I keep thinking this is a fake article, like something you’d find on the Onion, but it seems like it’s real. When I reported on it in June, it seemed like a bad idea, destined to go nowhere, but it popped up again in Denver’s Westworld News. Regardless of the plan to open a skatepark within an amusement park, I have to give him (Llewellyn Werner, the man behind the company) a little credit for advancing the sport. They are building four smaller “neighborhood” skateparks in Baghdad out of Freshpark Freshpark portable ramps to introduce kids to skateboarding free of charge. Is it working? The first park was finally installed on September 8. But since September also marks the Muslim holiday of Ramadan and daytime temperatures regularly reach into the 110s, no one has yet used the skatepark. So the official opening is planned for the second week of October. The mayor of Baghdad and Iraq’s Minister of Youth and Sport are expected to be in attendance. How did the the venture capital company come up with the idea? Jeff Wilson who is the “head of sport” has some sort of relationship with Grind King. It will be interesting to…

Rick Charnoski and Coan “Buddy” Nichols’ newest film is titled Deathbowl to Downtown, and it’s on tour right now. Tomorrow night (October 1st) for example, it’s being shown in Portland at Cinema 21. As we mentioned before, a certain skate blog may (or may not, I ‘haven’t seen it yet) show in the credits. I’d still go watch it even if that weren’t the case. I love their films, and so do you. What time? I don’t know, it’s not listed. As soon as I find out, I’ll post it. – Thanks BK. Cinema 21 Theater – 616 NW 21st Ave – Portland, OR 97209 Plan B Bar – 1305 SE 8th Ave – Portland, OR 97214

Alvie might be the original skateboarding dog. It predates Lance’s nemesis in the Powell vid and Tyson by a long shot. This photo of Alvie is from 1980, and I found it on the photo page of the 30 year reunion of Olympic Skatepark in Olympia, Washington, over at Northwest Skater. Olympic is long gone, so the reunion was held at Lower Woodland in Seattle.

This tip came labeled as “the latest in absurd use of a skateboard in a graphic,” and you’ll get no argument from me here. Looks like two pieces of canned clip art and about five minutes of work. IBM wants you to use some of their software, and in return they’ll send you a Chumby, which is actually a cool little Interwebs™ powered physical gizmo that would be fun to own as long as you didn’t have to pay for it. Chumbies (chumbi?) sell for $180, so that IBM course must be pretty expensive. See if you can get your boss to pay for it. Details online, but it’s a webmail campaign, so if it disappears you can see the ad bigger after the jump. Now that I’m looking at this, they might have actually had a guy jump out of a plane with a skateboard to pose this shot. – Thanks to Jeff Hottle for the tip.

I came across a cool t-shirt on the internet of the drawing on the left. (reacharound to Monoscope) which led me to a short piece by the artist. Oh yeah, and Huck magazine, which seems to be one of those all action sports mags from the U.K. has the shirt in their store.

In case you didn’t read the comments on the previous custom board graphics post, JF pointed out the Board Pusher website. They have a much better range of sizes and shapes and are skate-centric. I wonder how the quality compares.

After the very high rent Getty Images bought the very proletariat iStockPhoto they started sending out a weekly email called Hot Shots that highlights eight pictures from each service. Usually the iStock photos rival and sometimes even best the Getty choices, but not this week. Included in the iStock top eight is this shot of a guy who looks like he’s going to bail on his massive living room ollie over a couch. That’s one short takeoff. I’m not exactly sure what the point of this one is. I’m not an advertising genius, but the shot isn’t even well executed. Get some.

Wrapping up some longboard-centric items. First up is fashion designer Adam Kimmel’s promo film Claremont consisting of a couple of beardos screaming downhill in suits we can only assume were designed by Adam Kimmel. I’m not exactly sure how the tie in works, but it seems to be getting people talking. The right people? I can’t make that call. I thought it was a hoax at first, as far as Adam Kimmel being in the fashion industry, but it would have to be an elaborate one. The downhill action looks insanely fast. These guys even pass a car as well as passing the camera between themselves and shooting backwards. I don’t know how they do it, but my helmet is off to them. They make a certain German downhiller look like a wuss in comparison. Supposedly, German police are on the lookout for a man assumed to be “a professional stuntman” in full leathers who reached 62 MPH on a two mile stretch of the Autobahn after getting a tow in by a motorcycle. Pfffft! Talk to me when you do it in light blue polyester. Lastly, there’s the L.A. Times article titled More skaters switching to longboards, from the…

“I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.  It is not so desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.” -Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, 1849 On August 29th, Derek Anderson (Mark Conahan’s age) committed a breach of peace when he scaled a 300-foot crane located in the beer garden of the Doghouse Public House.  This act of civil disobedience was an aim to shed some light on a particular subject: the Dudhope Skatepark, pictured above courtesy of Google Maps user ihatetechnology,  in Westport, Dundee, UK.

Alright everybody, get your plates of shrimp ready. Two days after I found out my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, I got this tip. Kimberly, Lexi and Haylea donated their time and assets to pose for Randal Trucks Buy a set, save a set campaign in where if you buy a set of their (limited edition?) pink trucks, proceeds will benefit the American Breast Cancer Foundation. The percentage of the proceeds to be donated is unclear. In fact, there is not a lot of information available other than about 30 pictures of the girls holding their assets and some pink trucks. The web page seems to have been screwed up since I last checked. If ever there was a case for switching over to a Mac, this might be it. Windows users might find most of these images to be hidden in the shadows. Praise Steve Jobs and a lighter gamma setting, or get ready to hit the shadow/highlight adjustment in Photoshop. Before you buy a set or save a set, check out the sets. UPDATE: Where did the pictures go? Well it turns out some of them were deemed inappropriate by the American Breast Cancer Foundation, and they…