An addition to the Hurley Surfing Australia High Performance Centre in the form of a wave-shaped miniramp with airbags on the high end is supposed to help Australian Surfers learn aerial maneuvers in the ocean. While the jury out on how much of this training actually carries over to actual waves, it sure looks like fun. They should make everyone ride actual surfboards with skateboard trucks mounted on them, or possibly even Streetboardz. It worked for Simon Woodstock! More details at Surfing Australia.

ABC News and just about everyone else has reported that the Tokyo Olympic Committee has recommended adding skateboarding to the 2020 Olympics. This is by no means a done deal, the host country gets to recommend one or more sports, and Japan recommended 5, 6 actually if count Baseball separate from Softball, which you should. Baseball being the mens’ competition and softball for women. The other three are sport climbing, karate, and surfing. The International Olympic Committee will decide which if any to include in August of 2016. The chances seem pretty good however. Surfing conditions can’t be guaranteed unless they build an amazing inland wave facility, and how would the surfing community respond to that? Now that Street League has ironed out a decent spectator friendly competition format, (If you’re into that, not that there’s anything wrong with it…) we might just see skateboarding in the Olympics, whether you want to or not. Who is behind the push to get skateboarding in the Olympics? There’s a shady organization called the World Skateboarding Federation for one. Their web site appears to be down, so I can’t comment on the board members or their mission as I’m writing this post. All…

You might question if the ‘Zoner’ complete deck on the right is really a copy of the Santa Cruz ‘Optical Illusion’ deck from 1985. Anyway, the Zoner seems to use the same pink and blue and looks from the same period according to the pig shape and wheelwells. I found this deck on ebay a while ago, the deck on the left appeared in eBay watch from February 2012. Details of the ‘Zoner’ after the jump.

Red Bull has an interesting documentary on the Montreal, Quebec skate scene with the ulterior motive of furthering the case of getting good public skateparks built. Dire Skate is a 22 minute film made by Dan Mathieu of Exposé skateboard magazine. It delves into some history of the scene, including Big O, an atrocious city-funded skatepark built by a generic construction company, as well as efforts to legalize a famous Love Park style spot. Definitely worth watching. – Thanks to Kevin -Live for the tip.

Check it.

My wife thinks I have a mild form of mental illness because I have hours and hours of skateboarding footage recorded from TV shows, movies and commercials. What’s the point when nobody else will ever see it? That’s not entirely true… Some of the footage was donated to a respected documentary. How else can I justify the time spent cataloging and digitizing? I present to you the first episode of Skate and Annoy’s Found in a Box VHS Skate Theater. If you’ve got a half an our to waste watching a mishmash of skateboarding in and around popular culture, then go ahead and watch it. As usual, the format needs polishing, but it’s only going to get better. Check it out.

Ernest Packaging has produced a great series of marketing videos called Cardboard Chaos in which they make unusual things out of cardboard, including snowboards, surfboards, and of course, skateboards. Professor Schmitt and Tony Hawk were brought in to help with the skateboard edition. The first try worked pretty well until they got to the frontside disaster. After they worked out the kinks they let Tony have a go at it. His verdict: It’s essentially as good as any other skateboard, but it’s too heavy. They left out some footage that would have made it more interesting, but perhaps diluted their message. I would have liked to get the details on which construction methods worked well and which ones didn’t. Between the initial testing they went from a board that felt light to one whose heavy weight was practically the first thing that Tony commented on. All this proves really, is that with enough fiberglass and epoxy, you can probably make a skateboard out of anything. Beanies off to Ernest Packaging for finding a way to get exposure through Extreme!™ sports in way that doesn’t turn skateboarder’s collective stomaches. Just think, you could make a skateboard out of recycled issues of…

This week in pairings of creepy toy dolls with entirely unrelated fingerboards: Two big-eyed dolls with Star Wars fingerboards from McDonalds Happy Meals. It’s a confusing listing, but the Tonner and Kish dolls are just being used for display purposes to show off the toy skateboards.

If you approach (or leave) Daubenspeck Skatepark in Bingen, WA. from the right direction you’ll pass up this lovely ditch. This (Grindline) park is a good one in case you’re wondering, but you’ll get no pictures from me for now. Just one shot of the nearby ditch. I didn’t even see it until we were leaving. Unfortunately, we had an injured party so I didn’t stop to session. Looks steep and rough, but potentially lots of fun, right?

An entity called Artist of Design offers a retro typeface called AZ YoYo which was “inspired from a ’70’s vintage skateboard logo style.” Just in case the name doesn’t give it away, the logo in question is Yoyo wheels from Gordon & Smith. The advert on the left is from a 1978 issue of Skateboarder, as seen in the S&A Vintage Skatemag Advert Gallery. That’s Steve Cathey in the photo. Artist of Design offers another retro font based on the Hobie Surfboards logo. Update: MC pointed out that the original was an old Linotype face called Stilla, which was originally published in 1973. – Thanks to Jer Warren for the tip!