Starwars board graphics

I can't remember exactly where I found this but for sure it was from one of the tumblr sites to the right in my Links. I really like these graphics and think they're a cool looking interpretation of Starwars characters. This also reminded me of these First Nation style Starwars paintings I saw at a gallery in Gastown earlier this fall. Now, a Stormtrooper is definitely not my favourite character in the saga but of all the ones that he's painted, I like the way it looks the best. Image from here.

XXIO factory tour

This is a cool clip of XXIO's factory and club assembly process.

China - Part 3 of 3

Shanghai - This was the last city on our tour and it was much more relaxed. It felt like we had more time to see the sites and there was almost no rushing around. Our guide Rocky was a younger guy (28), had good knowledge of the city and his English was good. We had emailed Yan Ban about the bad restaurant experience in Xi’an so she contacted him and informed him about our expectations. He was very flexible about the restaurants and picked local ones as well as letting up pick a few. We stayed at the Howard Johnson Plaza Shanghai, which is just south of E Nanjing Road and is within walking distance of the Bund and the People's Square/Park.

The order in which the cities on the tour were visited, we went from classic China to modern China. Shanghai is a massive metropolitan city. The population is pushing 25,000,000 people, which is more than 70% of all of Canada.

Our first day was pretty mellow and we started the day going up the Oriental Pearl Tower, which has a clear floor viewing platform, and then took a Huangpu River Cruise. On the flight from Xi'an to Shanghai, my wife was skimming a newspaper and read a review of a seafood noodle restaurant on Changle in the Old French Concession so we went for lunch there. It was a small place but very good. We then cruised through Xintiandi, which is a neat pedestrian area of the Old French Concession that used to be stone Shikumen housing and now contains restaurants of all nationalities and a shopping center. There was so much variety, we ended up coming back here to eat several times. While we were there, we saw a Caucasian lady get hit by a bike, which seemed sort of ironic seeing as it is a pedestrian area. He was biking the wrong way on a one way alley.

The last stop of the day was the Yuyuan Garden, which is surrounded by shops housed in classic Chinese architecture. One of the coolest is a teahouse on an island that is only accessible via zigzag walkways. The garden itself has lots of rockeries as well as the three-toed dragon wall. The artist carved the dragon with five toes, which is reserved for Imperial dragons only. Supposedly the Emperor heard about this dragon and sent his people to inspect it and punish the carver but when they arrived, the carver removed two toes.

Red Bull Kluge

IMO it doesn't really look cool unless it's filmed all in one take. Also, Rickie Fowler and Sheckler look like long lost brothers from different mothers... jocky looking California kids.

Walker Ryan's Driver

I've always been stoked on Walker Ryan's skating and I'm not posting this because it's a sneak peek at his new shoe. I'm more concerned about what driver he plays.

Potenza Bowl Carve

I yanked this ad from the Sept 2012 issue of Golf Digest. It's not often you see something skateboard related in a golf magazine. Anyone know where this skatepark is?

Big Break Greenbrier

I don't normally watch the Golf Channel but I have been tuning in to their Big Break Greenbrier reality tv series. The only reason I'm watching it is to see how James Lepp does... more specifically, I'm hoping to see him bust out the saucer pass. Super stoked that he has executed it twice successfully in back to back episodes AND he is one funny guy!

For those of you who don't know, he's from the Lower Mainland and is the owner of Kikkor Golf. He had some great success at the college level but decided to go the business route rather than pursue the grind of a touring professional golfer. This past summer, he played in the Vancouver Open but had a quintuple bogey on the second hole of his third round en route to a 79. More recently, he entered the PGA Q-school qualifier but didn't make it past the first stage.

Brad Fritsch x Ottawa Senators

I thought this was pretty cool. Brad Fritsch (from Manotick, Ontario) just earned his PGA Tour card and will rock Ottawa Senators logos on his gear next year. Hopefully the Senators will also be playing in 2013. Photo from the Senators' Facebook page.

Austyn Unlimited

If you haven't watched this part multiple times already, I suggest you do so. The line at the end of the first song is great. Nice style, pop and trick selection.

Darth Mall Grab

LOL. My wife go to the library often and always grabs me the latest Concrete Magazine. This Darth Mall Grab sketch by FOS is awesome!

Pennswood

Here's a cool little video of Pennswood pressing boards. They are probably my third favourite board manufacturer behind PS Stix and BBS.

