According to the Des Moines Regional Skatepark committee, this final design will be the largest open skatepark in the United States. I’m not sure what they mean by “open.” Maybe that’s to counter facilities like Woodward, although they could have said “public” instead. Is there some monstrous indoor skatepark that I’m unaware of? Even the square footage listing of 65,000 is below the official 68,000 listed for Lake Cunningham. I always thought Louisville was largest, but it only weighs in at 44,000 square feet. DMRS is in need of a comprehensive overhead floorpan on their site. California Skateparks designed the park.

I thought I read in Wired how Nerf had become the largest arms dealer (by volume) in the world, but I might have imagined it. I wonder if the Zombie Strike series was conceived to make it more palatable to parents who object to toy guns for kids. Probably not. This Zombie Strike Doublestrike pistol features an illustration of a skateboarder on the back. It’s a happy coincidence when a toy with skateboard packaging makes it into my home if wasn’t bought for me.

Like scooters, Donald Trump, and anything else that has outlived it’s usefulness, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles just won’t go away. TMNT has been enjoying a resurgence for a while now. While the animated series definitely surpasses the TMNT’s original incarnation, this incarnation of Mondo Gecko action figure is about as uninspired as it gets, especially when compared to the original toy.

Burnside is still in the news. The Mercury has a cautious, but upbeat take on the future of Burnside.

This is advert for Vibe, an iOS app that Adobe can’t seem to decide whether or not to promote it as theirs or not. What does it do? It makes short videos with semi-automated cuts between selected stills and videos from your library, and adds a soundtrack to it. Then you can share it. Super. It’s a free app, and the sharing is meant to happen on the usual social media platforms, so you have to wonder what Adobe gets out of this.

I saw on Dreamland’s Facebook feed that they were tearing down the old Beaverton / Tualatin Hills skatepark and I got a little excited. The so-called novice park concrete annex has been up since 2008, but the prefab street course left over from a long forgotten X-Games trails has been slowly rotting away since, well, since it arrived there, not to mention the rotted out vert ramp that was torn down in 2006. A quick visit to the Dreamland has left me with tempered expectations though. It looks like the first phase might be a straight 1 for 1 replacement of existing ramps with concrete replicas, although it’s hard to tell for sure. Even if that is the plan. it’s still better that what they started with. I have to imagine Dreamland will get away with some tweak, however small. Somewhere, someone knows, and has the time to rack this down for Skate and Annoy, right? Dreamland never returns my emails. I am a kook.

Sarasota has metal stick figure sculptures called Tube Dudes sprinkled all over town. I haven’t been to Payne Park in a handful of years. I don’t think this Tube Dude was there during my last visit. The baseball cap and basketball in hand are a bit of a head scratcher until you read the plaque dedicating it to “Coach Dan,” who must have been a basketball coach… who liked skateboarding?

Restless Years is pale ale from Evanston Illinois’ Temperance brewery. Aside from skateboards on a beer can, they have bragging rights as Evanston’s first and oldest brewery, dating “way back” to 2013. – Thanks to Neil “I’d obviously rather be drinking than writing Ebay Watch” for the pics.

Soloshot is a great piece of technology for those who can make use of it. It’s a camera mount that will track a radio tag for up to 2000 meters. Basically you wear it and your camera mount will pan and swivel to follow you. You can get one that is just a base that you add your own camera to, or they sell one integrated that also allows for automatic zooming. You can program camera moves into it. This sounds like a paid product placement, but it isn’t. Cool technology for sure, but not so useful for skate footage. If it works well and you need this kind of thing, excellent. As far as using it for skateboarding? I suppose if your friends are tired of shooting you… but as you know, good skate footage usually requires more intimate angles. That might be why the skateboarding part of the promo video only lasts about a second. I still want this, but have no idea what I would use it for.

Instead of my usual Random Florida Spot Check, this year I’m bringing you Random Crap Skateboard. These were spotted at a store called 5 Below, which is like an upscale Dollar Store if that’s even possible. Surprisingly, the wheels on these things actually roll.