Webcomic Penny Arcade did a strip about Tony Hawk Ride. It’s not about skateboarding though, it’s about buying and reviewing video games. Post-modern self-reference is so last decade. The guy did, in fact, hate it. I couldn’t really tell from the strip.

Bryce Kanights on Halloween as Steve Zissou from the Life Aquatic, and “Splinter the oceanographer” from Tech Deck Dudes. Bryce photo courtesy of EPM’s Halloween 2009 gallery.

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.