Let’s see… cleaning out the old inbox here. What’s this? The Sturgeon Bay Skatepark Initiative has met their finding goal and hopes to break ground on a new Grindline park in June. I wonder how that’s coming along… It’s finished? That was fast. Wait, what’s the date on that email? 2014. OK , well, that makes sense. Hold on, now they’re saying it was built by Dreamland. Maybe Wisconsin has the same wacky law that Washington has. Whatever, looks fun. Did you know Wisconsin ranks 6th out of all the states in beer consumption? I would have thought that the state with The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous would have ranked higher than Vermont. Sturgeon are kind of gnarly.

Yeah, yeah, electric skateboard. Big deal. The thing that makes Kickr different, aside from front wheel drive, is the ability to add the drive unit to almost any skateboard, and the fact that you control speed via your foot and a pressure sensitive switch. There’s even a “cruise control” setting which is kind of amazing. Having a foot controller may be nice for streamlining, but could lead to some situations where shifting your balance has unintended consequences. Take your foot off the sensor and you’re rolling unassisted. Parts of it look pretty polished. Others, not so much, mainly the griptape covered friction drive wheel and the dangly cords. They met their original goal on Kickstarter, but it look s like they’ve hit some sort of speed bump (I slay me!) in production. You can’t actually order the Kickr online, you can only ask to be notified when they are accepting payments again. As my 9 year old son said after looking over my shoulder at this: “It’s kind of dumb, but also kind of cool.”

– Thanks to Matthijs for the tip

I wasn’t sure if this Miller beer commercial ever aired on TV, and I can’t remember how I found out about it, but I held off on posting it to see if I could record it off TV for the official S&A archives. I eventually forgot about it when it never showed up in anything I watched. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been looking through draft posts lately and this one got my attention. The original video has been deleted but a quick search turned up a replacement. According to the new and apparently original source, it didn’t air because it was shot on spec circa 2006. Devo and skateboarding in a beer commercial? A beer company would probably balk at even the hint of targeting an underage audience. How dare they assume responsible adults drink beer and skateboard! Still, stranger things have happened in the TV commercial world. This post originally had another commercial for Panasonic (What? I don’t know) that had some high profile names skating a ditch, but I can’t find it anywhere.

This is a 2012 KSwiss advertisement for a parkour shoe, excuse me, Free Running shoe called Ariake. It features a cat from Guadeloupe named Sébastien Foucan who is allegedly the founder of free running which is completely different from Jackie Chan and Parkour, and has nothing to do with it in any respect. Of course, the only reason it’s here on Skate and Annoy is because a skatepark always makes a good location for a product shoot of any kind. Is that freaking PVC coping on that quarterpipe?

[Source: Adrants]

Drink your fancy tea from China in china from Japan. This will set you back approximately $50 USD at the time of this publication, but think of all the face you’ll save.

[Source: Akashicr] – Thanks to MC for the tip.

So “skatercross” is thing now? Apparently there’s some sort of competitive circuit for it, at least that’s what Skateboard Supercross (SBSX) would have you to believe. You’re looking at an “Official SBSX Track” in New York City built by a Swiss mountain bike-centric company called Velosolutions. I’m not sure what they mean by official track, and it seems unclear whether or not this is a public park or not. Looks like it was spearheaded by Brooklyn Bike Park which is some combination of bike shop/rental/park. The Skateboard Supercross video shows skateboards, but the Velosolutions pics and Brooklyn Bike Park association implies this was built with bikes foremost in mind. It looks fun though. I like the illustration on the track. Again with the asphalt though. I guess it’s easier and cheaper to work than concrete. Probably less slippery in inclement weather. Better for bikes too.

These animals riding skateboards are illustrated by a fellow named Guise. Sure, they lack the naive appeal of Schmetz Petz, but look at that technique!

[Source: WhatAnArt via Juxtapoz] – Thanks to MC for the tip.

Here’s a couple pages from Lane Smith’s 1993 book The Happy Hocky Family. I guess the alliteration in Happy Hocky is more catchy than the Sardonic Hocky Family.

– Thanks to MC for the tip.

I’ve featured a handful or two of pages from Christmas catalogs and store advertisements from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, but this JCPenny (1993) is the first from the 90’s. Or it isn’t. I can’t tell for sure. A Bart Simpson skateboard is no big deal, but for the discerning reader of S&A there’s more to it than meets the eye. First off, there’s the awesome “pro quality” knee and elbow pads. Also, the country of origin is listed in the catalog descriptions. I barely glanced at the nondescript dinosaur skateboard until I read “Made in the USA.” Sure enough, if you squint hard enough you can see a tiny Nash logo where the wheel well should be. So that’s interesting, right? Maybe not. I’ve seen and thought I posted this Snoopy board before, but I guess not. It’s scooter/skateboard combo with cool illustration of Woodstock in full downhill racer mode. The funny-isn thing about this deck is the fact that they have a giant registration mark from the screen printing process visible over the front trucks. I guess they assumed everyone would attach the scooter handle. A quick search on S&A reveals Snoopy posts are in short supply. I need to rectify that.

A dead body found in a skatepark, as seen in the trailer for the 2013 film Blood. Another post I was sitting for years, and for no apparent reason. Apparently even in Europe the skateparks attract a bad element.