Or so says recent new father Danimal – Congrats! However, I have it on good authority that “Dad” bought this for himself for X-Mas, and not for his firstborn, shown here. This particular bowl appears to have made the rounds with skaters of a certain age this year. I know three people whose “kids” got one. More details on this particular artifact later.

Today is my birthday. Over the weekend my wife put together a little surprise get together a bar I like called Vendetta in NE Portland. GVK brought me this weird-ass doll on a skateboard that he picked up for the occasion at Goodwill. Some disturbed child drew on her face, making her look like a… disturbed child. This carcass gets used for other themes too, like Santa Claus. I don’t have any double A batteries, so I can’t tell if she makes music while skating, although I assume so, because the tag says “Musical Motion Dolls.” I keep this thing locked in a closet at night because I’m afraid it will come to life and kill me. Check out the 90’s-style micro wheels and low rise trucks. Oh yeah, come skate with Kilwag at the old man session, tonight at 9pm – D.O.S.. I’ll be flailing around in the back bowl.

The global economy would like to take care of your skateboarding and holiday needs. 12″ Skateboard Santa Claus, moving Skateboard and will change direction automatically, with X’mas song ” Ho Ho Jingle Bell ” The annoying thing about the Alibaba.com web site is that there are no pricing details available on many of the products. You have to contact someone and I suppose, arrange to have them imported. Apparently they reuse the skateboard for just about anything… (Speaking of Missing Persons) I’ve seen this board on a Troll doll too. – Thanks to DaddyYo for the tip.

I stumbled on Shrek, the sidewalk swamp surfer puzzle while I was researching the possibility of having vinyl toy GVK skateboard figures made. (It’s not going to happen, folks. ) I havent seen this puzzle in the wild, but then again, I haven’t been looking either.

Man, that kid looks stoked. This is called the GX Skate. I stared at these things in the store for about ten minutes trying to figure out how they worked and what they would do. Then I saw the video and all made sense, until it didn’t make sense after all. Turns out these things are an offshoot of automobile-based toy. Someone thought to themselves, “Hey, skateboards are hot with the kids, lets turn those car toys into skateboards.” The movement is fun to watch, but it doesn’t really corollate physically to a skateboard. – Thanks to Hung Chang for the tip.

Daddy Yo chipped in with this patent for the omnidirectional toy manipulator. In his own words: Here is the patent application for that skateboard doll. Looks like they plan on embrassing alot of different sports. What? No rollerblades? Hey, pretty good. Pretty good. Maybe I should reinstate Daddy Yo. Thoughts everyone? He’s got a patent of his own that is pending, but that’s for a different post, possibly. Anyway, my favorite is the bull rider, actually.

This is either the absolute best or worst skateboard toy ever. I’m leaning towards best, and I actually want one. New from Action Sports Toys, it’s the Ryan Sheckler action figure. You have to check out the videos to see how cool these things actually are, as far as the, errr, simulation tiny skateboarding goes. I’m not sure where this falls in the hierarchy of fingerboarding. I mean, who is the biggest dork, the guy who spends hours and hours perfecting his fingerboarding technique, or the guy who goes for instant gratification with an almost anamatronic action figure? When I get mine, I’ll let you know. – Thanks to GN for the tip.

Skateboarding begat fingerboards. Fingerboards begat tiny plastic ramps. Tiny plastic ramps begat… FINGER PANTS!!!!!!! Actually, these Finger Pants aren’t exactly new. Back in the 80’s there was a fingerboard sold that came with a glove that you wore. The glove had the upper torso of what looked by a Ken doll attached to it. Two of the fingers were cut off and were decorated like little Hawaiian shorts. It also came with a pair of tiny plastic shoes and socks molded in one piece. It’s something I have in a box somewhere, but that’s never here, nor there. These came from Wall Mart. There’s a URL listed on the package, but the skatemonstertoy.com domain appears to have expired. It’s such a great product, they had to name it twice. Finger Pants, and Shred Threads! Look at the illustration. If these pants fit to scale, the top of your junk would be visible. Awesome.

Three bits of iPhone related skateboard news at once. First up, Apple’s advertisement for the video shooting and editing (!) capabilities of the the new iPhone. Check it out here. Somebody built a nice miniramp for that hurricane wall studio setup. I wonder what happened to it afterwards. Next up, Made for Skate has launched an iPhone app version of their collection of skateboard shoe history. Aside from the massive historical archives at your fingertips, you also get free updates, a store locator, etc… If you are obsessively into skate shoes, this would seem to be your go to app. Not bad for two bucks. Made for Skate web site has been recently updated with new pictures from their ongoing exhibitions, and wallpapers for your desktop and phones. Lastly, there is an iPhone app called Go SK8 that is the high tech equivalent of those hand held golf counters or ball, strike out clickers that little league baseball umpires use. It does more than just keep track of your letters, it will also randomly pick your tricks. You can choose three different skill levels and three different terrain types (flatground, rails and transition) I suppose that would be a good…

Skateboarding has spawned some interesting cottage industries. I just found a guy making fingerboard skate obstacles under the name Stone Tech Ramps. The halfpipe, bowls and street obstacles are made out of some sort of resin that must be lightweight. You can see a kid above lifting up one of the massive bowls without a problem. The scale of the ramps vs. the Tech Decks have tipped further towards gigantic. There’s a wide variety of obstacles, and you can easily spot his earlier work where he didn’t quite have the casting method down. The stairs and would-be sharp edges have the appearance of rock left under a waterfall for 50 years. Prices are pretty high. That half pipe will run you $95 and one custom bowl has a buy it now of $165! Smaller obstacles start around $16. These are hand crafted, one of a kind toys, but still, that’s a lot of coin. Check out a hilarious “review” by a nonpartisan source. It’s a kid whose “friend’s uncle” makes these things. Stick with the whole thing, it’s great how he bashes the Tech Deck gear, using sounds as a benchmark. he’s a regular Billy Mays in training.