Ryan Sheckler is still a thing, and he’s a thing for Lume Cube. Lume Cube is a wireless flash / lighting system. It’s a pretty cool device actually. They are tiny, waterproof, battery powered strobes you can link together and control with an app to use for discreet, highly mobile and quick photo lighting. In addition to using a smartphone to set up Lume Cubes for use with a DSLR, you can use an additional mount to supplement your phonecam’s lighting. After watching some of the tutorials I have to say that I’m impressed by the system. It’s expensive, but seems very well thought out. One thing that does seem needlessly obtrusive, to use a Lume Cube even once, you’re going to need to provide a valid email address and register the the cube (with serial #) via your smartphone. So what happens if you want to loan it to a friend, or share a cube amongst different phones? For instance, you may use different assistants on different shoots. Why should you have to provide a valid email address just to use the cube? What if the email address and serial # conflict with a previous registration? This is a major deal to me, can you tell? Another instance of needless overreaching by a tech company. An email address to register a product for warranty purposes makes perfect sense, but just to use a physical product? I’m calling bullshit.

They go out of their way to explain what a kludge is so the title will make sense to viewers who don’t know what it means, but the real kluge in this case is titling the video “kluge” in order to avoid having to explain a Rube Goldberg machine. There is some skateboarding in this video, but it’s actually some of the least interesting parts.

[Source: ESPN]– Thanks to MC for passing the buck.

Prepaid credit cards with an obnoxious name of Bill My Parents, aimed at the teenage market. Who else but Ryan Sheckler would be the skateboarding spokesperson? Watch the commercial after the jump. UPDATE: And Rob Dyrdek too!

This is either the absolute best or worst skateboard toy ever. I’m leaning towards best, and I actually want one. New from Action Sports Toys, it’s the Ryan Sheckler action figure. You have to check out the videos to see how cool these things actually are, as far as the, errr, simulation tiny skateboarding goes. I’m not sure where this falls in the hierarchy of fingerboarding. I mean, who is the biggest dork, the guy who spends hours and hours perfecting his fingerboarding technique, or the guy who goes for instant gratification with an almost anamatronic action figure? When I get mine, I’ll let you know.

– Thanks to GN for the tip.

I haven’t uploaded any commercials in a while, among other things. I’m so far behind and there are so many occurrences of skateboards in commercials these days that I’m going to gang a few together each time we post. This installment features 5 Hour Energy Drink, Kohls department store, Kashi cereal, Axe deoderant, and LIV dolls.