That’s right. $75 professional quality replacement trucks for your fingerboard. My kids have handfulls of Tech Decks, and the axles on the trucks are always the first thing to break. I’ve switched out trucks and wheels for my kids so many times… but this is just a smidge too much. I suppose if you’re going to go ahead and spend $30 on replacement wheels, with bearings even, you’d want them to go on a quality truck. They even sell replacement parts for Black River trucks, like axles, bushings and kingpins. Of course, you’ll want to spend anywhere from $26 – $52 on a fingerboard deck. You could save money by picking up a complete for $28 to $60. These things seem to be a European manufacturing phenomenon, (France, Germany, Poland, three brands out of the Czech Republic!) but there are American brands included.

Oh Burt Sampson, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. From your trademark infringing good looks to your Ninja Turtle / He Man physique. How I envy your many troll companions. Don’t have a cat, man. Aye Cucaracha. – Thanks to Andy Wylie for the pics.

If only there was a video about the making of the video of the process of turing a skateboard video game controller into a real skateboard. Ripped from the comments of Skate and Annoy, The Tony Hawk Ride controller set up as a real skateboard. I’ve heard a lot of people have problems with the controller on this game. I saw Tony give a demo on a talk show.They had a random kid come out of the audience and try it, seemed like it worked well. Who knows, maybe there was a Wizard of Oz type character behind the curtains with a hand controller. People grouse about the cost of the controller too, but as the folks at Game-TV.com have shown, if you get tired of playing the game, you can always actually, you know, err, uh, ride it. I wish I had a budget at S&A to do thid sort of thing. Maybe they are saving the good video for something else, but it seems like they didn’t make the most of this opportunity. – Thanks to Cory for the tip.

Art Clokey passed away on Friday. His early work was pretty surreal at times. What good hearted person doesn’t love Gumby? There were at least two Gumby episodes that revolved around skateboarding. The first one was a 1967 episode of the Gumby Show, titled Dog Catchers. I believe that is the first skateboarding dog, unless you count this one. The second was a 1988 creation titled Skateboard Rally, in which the Blockheads rip his stick. There’s a dramatic car chase, Skate Rock on a half pipe – performed while skating, no less, a contest with loop action and some heavy eigties guitar riffs. I think David Dink got ripped off by the judges though. Check em out after the jump. – Thanks to ehdubya for the tip.

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.