I feel bad every time I laugh at this picture, which is every time I see it. I can’t track down the original source. The flip flops are the icing on the cake. Also, yes. Every time. Mean.

A local skatepark benefactor sent this in: They loved this at the emergency room. Sixty-one year old guy riding an Advil skateboard breaks his arm at the skatepark. If it didn’t hurt so much it would be funny. Check out the sweet $25,000 hardware he picked up. Fortunately, his insurance took care of it.

Skateboarding is an inherently risky activity. Make no mistake about it. The more you skate, the greater your chances of eventually getting injured. What I can do without is the added risk involved when a facility that you pay to skate in does not sweep frequently enough, especially in the case of a wooden bowl. I know what you’re going to say, plenty of other people skate there without managing to blame their mishaps on dusty conditions. Truth is, I saw three different people eat it that night in the back bowl due to slippery masonite, but none of them were seriously injured. Fact of the matter is, my injury was 100% preventable. Believe me, I eat it all the time there without complaint, but this particular injury was caused by a dusty bowl. Maintenance will likely say “But we clean and sweep the bowl X times a month/week,” to which I reply “Not good enough. You need to increase the frequency.” Rant over. What’s the prognosis? No torn tendons or ligaments thankfully, just a lot of inflammation, fluid and a nasty contusion. Yes, I had knee pads on, thankfully, as I haven’t been wearing them there lately. 187’s with…

Unfortunately, for every morally uplifting tale, there are about five or more human beings who are still just living in the gutter. There was an 80’s English skate rock/hardcore band called the Coolest Retards, these guys after the jump definitely fit half of that bill.

The day after we posted Wally Inouye’s 50th birthday celebration, he ended up breaking his wrist while snowboarding on a 360 that went bad. Seriously Tom, aren’t you a little old to be playing with toys? I imagine you’ll be able to see him hanging around the shop a lot of the next few months. Here’s to a speedy recovery. [Photos clockwise: Carl Warren, Mike Estes, Warren]

As seen on the Skaterbuilt Skateboards MySpace page, as posted a mystery user going by the profile M.

Jake Brown was on the Today Show (yesterday) and the unholy corporate alliance of NBC and Microsoft has a transcript and a video excerpt on the official Today web site. Why was he on mainstream TV again? Because he recently returned to competition (at the X Games in Dubai – No, really!) again after taking the world’s most famous slam, which of course gave them a good excuse to show it again. In the video clip you can hear Meredith Vieira’s uncomfortable noises as she watches the slam, and afterwards, for a brief few sentences Matt Lauer asks Jake if he’s OK, but the tone of his voice is like mine after my two year old takes a particularly hard spill. It’s kind of creepy. Jake returned to competition on the vert ramp, but decided to avoid the mega ramp for his maiden voyage. Wise man. Check it out. Got a Mac? The video still works even though they redirect you to a page that says your browser is unsupported. You have to click through a few extra times. I wonder why Microsoft would do that?