Justin Eldridge in the Woods

Just saw this instagram photo of Justin Eldridge hitting out of the shit. Based on his stance and the tree behind him, I'd say the fairway wood or hybrid he has in his hands is a bad choice. Image from Biebel.

China, Part 2 of 3

Day 4 - There were a few hiccups on this two-day leg of the tour. Our day started super early with a 4:30am wake-up call. The guide wanted us to be at the airport two hours before our 8:00 flight. It seemed like a bit overkill as we were through security and at our gate by 6:20.

As soon as we arrived in Xi'an, we headed straight for the Terracotta Warriors. This was probably the second coolest thing I saw in China. The excavation site is pretty amazing. The main building is the crazy familiar one you generally see in pictures. It's rows upon rows of warriors. It's said that each one has a different face. In the back of this part is the warrior "hospital", where they take broken pieces and re-assemble the statues. Once completed, it is inserted back where they found the original pieces. What's amazing is the tomb all these warriors are guarding, that of the first Emperor Qin Shi Huang, is 5km away. Chinese archeologists are gonna have jobs for generations excavating everything in between. Like the Ming Tombs, because of the lack of technology to preserve artifacts, the tomb has not been opened yet. The farmer who first discovered the site while digging a well back in 1974 has a little desk in the gift store and signs books. Nice gig!

After the Warriors, the plan was to head back to the hotel, rest for a bit, and head out for a dumpling dinner and Tang Dynasty show. Ummm, not gonna happen! There were rallies against the Japanese with regard to the Senkaku/Diaoyu island and the protesters blocked traffic from entering and leaving the city for most of the day. We were stuck outside the city wall in the gnarliest traffic I've ever been in and ended up going straight to the dumplings and show. The show itself was good for what it was (nice costumes, good performers) but the food was terrible. I have no idea how anyone can steam dumplings and have them end up being dry and plasticy. We didn’t even make it to the hotel until 9:30pm and remember, we started our day in Beijing waking up at 4:30am.

China, Part 1 of 3

Here's a little summary of my trip to China. At the insistence of my Mom, we used a tour company and went on a four person/three city/eleven day tour. She left all the planning up to me and I decided to book with The China Guide. Yan Ban was our contact person there and pretty much everything went smoothly. I had a general idea for our itinerary and Yan and I emailed back and forth making adjustments. A few benefits of booking with them are:

1. There were no forced shopping/factory stops,
2. There was flexibility in the restaurants (two of us don't eat meat),
3. There was flexibility in the hotels (I got to book them myself),
4. They accept credit cards as payment through their website.

There was a lot packed into our trip but I suppose that's the nature of a tour. We zipped through a lot of sites in a small period of time. There were lots of things at many of the sites that we probably could have spent more time at but again, it was a tour.

The first city we visited was Beijing and we got to fly direct from Vancouver. Our guide and driver picked us up from the airport and we stayed at the Park Plaza Wangfujing (nice hotel!).

Day 1 - In the morning we visited Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City and Jingshan Park. We probably could have spent an entire day at these three sites. We didn't see Mao's body (there was a super long line up anyway) nor the museum in the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City wasn't as epic as I expected. In the afternoon, we went for a rickshaw ride through a hutong, went up the Drum Tower (longest steepest staircase I've ever seen), Temple of Heaven and a kung fu show.

After the first day, I got a general impression of the main tourist sites being kind of beat up/unkept. You would think the government would try to keep everything in tip top shape but it sort of reminds me of an old fair ground that wasn't being maintained. The highlight of the day was actually quite random. We drove by a big white dog and this is how the conversation went.

me: "look at the big ass white dog... wait a sec, he's wearing glasses!"
wife: "you're a jackass. It's probably a statue"
wife turns around.
wife: "jeez, it is a big white dog wearing glasses!"

Tony Hawk at Star Wars Identities

I got to check out this interactive Star Wars exhibition when I was visiting Montreal in April. Super cool! Looks like Tony Hawk also went when he was touring around Canada this summer.

Here's a bonus photo of his tour bus getting a ticket. It was parked near my work.

China, update coming

Just got back from China a few days ago. I'll have a full update soon. As far as skateboard related stuff, I drove by two skate shops in Beijing and saw a guy carving around on a cruiser board on East Nanjing Rd in Shanghai. That was it. Then again, I wasn't going out of my way to find skate shit... I did see lots of nice smooth ground and glossy untouched ledges everywhere. I can't even count how many times I said to myself "Man! This would be one of the best spots back home" and in China, it doesn't even look like it's ever been skated.

