Skateboarding gangs were a recurring theme in 70’s comic books. I would cite the temporal proximity of the Warriors, but that wasn’t released until 1979. Teen Titans Volume 12, No. 49 was published in August 1977. The bad guys look like they escaped from the set of Devo’s Freedom of Choice, but that album didn’t come out until 1980. DC comic’s bad guys, AKA Rocket Rollers, clown on the Teen Titans and rob a disco. Far out man. Also of historical importance, comic book evience of the first ever wall (and ceiling) ride. I’m not sure why Wonder Girl didn’t let go of her lariat instead of slamming into the wall…

Cisco has a thing for skateboarders. I’m not sure how and why they think your average IT decision maker is going to be swayed by the presence of skateboards in a TV commercial, but they do. I know a lot of smart, technically inclined skateboarders out there, but that’s gotta be a hard niche to capture. Anybody that would potentially be swayed by it would immediately not be swayed by it’s transparency. This time, they’re thinking, get ’em while they are young. This is the log in screen for a distance learning class on networking sponsored by Cisco. Dang it all if I didn’t lose the original email, and now I don’t know who to thanks for this, besides Cisco.

– Thanks to…?

Evergreen Skateparks is making progress on the Happy Valley skate spot. It looks like it has a couple interesting features already. They are splitting the construction updates between Facebook and their official site.

Not much to say about this one. You either love it or hate it. Maybe about 20 years too late though. Still funny though. Get yours at Mustache Empire.

Scene at marriage councilor:

Wife: Alright, I’ll give you an example. Just yesterday at our child’s book fair he couldn’t stop posting on his ridiculous blog. We’re supposed to be encouraging our kids to read and sharing in their excitement to learn and he’s taking pictures for his stupid web site.

Husband: But I have loyal readers who are bored at work! It’s my sacred duty to help them be unproductive at their jobs. If productivity goes down, they’ll have to hire more people. It’s good for the economy!

End.

Alterante cover of James Patterson’s Middle School: Get Me Out of Here.

Bryan from right here in S&A’s back yard sent in some pictures of a ramp he built in his garage.

Longtime reader here, just got back from Afghan and finished up the last corner of my garage ramp. Two main sides are 6ft radius and 4ft and 7.5 ft tall, house door side is 4.5ft radius and 2ft tall and garage door side is 3ft radius with 6.5ft tall near-vert wall. The newest corner has a 1ft tall roll-up to 4ft radius quarter to wall ride. The corner at the base of the 7.5ft tall section is a compound curve-based hip.

Looks pretty excellent. What are you using on that top layer?

Holy cow. Bill Danforth doing his best Popeye impression at Kristian Svitak’s ramp. I had no idea BIll Was so… old. All those gratuitous pro models must be wearing him down. In all seriousness, I have nothing but respect for Bill, and I bought myself a handful of his Alva decks with the tri-tail. Loved that board. BIll Danforth. Grover knows him from his days in Michigan. Both those guys are hilarious. Hey Kristian and Regulator, you keep making these videos, I’ll keep posting every (other) of of them. Danforth’s got a model on 1031. Midwest uber alles.

UPDATE: Added Bill’s video part from the 1989 video “Young Gunz.”

The thing I like (second) best about this video from Roger Skateboards is the way they described it:

…check out our Token Older Vert Skater, Paul Zitzer, performing a vert demo for two children sitting on an extension. We expect big things from Paul in the next few years. And by “big things” we mean we expect him to skate a vert ramp at least once a year and to film it for us.

Watch Paul hitting the Louisville, KY vert ramp after the jump. I wonder if this was filmed on the drive down to the SPOT Tampa Pro vert session that got rained out?

Santa Cruz / NHS branded guitar picks sold as sk8 picks by Dunlop Picks, so you know htey are decent quality. I love the green .88mm picks for bass. And yes, I am a very mediocre bass player. Worse actually, since I haven’t picked up a bass in years.