This quick sketch from Blockhead artist Ron Cameron shows the best way to shoot a board at home. Ron is working on a book and sent me this so I could photograph a super nice and rare Blockhead deck I found  in an old toy store in Belgium last year. The method works just fine and is tested and approved by Sean Cliver himself.

Can you tell that I’m sort of on vacation from S&A? I’m thinking about you, loyal readers, if that helps.

An ice cream cake in the freezer at a Portland area Dairy Queen.

Sir? What are you doing? Can I help you with that?

No Sir, I ‘m afraid I can’t let you take the top off unless you are going to buy it.

I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Sir.

I’ve been told this commercial airs on TV but so far I haven’t seen it. Donny sent me a phone cam capture, and Simon Woodstock found it on YouTube. Ray Barbee in a Just for Men commercial after the jump.

Salon.com has an article on why ESPN’s efforts birng the X Games to a worldwide audience aren’t as successful as they’d like. Are the unsuccessful? I’m not sure. Are you paying attention? That’s the main part of the article.

Essentially, what ESPN seems to miss, is that that the statement “I am a skateboarder” is a far different one than “I am a basketball player”.

The author Matt Reevy get’s it. There’s are a couple good quotes in there (like this post title) that sum it up pretty well. I guess my mission here at S&A is finished.

Denver the Last Dinosaur is possibly one of the best bad cartoon relics out there. Basically, a dinosaur egg hatches, and hangs out with kids skateboarding, riding BMX and sort of communicating in a more subdued Scooby Doo style. The animation is horrible, I swear it approaches 5 frames a second. The voiceover is what makes this cartoon enjoyable/eardrum piercing. The character actors are awful. It’s like listening to somebody do a really bad impersonation Jeff Spicoli, for 20 minutes… The series started in 1988 and ran for two years, so that was right at the tail end of the California craze. There’s an episode called Venice Beach Blast where part of the gang gets hassled for skating on the bike path. The authority figure (Is he a cop or a security guard? He looks like a Forest Ranger.) explains that the community got the signatures together to get skating banned and the bike path built. Now you think this would would turn into a civics lesson that ends with a skateboard park being built, but it doesn’t. The skaters in the crew turn against their biking brothers and go renegade. There’s a lot of whining (almost life real life), radical moves and slams. The whole thing wraps up in about 30 seconds with an explanation of some action that happened off camera. Basically, the city lets the kids skate in part of an unused parking lot, and everyone is happy. It’s massively weak, but the script and character actors make it entertaining, like a train wreck. Video, promotional stills and sarcasm after the jump.

– Thanks to Seth Levy for the tip.