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 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 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.

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.

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…

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.

I’m struggling for references here. Everyone knows Petty’s Free Fallin’ video features a girl skateboarding. Well, he also has a song called American Girl, and this is, uh, an

Purchase this baby through Amazon toys. The only sports craft kit on the market. Our kit combines sports and crafts into one package. Everything you need is included – a 24″ solid wood skateboard, black grip tape, specialized non-toxic paints and instructions. The skateboard comes fully assembled with wheels and metal trucks. I don’t know why they don’t have a decorate your own football helmet kit. Sounds like an amazing business opportunity for someone.

Jack in the Box always has the lamest toys in their kid’s meals. Case in point, this Cartoon Network cross promotion for the show Chop Socky Chooks.I had no idea what Chop Socky meant, so I googled it. Crappy martial arts bar fights was the result. I think these are supposed to be Kung Fu Chickens. They battle the evil Dr Wasabi. I’ve never seen it, but these toys are weak. They are actually a step up for Jack in the Box kids meal toys, which are ore apt to be a plastic display stand for some nature facts collecting cards, or something equally as uninteresting to a kid. I saw them earlier this summer on the way to the Oregon Trifecta in Lincoln City. That’s KO Joe on the skateboard. I don’t know if he rides one on the show or not.

It was nominated last year and didn’t get in, but this year the skateboard made it into the National Toy Hall of Fame. Joining it this year were the baby doll and the “stick.” Proponents of the booger and the “doodle” (As in “They can see my doodle!”) were upset, as can be imagined. Tony Hawk appeared in a prerecorded video at the induction ceremony. In his words skateboarding “promotes individualism … artistic expression and it’s also very athletic.” Also, it doesn’t make you go blind if you do it too much. – Thanks to Livmo and Sorenee for the tip. [Source: CNN]