Wallride nollie out

This Julien Stranger footage starting at 24 seconds in always stoked me out. The guy has an incredible loose truck style and the wallride nollie out is the best I've seen. You'll probably have to expand the video full screen to see the clip better.

China

Well, I originally posted about this great Shanghai 5 video back in 2010. Last Fall, my Mom mentioned that she wants to take a trip to China before she gets too old. Fast forward to now... we're booked to go in September! Super psyched. If any readers have any suggestions or tips, let me know. I'm trying to figure out where the good vegetarian restaurants are. I actually found a bunch of google maps containing vegetarian restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai as well as Shanghai skate spots.

I'm up in the air about whether I'm gonna skate when I'm there. Every other time I've gone on a family vacation that wasn't a skate trip and I brought my board, I skated maybe once and that was while waiting for laundry in Paris. I'm definitely not bringing my board with me but I may pack my trucks and wheels, which are compact enough, in case I feel like skating and I can buy a board at the local shop. The Love Park spot is right around the corner from my hotel, which makes it more tempting.

Graphite golf shaft myths

This is a pretty cool video by Robin Arthur, who formerly worked at Grafalloy and now has his own line of shafts. It's insane that there are shafts that cost upward of $200 and there are even some over $1000! I can't believe there's enough R&D in a shaft for one to cost over five times more than a well engineered inexpensive one. There's way too much marketing and BS in golf equipment advertising.

Gailea Momolu Commercial

This has been airing on tv lately. Pretty funny to see him in a commercial skating the Plaza.

Gino and Challenge Court SB

Any new Gino footage is good footage. Not really feeling the shoes though. Maybe they will grow on me. Image from Jody Morris.

Adam McNatt

At some point earlier this week, I was watching Pat Brennan's Celebrity Tropical Fish part and ended up on an Adam McNatt tangent. The guy always seems like an enigma to me... some crazy skating as a little kid in those few Powell Peralta videos, then getting on 101, which I never really thought he fit well.

There's a pretty good collection of old ads and interviews at Chrome Ball as well as this Skateboarder Mag Lost and Found where he talks about taking blank boards from the World warehouse and screening graphics on them in his garage. After reading that L&F, I googled the Goodtimes video and actually found it and embedded it above. Pretty nuts! I'm assuming most of this footage would have ended up in 20 Shot Sequence if he wasn't kicked off. 360 bs nollie flip over the brick Wallenberg wall was nice!

Josh Kalis: Free Lunch and more

A few Josh Kalis bits popped up the past few weeks. Above is his Free Lunch and here's his Chrome Ball interview. He's asked about Dyrdek buying DNA in both of them. Also, his new shoe is coming out with this video below containing a crazy fakie 5-0 front foot impossible out.

Vancouver Parks Golf Media Day

I made it out to the Vancouver Parks Golf Media Day last week and did a write up on it here. Check it out!

Rick Howard - Adventures in Cheese

Everyone I grew up with in Ottawa was super psyched on Rick Howard during his Blockhead days. This skunk board was his first pro model and was much sought after. It's amazing how well this video part has aged. Image from here.

Koston Epicly Later'd

First three parts of Koston's Epicly Later'd are up. Super interesting to hear about the early H-Street and 101 days. First few tricks I remember were in the montage at the end of the This Is Not The New H-Street Video. I never saw his H-Street pro model before. The circumstances of it sort of reminds me of Carroll turning pro for H-Street... turn pro, get a board released and then switch companies a few months later. My local shop did get Carroll's macaroni and cheese H-Street pro model but shortly after it came out, he was on Plan B. I remember seeing a huge stack of them at FTC the summer Plan B started.

I never knew Koston was that good back in the early H-Street days. I remember sending a sponsor me tape to H-Street after Next but before Lick. I called up H-Street and talked to Tony Mag and he kept mentioning Koston and how he was the best and he was also talking about some Dallas kid that's gonna be the next best thing... years later, I realized he was talking about Kalis, who was in the montage at the end of Lick.

The New Yorker on skateboarding

Here's a well written article about the history of skateboarding with respect to Transworld's 30 most influential skaters of all time.

More Mark Suciu

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I like the way the 360 flip was filmed through the bars of the railing while rolling along. Again, so many good lines.

Drake Jones FTC Capsule

Well deserved honour for an awesome skater and golfer. Product looks super good. Photo from here.

Heel Bruise leaders of the pack

This Heel Bruise shirt is awesome. Check out their website here.

