Jamie Thomas is definitely influential to thousands of young bros out there.  Within the skateboard industry, there are hundreds of skaters to choose from to be your role model.  You can either look up to someone like Jamie Thomas for that spiritual guidance, level headed, business minded mentor or you can go the totally opposite end of the spectrum and look up to someone like ANTWUAN DIXON to learn how to get tattoos all over your face. 

Jamie had hundreds of questions to choose from.  He chose several lucky questioners who were not boring, from the long list on ActiveRideShop.com.  I’m still hoping that Jamie will answer some of my questions.

“So Jamie, you went from having the baldest head in skating to the most hessian.  How do you do it?”  Or for instance, “Jamie, do you think that Sarah Palin is a bimbo?”
Check out the questions over at ACTIVE. 

Well BoilTheOcean just released their Top 10 skate parts of the year.  I would really have to agree with their number one slot but I’ve been diggin the Billy Marks and Chris Cole parts in Ride The Sky.  Those were just nasty. 

Check out the list over at boiltheocean.com/

It’s been a long year but 2008 is nearly out the door and 2009 will present us with a brand new refreshing start.  With a complete revamp of Bush’s totally awesome, totally successful presidency, we will be welcoming a new look to this country’s government with Barack Obama and his  administration.  Will he be as popular and efficient in running this country as Bush was?  All we can do is wait and see.  But there are a few things coming next year whose success is all but certain. 

First we have the fourth installment of the ever so popular Fast and Furious franchise.   I personally thought that RICE ROCKETS died at least 3 years ago but leave it up to Vin Diesel and his close friend and lost in the rummage co-star Paul Walker to revive the hobby.  In the music category, we can go down a long list of things to come.  But my personal favorite and it’s been a long time coming: the BONE THUGS N HARMONY album.  When they’re first album came out over a decade ago, it single handedly created a monster within suburban communities nation wide.  Middle-class straight A students morphed into gangstas.  It was awesome.  

Finally for television, I don’t get a chance to watch much of the tube unless it’s a holiday marathon of my favorite series SMALL WONDER.  But those are far and few between.  Fortunately Rob Dyrdek’s up coming show, which takes place at his newly constructed “Fantasy Factory”, will be hitting the air next year.  If you haven’t seen the skate plaza yet, it’s like THE BERRICS on crack.  Sorry, that’s a bad analogy.  More like The Berrics on Prozac mixed with LSD.  It’s pretty fresh.  Check out the new video over at DC. 

Tomorrow night is New Years Eve. Before you go out and get totally wasted off STEEL RESERVE and Jose Cuervo with your friends in the middle of some desert, or before you put on your make-up, big baggy pants and home made JEWELRY for the massive RAVE dance that night, or before you cut your hair with a ruler, sport your shiniest shirt, and douse yourself with the most putrid smell of ENGLISH LEATHER, which your brother gave to your for Christmas for the SHINEY SHIRT CLUBS, make sure you stay home and pay your respects to one of skateboarding’s legends; sorry, i mean GODS, and check out FUEL TV’s “The Daily Habit” featuring Christian Hosoi. 

Christ Cote, still guest hosting the show, will have a nice chat with the legendary stylish skater.  Christian’s life has sure had its ups and downs and I’m sure he has plenty of knowledge he wants to share with everyone.  Especially you.  Especially since you like to wear those ugly SHINEY SHIRTS.  So give him a listen. 

The show airs tomorrow, Wednesday December 31st, at 9:00 PM.  Plus totally punk band Unwritten Law will be there to perform.  Also, Jordan Morris chills out with Mike Vallely, Mike Escamilla, and Rick Thorne on the set of the new movie, PAUL BLART: MALL COP. 

Wow, two skateboarding articles within just a few days found in the mainstream media.  You can’t beat that.  Tony Hawk, doing an interview with the other less significant LAT, the Los Angeles Times, talks about his upcoming video game with Activision.  Can you believe that he’s been in the video game, game, for about ten years now?  That’s crazy.  He’s released about a game a year I suspect. 

As you probably already know, video games generate billions of dollars annually and Tony’s games have definitely contributed its share.  Even shmo’s such as myself who usually could care less about video games got really into the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series.  I used to cut class to play Pro Skater at the Virgin Megastore in Hollywood for six hours straight.  I must say I got pretty good at it regularly scoring a million points.  That’s how savant I am. 

