Yes folks, it’s the same people that bring you modern day cannibals, a woman who had 69 babies and the 200 pound tumor. The 9th wonder of the world appears to be something known as the “Urban Jib Park.” Witness the wonder and the horror of The Ripley’s Urban Rail Park – an urban rider’s dream, according to the folks at Polson Pier in Toronto, where it is located. Although open since December 21st, pictures of the actual park appear to be as rare as ostrich-footed Africans. Apparently, they built some rails at the bottom of a pile of snow for the snowboarders and put up a big heated tent with some ramps for the skaters. Things must be bleak in Toronto, because you can even buy a season pass for all this awesomeness: 20ft wide 4 foot mini-ramp 4 stair with hand rail 60 ft wide bank with grind box at the top 5 ft ¼ pipe 6 ft ¼ pipe Fun box with rail They will have unspecified rock concerts, pro demos and contests. I predict that this park sucks – BELIEVE IT OR NOT!! [Source: PR-Inside]

A 17 year old girl scout named Kaitlin Fabich is leading a push to get a skatepark built in her town. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to be about how more young girls are getting into skateboarding. You see, Kaitlin doesn’t skate, she’s just using the process to qualify for a Gold Award in Girl Scouting. It makes me doubt her long term commitment to the project, but if it helps in any way then it’s further proof that skateboarding has saturated popular culture. Aaack! Do we need more proof? I guess not. Boy Scouts have ranks, the highest being an Eagle Scout. One of the things you have to do to get that rank is to organize a community service project and log X amount of hours, as well as get X amount of volunteer hours from your peers. Girls Scouts don’t have ranks I guess, they just have awards. At 17, I think Kaitlin needs to get her ass in gear before she gets the boot for being to old. Of course, reading that she was 17 made me think of going a different direction with the post graphic, but I decided on a wholesome approach. The “Scouting” and…

The long-planned snake run connecting upper and lower Lincoln City skatepark is in progress. They tore out the tight tranny on the west side of the park and started the snake there. It runs down the hill at a fairly steep angle with four or five turns and there will be a big wall at the bottom to direct you back up the hill. It is going to be gnarly! Word is they will start to pour next week. Dreamland strikes again! UPDATE: Expanded coverage at EPM

X-Court is where you go to fight Extreme!™ traffic tickets. It’s a weak joke, I know. I found these pics at Dan Hughes’ Northwest Skater site. He’s one traveling, documenting mofo. Doesn’t he know that Arizona is not in the Northwest?

To placate our massive Dunedin Florida reader base, here’s a link to an amusing video of Tampa Bay’s 10 News coverage of the Stirling skatepark. It’s the complete package. There’s a before and after advertising spot for senior citizens choosing medicare coverage (It is Florida), and an over earnest reporter who makes Bob Burbank sound understated. He also gets on the old stunt wood for the first time (Liar!) since 1989. My personal favorite, when they quote the town council as saying the half a million dollars was money well spent as the camera pans to reveals a skatepark devoid of life except for the reporter and one skater. Good stuff. – Thanks to Tito for the tip.

You may have noticed banner ads in rotation for Razorcake magazine here on Skate and Annoy. It’s originally the brainchild of Todd Taylor, author, punk rocker, publisher, skater, drinker and general all around good guy to know. Razorcake is bigger than him now, it’s a non-profit organization for baby Jesus’ sake! Issue #41 has a seven page article, How to fight for a skatepark that has heroes, villains and an epic tale of struggle, much like Homer’s Odyssey – mostly because the villains seem to have the intellect of Homer Simpson. Imagine you are tied to a railroad track in the middle of a dessert, and you can see the smoke from the locomotive approaching over the horizon. You think to yourself, surely someone will find and help me, right up until the point where you can see engine approaching, and feel the rails rumble. Todd Taylor was tied to the tracks just blocks away from his apartment as the Red Tape engineer of the City of L.A., The Cho-Bot, and Teflon were intent on railroading prefab modular skateparks from a playground company down the throats and up the collective asses of his L.A. neighborhood’s skateboarding population. It’s a good…

The August 7th 2007 issue of Time magazine had an article about the design of modern skateparks titled “It’s All in the Swoop.” Seriously? August of 2007 and I’m just now finding out about it? Come on people! Anyway, by “modern” they mean tranny, so if you’re looking for street plaza coverage you can save your breath and write a letter to the editor – theirs, not me. I didn’t write it, I’m just reporting on what’s out there. I suspect that delving into that as well would have taken up more editorial space then they had alloted. Quoted in the interview are Wally Hollyday, Mark Hubbard and Tim Payne. Mentioned in article are the firms of SITE Design Group, Dreamland, Team Pain and Grindline. An interesting point is raised by suggesting current skatepark design is also affecting playground and landscape architecture, even for non-skating spaces. There are a few pictures in the print layout that are not duplicated in the online version of the article, so they are preserved and presented after the jump. Both pieces mention a photo essay on the history and evolution of skateboarding but fail to provide a link to it beyond Time.com, and plugging…

And this should be the last construction update from me. Next shots your gonna see is all the locals skating this new “Ego” bowl here in Hood River Oregon. I can assure you that this hard-working crew will have an undisturbed amount of time in the next 3 days, breaking in the coping for everyone to enjoy.

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.

Its going to better than a Charlie Brown Xmas for us skaters in Hood River, Oregon. Today I went down to the skatepark to drop a case of Red Bull on the hard working crew. I had to ask (Designers and Builders Graham and Mark) when the expected finish date was, they said they have stayed well within the budget, with no plans of stopping and took me on a walk around the skatepark.