Arto Saari Epicly Laterd

All six episodes are up at the Vice website. He's taken some seriously bad slams over the years. I'd call it a career after some of those or I'd just drastically change the terrain I skate. I was actually surprised he did big stuff in Mindfield. I figured he'd tone it down a bit. I don't think he has anything else to prove. Super good skater. It's too bad he went back to Flip. I liked him on Alien.

Jason Dill - Supreme Buddy

"Hey, I used to too. It's not a big deal"

Awesome quote.

Skate It Or Hang It!? art show

Here's a cool article on the Skate It Or Hang It!? art show at the Museum of Design Atlanta.

More Mark Suciu lines

One of the rare ams in this day and age that understands the art of doing good lines.

Walker Ryan Double Rock

Walker Ryan's super smooth and has a nice bag of tricks. Switch backside big spin to bs 5-0 fs 180 out is beyond amazing.

Lost and Found: Sal Barbier

Here's a good Skateboarder mag interview catching up with SLB. I linked it a while ago but thought it needed its own post. Such a funny guy. The best quote is this one about his Questionable part... "I almost look at that part as Ternasky skating."

Gilbert Crockett

In case you missed Gilbert Crockett week at the Vans site, check it out now... multiple interviews, photos and videos. I knew very little about him before he was put on the Alien am squad shortly after the release of Mindfield. He's got a stinkbug-ish kinda style and his arms seem exaggerated on his landings (along the lines of Dylan) but it works for him. Super stoked on his trick selection, execution, power and pop. Well deserved new Alien pro status along with Jake Johnson.





Alien is pretty much just killing it lately.

Jeremy Wray

This Jeremy Wray article at Jenkem was posted at the end of Dec 2011 so I'm super late on it. He talks about Element slowly phasing him and his pro models out of their system. Super lame for a legend to be treated like that. For whatever reason, he's still has a profile on their website.

Rodney King, Skateboarder

Skip to 1:35 to see Rodney King skateboarding. RIP.

Skate Mental D3P0

LOL. Super funny graphic. A mash-up of C3-P0 and the classic raver popular Osiris D3 shoes.

H-Street Hokus Pokus Special

I saw this board at a local shop a few weeks ago. Firstly, I was surprised to see an H-Street board. Secondly, I was shocked to see one with the classic Matt Hensley frontside one footed ollie Hokus Pokus cover shot. Classic photo. I hope Hensley is getting some sort of residual from board sales. They also re-issued a Sal Barbier Raiders old school shape.

eS clearance ebay store

Last Fall, eS announced that they were going on hiatus in Spring 2012. Now that it's spring, looks like they are clearing out their inventory and they opened up an ebay store solely for that purpose. May as well stock up on cheap skate shoes.

Skating a Driving Range

Got a message today in my inbox from a chap named Robin about this cool DIY spot in Northern Ireland that was formerly a driving range. Robin said he used to golf and play cricket at this spot way back in the day. Wireless is a local company over there that looks pretty tight. Belfast also has a skate park now that looks super fun. I was supposed to visit Ireland back around 2006 with my wife and mother in law as my wife's university graduation gift but it never happened. Gotta get out there!

The Amazing Snyder-Man

I wonder if Marvel Comics is gonna drop the hammer with a cease and desist on this one. Aaron Snyder board by Civilized. I think it's a cool graphic.

Greek-style Skateboard

I was in Athens, Greece for work a few weeks ago and my wife found this boutique shop called Greece is for Lovers just south of the Acropolis. They make a lot of interesting unique art such as the above skateboard with built in sandals. They also had a skateboard made out of white marble and another from terra cotta.

I didn't see many skaters while I was there. The few that I did see were skating around Syntagma Square, which is where all the recent riots and demonstrations have been taking place. There was also a skate shop over near the flea market area by Monastiraki square. I was pretty stoked to be somewhere warm and sunny in March and to have a chance to explore the city and the ancient ruins.

Music Skateboards - Series 3

Music Skateboards has released their third series of boards. The wood stain theme is pretty awesome. Check if your local shop in on their dealers list and if not, ask them to get some in. Or get yours directly through their online shop. All boards are pressed in Pennsylvania, USA by Pennswood, which has solid wood, concave and shapes.

Raymond Molinar Converse Part

Last trick is nuts! FS flip fakie 5-0. Wow. I always liked this guys style. Still not sure why he got booted from Habitat.

Kalis' city hall blocks

Here's a pretty cool instagram post from last week by Josh Kalis. Not sure exactly what's going on but it appears he had ledges from Philly's City Hall put on pallets and shipped to him in Los Angeles. He can put together a pretty awesome DIY spot. Original image here.

