I really like Built to Shred, but I’m surprised by this “Will it shred?” video. I’m not sure how “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” jives with destroying a brand new $500 consumer electronic device for three minutes of video promotion. Still, it’s amusing, and you’re reading about it, so it was a good business decision even if it directly contradicts the central tenet of the show. Read the fine print on the professional rider disclaimer before you set up your own iPad as a skateboard.

At this point I think there must be a place that sells the logic board for this type of LCD game intact for finishing and repackaging as you see fit. I think I may have picked this up from the dollar bins at Target. Gameplay: Things come down the road and you push buttons to avoid them. Very boring. Kind of funny considering you used to have to pay upwards of $70 ($20 from 1977 adjusted for inflation) for the same programming logic with less interesting graphics. Yes. I’m talking about Mattel Electronics handheld games. Instead of a 2 dimensional LCD silhouette, you were stuck with LED blips. How did those old handheld games cost? I want to say around $20, but it might have been $35 or so. There was no skateboard version, but it was the same game as Auto Race. Aesthetics did pay tribute to Mattel Electronics with a board series. I like them because I’m nostalgic for old toys (HELLO!!!!!!!) but I’m pretty sure these are just lifted straight from the old advertisements.

I happened to catch this commercial on TV about an hour after the behind the scenes Spohn Ranch footage of the shoot was pulled from YouTube. My guess it the folks at EA didn’t want it detracting from the original, or something vague like that. – Thanks to Vince for the tip.

Well, Xtreme Fun anyway. Maybe someone already trademarked “Extreme Fun.” Blastems have a great name that could only be made better by adding the word “sugar” in front of it. However, it isn’t going to happen, because It’s a healthy-ish, or something like that.

I’m captivated by this still frame from a Jackie Chan movie. It’s hard to tell, but he’s on a skateboard. It will be more clear when you see the other 29 frames per second. I’m not sure what movie this is from, but it looks like the 90’s as Jackie still kind of younger looking. It looks like it’s going to be pretty straight forward action until mid way through where it suddenly goes over the top. Look for gratuitous flip tricks during a high speed chase. Chan does his own stunts, he probably learned to skate for this movie. Some shots are definitely a stunt double though. – Thanks to Hung for the tip.

You might have noticed I haven’t been updating as frequently as usual for a the past couple of weeks. It’s because I’ve been swamped with things in the real world, and I’ve been spending a lot of my S&A time tinkering with a redesign. I got sick of looking at the old site. It had hadn’t changed considerably since 2006 when I launched the blog part of the site. The old look was cobbled together as I went along. It wasn’t really meant to be long term, but things got away from me and it was “good enough.” I almost went with a prepackaged theme, but that would have been too easy. This new one is a work in progress, you’ll notice a lot of missing items that will start to reappear in the next week or so. Some details may change from day to day for a while too. Eventually all the static pages will be brought into the new look as well, but for now it’s still legacy. I’ve got a few little gimmicks I’m considering, like I might make some adjustments under the hood to allow you to chose from a couple different theme variations, including “Skate…

I swear there is more information on the web about the history of Duff Man than there is about Bud Man. This sticker dates back to the late 70’s or possibly early 80’s. I like that someone drew a cartoon character and then used a photostat to insert tiny photo realistic bud cans in his hand. – Thanks to Scott Starr for the scan. Get a web site so I can link to it Scott!