The French have to have a different word for everything. Not only that, they even use their skateparks sideways. I have provided a link to the video but unless you want to watch a bunch of ledge and stair skating, don’t bother.

Sure, some guerilla marketing tactics can get you into trouble. Others, not so much. Take this video footage of skateboarding being projected on buildings from a moving van. It makes it look like a guy is skateboarding down the street or along the roof tops and ledges of second story buildings. This projection trick has been done before on subway trains, but for art, not money. The skateboard projection is for a gum called Sportlife, Holland’s equivalent of Gatorade Gum (yuck!), proving Americans aren’t the only ones trying to jump on the Extremeâ„¢ bandwagon. Catch the video and more after the jump. [Source: Ninjawax.com]

Colin at Bacon Skateboards forwarded a link to a Benji Galloway interview on Skateboarder Magazine’s website. Check out the two photo sequences: one a backside-lipslide over the steps at Donald and the other a backslide-tailslide over some other pool steps. Sick! Benji is an amazing skater and has been incredible to watch in the Oregon Trifecta. He won the 2005 series. Bacon’s Southern Slaughter Tour video also looks pretty insane. The 162MB video is available for download. photo: Kyle Bunker

Get out your overpriced plastic watches and put on at least three of them RIGHT NOW!!! Swatch used to sponsor an extreme sports like tour before it was, you know, Extreme!â„¢ It was purely spectacle, no contest. There was BMX and roller skaters in addition to skateboards. Bands? Seems like it but I might be confusing it with one of the old Vision Street Wear tours. They also used Per Welinder, Rodney Mullen, and Lance Mountain in one of those in store promo videos. You might think it strange that I listed those Bones Brigaders in that order, but that’s representative of their respective footage totals. Apparently, someone at Swatch had a thing for Per. Mullens’ stuff is impossible, and Lance is barely in it. It’s three minutes and thirty seconds of pure 80’s synthesized drums and keyboard soundtrack. Odds are that Stacy Peralta was on the production team and Dennis Dragon did the soundtrack. Catch this video from 1987 after the jump.

Mike from Old Man Army sent us this interview with Dave Hackett. He said we could post it directly on Skate and Annoy, but it will be a better reading experience directly on their site. They did a good job they did withthe side illustrations adds to the atmosphere. It’s a long one too, compared to their recent ones with Lance Mountain and Russ Howell. Actually, the crew at Old Man Army are putting us to shame with all the old school interviews they’ve been getting.

Hello fans here’s an oldie the first interview I ever did (January 2004). See if you can find the mistakes, and when you do, go stuff it bitches. Art and Steve Godoy are still putting out skateboards with Factory 13. It was a pretty big deal for me to interview these guys. 20 years ago they were two guys in a magazine untouchable for a kid in Michigan. Fast forward 20 years. Post-meeting and interviewing them I realized they are just like me – skaters, just better. I feel the industry overlooked these guys. They were just to punk for the Tony Hawk and Ken Park era. Check out the H-Street video, and you will realize it was not skills that held these guys back. It was there inability to play the game of press darlings. When you see them next, just ask about Dave Swift’s old girlfriend at the Del-mar contest.

Steve Caballero has endorsed Powell’s new line of beginners boards (AKA Cheap and Chinese) called Powell Golden Dragon. Tony Hawk does it, Andy MacDonald does it, even Mike McGill does. Why not Cab? The Powell versions ($70) seem to be a notch above Andy’s ($50) and Mike McGill’s (models from $30-$60). I couldn’t find a link for priccing on Hawk’s low end models. Maybe I imagined them. The Golden Dragon trucks even have a bit of interesting detail instead of being completely devoid of character. Let’s see, Cab, Hawk, and McGill. When do Lance and Tommy come out with their own line of cheapo skateboards? What about Per Welinder and Rodney Mullen? Oh wait, they already have crappy boards.

“He wore make-up and shaved body hair.” Yeah, Err.. uhm.. I went through a phase like that once too, but it was in order to pick up new wave chicks.

Teachers said that he was an average pupil with a poor attendance record who sometimes handed in homework, while neighbours remember him building skateboard ramps and doing wheelies on his bike on the streets around his suburban home.

Since we like to entertain and educate, did you know you could spell “pedophile” like “paedophile” as well? More skateboard crime after the jump.

SkateGirl is a one hour long documentary about the movement of professional women’s skateboarding. There is a showing of SkateGirl on February 3rd in Vancouver BC’s Antisocial shop, but it’s not on their web site right now. Update: It’s up now. Susanne Tabata is in your extended network is the director. You can check out a clip after the jump. [Source: Skull Skates]

We’ve weighed in on “The War on Blanks” before, but it keeps popping up, and looks like it’s going to be an industry focus in 2007. Personally, I can’t respect hypocrisy, which is what I see when a company says blanks are bad for the industry but Chinese manufacturing is good. It’s all about the profit margins. I think it’s a case where the industry has made it’s own bed and now doesn’t want to sleep in it. What I’d like to see is information on where these blanks coming from and how many different skateboard manufacturers actually exist. The quote coming from George’s mouth above is actually from Andrew Reynolds on the web site called “A World Without Pros.” More hypocrisy and links concerning the War on Blanks and the War on George Bush as expressed on skateboards after the jump.