You can now pay to have various levels of “celebrities” record personalized video messages for you. Amongst other personalities like Pee Wee Herman (!!), there are currently 52 skateboarders to chose from, some famous, some not-so-famous. The pay scale is sliding and serves as a barometer for how popular (or how bored) these personalities are. Bucky Lasek for only $15??? Even the Lizard King is up to $25. Guys like Jason Jesse are going for $25, while a puffy Bam Margera can be rented for $65. Was little surprised to see Richie Jackson on there at all, but I guess it’s a quick $50 for him that can come in handy at the local thrift store. Skate and Annoy really needs personalized video from Tony Hawk saying how much this site sucks. Now accepting donations…

I’m surprised there isn’t a trick called an Obvious Plant. Sounds like something Neil Blender or Lance Mountain would have made up. Wait? Is there an obvious plant? Well, there’s Obvious Plant, the fake company run by Jeff Wysaski. He makes fake products in packaging and plants them in retail locations. It’s very good stuff, and there are 2 gratuitous Tony Hawk references in the collection.

Tony Hawk is becoming a Funko Pop. Should be any day now… He also makes an appearance in the documentary Making Fun: The Story of Funko. You can find it on Netflix. Tony’s short but interesting part starts at the 1:08 mark. That’s hours and minutes. – Thanks to Boy at SkateMalaysia.com for the tip.

Animal Chin came out 30 years ago, and what better way to celebrate that than to build a replica of the Animal Chin ramp. It grew from an idea to make a spine ramp to recreate the famous 4-way invert shot, but ultimately ended up as a complete reconstruction, minus the tunnel. Unlike the original, this ramp will last longer than a couple days, and has a permanent home at Woodward. If you’re going to recreate the Chin ramp, you might as well throw another party with Johnny Rad. [Source: Ride]

What’s a Rich Eisen? He’s a guy with a sports talk show who got a skateboarding lesson from a man who needs no introduction. Shortly after this clip was uploaded, an intern was fired for forgetting to turn on the deinterlace option.

The Video Toaster was an Amiga computer-based video effects editing system. A hardware and software combo, it was pretty much the first consumer desktop computer system available for video editing. The first one came out in 1987. I can vividly remember going to a computer store to watch the demo tape and gape at the the computer on several occasions, convinced I would do great things if I could afford one. The stills above are from the Video Toaster 4000 which came out around 1993, and features Tonyy Hawk in some recycled Bones Brigade video footage. Of course this predates Tony’s appearances for Apple Computer on behalf of Final Cut Pro. The demo reel is cheesy as hell, and therefore well worth watching. I assumed that the Video Toaster products were purely a 90’s phenomenon, but they were actually being marketed until 2010. – Thanks to Stephen B for the tip.

Ahh… 2009. Much unlike the Tony Hawk Ride video game franchise, I’m still here, just busy. Fortunately for Tony, the Ride network has faired better.

There’s an auction group online benefiting the Tony Hawk Foundation. Alongside opportunities to hang out at the Tony Hawk headquarters or have a Birdhouse session, there are also some items from Tony’s personal collection. The standout gem is Tony’s 2nd place trophy From the 1989 Savanah Slamma II, signed of course.

Tony Hawk on a vertical corkscrew run specially built in his facility, paid for by Sony Action Cam. You remember Sony Hawk… Yuk yuk yuk. I guess I overestimated his skills, I assumed this would be a piece of cake for him. What a fun line.

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…