there were still rollerskating companies involved in skateboarding, so it seems pretty much like an obvious thing to do, he just did it first I guess. As for the original date of the program, I didn’t catch the…