Category Archive: Toys
Lego my (other) skateboard
Just as there is a group of enthusiasts who get a kick out of building life size models of objects, including skateboards, from Legos, there’s another group of Lego builders that exclusively builds larger than life (10x) replicas of Lego figures out of… Legos. Dave over at Brick Player has made a 10x replica of a Lego minifig skateboarder. In case you are wondering, he’s got a popsicle in his hand for some reason.
Skateboard Zombies from Japan
The Skate Zombies series of vinyl toys by Japanese designer Tsuchiya Shobu. They go by the names Bone, Mummy, and Mosquito. They are ten inches tall and come with what looks to be a detachable skateboard. Expect to drop about $80. $80???? The tooling process must be pretty expensive for a small run, otherwise we’d be selling GVK dolls, errr, I mean figures. [Source: Lost at E Minor]
Keep on Smurfin’
Thank god for eBay, otherwise I could have gone my whole life without ever knowing this “Keep on Smurfin'” mini license plate thingy existed. I’m going to hang this on my hog… if I had one. A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
Best possible review of Skate 2
The Escapist Magazine presents this No Punctuation productions review of EA’s Skate 2, and it’s pretty funny, from just about any point of view. Check it out after the jump. Make sure you close the annoying advert or it will prove to be very distracting. – Thanks to Colin for the tip.
But if you squint…
My grandfather once made me a pretend switchblade out of a clothespin, rubber band and a popsicle stick. He also made me some stilts and one of those metal rings you push down the street with a stick. $100 will get you this historical inaccuracy, curiosity, and conversation starter. It’s a replica of the precursor to the skateboard, an orange crate scooter. The irony is that instead of roller skate trucks, it has actual skateboard trucks. It’s kind of like watching a period movie about a civil war vet where the female love interest is a white chick raised by native americans but still has a feathered 80’s hairdo. Or a WWII movie about Hitler where all the Nazis have British accents. Mountain Boy Sledworks makes these things by hand.
Today in old IPhone news
Today in old iPhone news we have two separate iPone apps that are skateboard related. The first is GoLearn Skateboarding from Santa Cruz. According to Mobile Marketer; “With GoLearn Skateboarding, consumers can learn different tricks, discover new skate parks and play music from their mobile device.” OK, I’m pretty sure the device the device already plays music, but that’s OK. Trick tips… meh. Skatepark finder? Well that seems useful, especially consideringthe fact that it’s GPS enabled. Sweet suite. A little bit os confusion here, the “Santa Cruz” mentioned in the article is Santa Cruz Skate shop an not NHS. and in further WTF, for some reason they have what looks like ultimate fighting graphics on the web site. Awesome! The second iPhone app is a skateboarding game being developed with Vans and Fuel industries. Kind of funny, considering the old concept game with fake Vans branding that was floating around the web a year ago. They are running a name the game contest. Odds are that Finger Fracture won’t be a chosen as the winner. Game play looks pretty fun with the touch screen accelerometer combo. Somebody needs to send us an iPhone so we can, uh, review the game.…
Parents sue school over dork lessons
Parents in Arizona are suing the Gilbert school system over injuries sustained when he fell off a wave board that was being used as part of a physical education class at his junior high school. Plimpton and Denton allege Mark will have permanent physical and emotional disabilities, disfigurement, humiliation and impairment due to the incident. No word whether other students asked to ride the device will participate in the humiliation part of the lawsuit.
Life imitating… aww forget it.
Somebody hacked a Wii controller and grafted it on a skateboarder so they could use the skateboard as a controller for skateboard games, in this case, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. I’m assuming the process was more involved than just, you know, duct taping it to the bottom of the skateboard. There’s a really dull video of the controller in action. The best part is that the guy has a conference room full of people and a video projector for the demonstration, and he makes them all sit there while he makes his character look like himself. The thing to do would be to make it so you have to skateboard to play Madden’s NFL Football (or whatever the heck the franchise is called, I obviously don’t have a console.) call me slow on the uptake, but I didn’t get the punch line in the Engadget post title until just now. “Wiimote and skateboard hacked into a controller, Gator not impressed.” Ouch! – Thanks to Seth Levy for the tip.
Nobody wants to touch Touch Grind
Want to take your fingerboarding sessions to the next level? (Did I actually just type that?) There’s an IPhone app called Touch Grind that is basically a slightly different interpretation than the original concept-only Vans Finger Fracture. One big difference, Touch Grind is something you can actually purchase and play. And, it’s supposed to be pretty good. I’m one of those poor peasants who can’t afford an iPhone, so I don’t know how this game plays. It looks fun, but it also looks like it needs to be played with some extra screen real estate, say on a 17″ monitor. Yes, I know this game is not news anymore. I’m only mentioning it because I never got around to it originally, and if I don’t write about it on Skate and Annoy, it doesn’t exist. Errr… Yeah right. Concrete Wave had some sort of marketing partnership for inline advertising with the Swedish developers of Touch Grind, but the partnership went sour, just in time for a new ad that Concrete Wave took out in Transworld, of all places. I guess if I wanted to help them out I should have posted this earlier. What else? How about video captures of…
Tony Hawk Pro Skater homeless?
Ars Technica reports that the developer of the THPS series of video games has decided to bail on the franchise, even though it was the their main source of bread and butter for a long time. Strange, considering Tony seemed so stoked on the next version. Must have been sales talk. I wonder how he’s taking the breakup. Is thi s the beginning of the end? Will he be back to parking lot demos in spandex at Six Flags? I doubt it. Does anyone remember the old Thrasher video game Skate and Destroy? It was pretty fun, but apparently never really took off. – Thanks to Steve B for the tip.











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