Spooner boards. So, uh… these are plastic, I think. They come in a rainbow of colors and two sizes, freestyle and “pro.” Another learning aid. Spendy too. About the same cost as a real board, but I guess you won’t, you know, wear it out. Also available in a snowboard model with built in Krainkers. As Mark said, nobody made it easier for MC to learn how to skateboard.

The cover of Photo News Canada, which should be subtitled “Your source for Canadian photoshopped photography.” Another Seismic sighting.

– Thanks to Matthijs for the tip.

This week’s Shot of the Week is Tom Kilroy at the recent Oregon “Fecta.” Photo by Shawn Reinert. The real photo is after the jump. The closeup is just here to emphasis the timing of the shot.

Tom Sims died last week from a heart attack. My first snowboard was a Sims, because it was in the 80’s and quite frankly, there weren’t a lot of other choices out there. Sims put out some of my favorite skateboard graphics courtesy of Bernie Tostenson, so why would any self-respecting skater choose another brand? The Sims name was trusted and it legitimized the sport to a certain extent, at least through my eyes in that time period. As his clout in the skateboard industry waned, he picked up more steam in snowboarding, and that seems to be how the mainstream media is focusing on. The images above were poached from a gallery on ESPN. They’ve got a story and a video up too, mostly focusing on Tom’s influence in snowboarding. Interesting fact, Sims was instrumental in bringing the halfpipe to snowboarding competition, otherwise it would have been endless slalom races.

These stickers were made a while ago by former BMX pro Taj Mihelich in protest of rules for the sake of rules. These days, when he’s not undermining the will of society’s gratuitous sign makers, he’s bringing you the skaterack, among other things. Larger after the jump, but you should check out the anecdote about the origin of these stickers over at Taj’s blog on Transworld.

A new skatepark coming together in Kona, Hawaii:

We are raising money for the next phase of what will be a close to 30,000 sf. Dreamland skatepark in Kona, Hawaii right next to the ocean. The Dreamland crew were here last month and completed their first phase of what will be atleast 4 phases total as money becomes available. This is a design/build project by Dreamland skateparks – We just have to raise the funds. Anything helps and ads up to anyone that donates it would be greatly appreciated.

More info at Kona Skatepark web site for the 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization. Nice to hear Dreamland in the news again. 50-50.com has a few more Kona photos and more news for other parks in Hawaii if you’re curious.

I got this unexpected bit of joy in the mail a few weeks ago, and so now I’m using it as good excuse to start up the reviews section of Skate and Annoy again. Right now it’s just the old static content from the old site that’s sort of been hidden… since 2009!!!! The formatting on some of those old reviews is kind of janky, but rather than going back and fix everything first, I’m going to start adding new ones. I’m actually a good way through a major WordPress theme design for the reviews but who knows when I’ll have the time to finish it.

On that note, I’d love to have a few extra fingers on the keyboard for the reviews. Almost any product is fair game. We used to review things like bubblegum and beer back in our print editions. I’m thinking about reviewing Legoland in Florida. But that’s enough about reviews, on to Pure Fun.

PURE FUN – West Coast Release Part on September 15th in Long Beach, CA. Flyer after the jump.