But those games didn’t just have a (positive) impact on me as a kid cutting class, but for thousands of skaters everywhere improving on their shred skillz.  You can’t deny that those games had some kind of influence on how skaters skate today with all the noseslide, to manual, to kickflip out renditions.  Sometimes when watching some of the videos today, I could swear I’ve seen runs reminiscent on Tony Hawk Pro Skater. 

Check out the article over at the LA TIMES.  If any skater were to reach a billion dollar net worth, it would have to be Tony.  He or Willy Manaloto Santos.  But not because of his skating, but for his acting chops.  That’s right, I have to give another shout out to my favorite skateboard film of all time, THE SKATEBOARD KID II. 

In certain US cities, I’ve read about fashion and modeling students who secretly live an underground lifestyle with other students who can no longer pay their rents due to high costs of living and even higher tuitions.  These students are forced to live in abandoned buildings.  I bet the smell is wretched.  In other parts of urban American, I’ve read about trannies (transvestites) taking over abandoned business parks for their own drug den and whorehouse usage.  I bet it smells extra nasty in there.  And finally, just the other day, I saw an episode of MAN VS. WILD, where the host Bear Grylls desperately squeezes out fluid from a pile of elephant dung and into his mouth in order to re-hydrate himself.  I’m willing to bet his mouth stunk extra-extra nasty! 

We’re all feeling the effects from the current recession.  Students, trannies and Bear Grylls according to my examples above are all obviously suffering from this astronomical crisis.  But not skateboarders!  I’m talking about skateboarders and not so much the skate shops and skate companies.  They’re suffering (don’t buy blanks!).  Skaters have cleverly discovered ways to enjoy local unoccupied foreclosed homes that include empty swimming pools.  Not only are they doing a service to themselves, but they’re also helping out the community by emptying out and drying up the left over stagnant water that can potentially harm the neighboring homes. 

I think it’s safe to say that these skateboarders are modern day heroes.  Check out the article over at the NY TIMES. 

Are you living in the middle of nowhere, so much so that despite all the demos and autograph postings we advertise on this site, you’ve yet to see a team in your neighborhood, or at least a few hundred miles of your neighborhood?  One prime example of a lonely skater was featured on THE BERRICS named SKATE KIM.  I bet that’s his real name too.  But that kid was so awesome and lonely at the same time, you’ve got to assume that there are thousands of kids like him all over the world.  It’s humbling. 

A new website called Mycharitablelive.com has come onto the scene with a new business model.  You can bid on autographed gear via auction and portions of that winning bid will go to your favorite charity. 

Now excuse me while I go search out a sweaty Ryan Sheckler t-shirt, or a Nyjah Huston lock. 

You can buy and order everything online nowadays. I remember when I wanted to buy a He-Man book as a young child. The only place I could find that book was at BEST department stores. When I got older, I turned my interest into rare and obscure film titles. I couldn’t find one of the best comedies of all time, GOOD BURDER anywhere. I had to drive to San Francisco until I finally got myself a used VHS copy at Amoeba back in the 90’s.

Well as you probably know, times have changed and you can practically get everything online today. Even full length skate videos. The time has come for everyone including Skateboard companie to start embracing the digital video revolution. No more trying to fight pirating. Benefit from it.

ZERO is providing all their videos online for only $3.99 each. Sure you don’t get the packaging or the actual DVD but at least you will limit the waste you usually allow to collect dust anyway. I see this as the wave of the future. The next step will be microchips inserted into your head with a full skate catalogue.

We’ve all seen the monumental EA trailer for the upcoming skateboarding video game SKATE 2 starring practically every single skater known to man, except for Tony Hawk.  I think he was busy that day dancing around in his briefs.  But basically, it looks like EA, in an attempt to keep video gamers (prepubescent and pubescent) enticed by a concept that may has lost steam over the past few years, came out with a sequel to SKATE.  This time with an extended storyline.

I’m not really into video games but that’s not to say that I’ve never been into them.  The only video games that have ever caught my attention have had storylines.  The first game I could ever remember being addicted to was a crappy game on computer game called LEISURE SUIT LARRY.  The only reason why I loved this game was because it was like a B-movie in the context of a video game. 

EA just released the second trailer for SKATE 2 over on TackyWorld giving you an idea of what you can look forward to.  This version of Skate looks great but I wished they added my favorite skate character, Officer Rivieri.