Congrats Bubba

Another fellow lefty wins the Masters. Congratulations to Bubba Watson! That crazy hook out of the trees on the second playoff hole was great. Image from here.

Patman and Robin

Pat Duffy and Rob Welsh singing and strumming at SXSW. Starts around 2:51.

Nike Air Anthem

My Kikkors had started leaking in the fall of 2011 so I needed a new pair of golf shoes. I thought I made my decision for what shoes I wanted but kept changing my mind: Samba, Adicross Street, Cardiff, Tenny. It turns out some of these aren't waterproof. After some browsing, I ended up grabbing a pair of these Nike Anthems from Golfio for $45 shipped. It's a nice comfy shoe with removable spikes and a 2-year waterproof warranty. I wore them on my Phoenix golf vacation (which I'll write about in the coming weeks) and they were solid.

Johnny Layton at the driving range

Looks like he bombs it pretty good... a little fade toward the end. And the no comply to nose blunt is awesome. Also... this ollie is beyond ridiculous!

Heath Kirchart Retirement Board on Ebay

As far as I know, this is the first Heath retirement board that has popped up for sale on ebay. Ever since they were released, I've wanted one... but not for $1700. That's a lot too much for me. Auction here.

NYC 2011 wrap-up

Really late on this one. My wife and I visited New York City in September and here are a few observations.

1. We stayed at the Comfort Inn Manhattan Bridge, which was recommended to me by Eric over at Chromeball. We had stayed south of Houston our last trip and really like cruising around down there. Hotel was clean and the price was good.

2. I saw my first Jackson Pollock at the MET. I few weeks prior, I watched the Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock? documentary.

3. Met up with Anthony from Music Skateboards at Maxfish to have some beers. Super nice guy and I hope for all the best for him and his company.

4. Chipotle Test Kitchen at 149 8th Ave in Greenwich Village was awesome. Faux chicken was one of the protein options.

5. Red velvet donuts at the Donut Pub were a nice snack. Same with red velvet cupcakes at Magnolia's.

6. Tickets to Broadway shows aren't cheap. We wanted to check out the Book or Mormon so we decided to try and get raffle tickets. What are raffle tickets? Their website describes it better than I can.

"A limited number of tickets for each performance will be sold through the lottery. Entries will be accepted at the box office beginning two and a half hours prior to each performance for up to two tickets.

Two hours before curtain, names will be drawn at random for a limited number of tickets priced at $32 each. Only one entry is allowed per person. Cards are checked for duplication prior to drawing. Winners must be present at the time of the drawing and show valid ID to purchase tickets. Limit one entry per person and two tickets per winner."

We ended up winning tickets! It was my first Broadway show.

7. I was waiting for Lombardi's pizza take out and I heard the rolling thunder, looked up and saw Muska cruising by. He was pretty much dressed in all black like in these photos.

After we ate our pizza, we were walking around Soho and crossed paths with him again. My wife knows who he is from TMZ and when she saw him, she noticed he was skating in moccasins. Then a few months later, those moccasins show up in this Berrics footnotes. He seems like a really kooky eccentric dude, not that there's anything wrong with that. I've heard that he's a super nice guy and I bet he has great stories for days. Image from here.

Bench

This gesture makes Brendan Morrison my favourite Calgary Flames player. Iggy is pretty rad as well. Image from here.

Habitat Stuff

Two Habitat related clips this past week. Austyn Gillette's ender in the Double Rock feature is super good. It's essentially the same motion as Greg Lutzka's go-to trick but it's on a quarter pipe and Austyn makes it look amazing.

To be honest, this Mark Suciu one caught me by surprise. I've seen his Origins part a few times but I hardly remember it. This 6 minute web part is definitely worth watching multiple times, particularly for the lines, which I find is a bit of a dying art with the youth of today.

I guess it's somewhat related... Habitat and Alien Workshop have always been under the same distribution umbrella (aka. DNA). Last week, Rob Dyrdek announced that he is buying Alien Workshop from Burton. Hopefully the transition is smooth and everyone keeps getting paid and they continue to use PS Stix and BBS wood. I'd be overly psyched if Neil Blender and Don Pendleton came back to do some graphics. The announcement mentioned nothing about Habitat, so I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens. It would be unfortunate to see the two companies split. I've always like the sister company dynamic: World-Blind-101. Real-Stereo. Girl-Chocolate. Alien-Habitat.