Last night, the city of Poway, California voted in favor of a fingerprinting system that will allow skateboarders to use the city’s skatepark.
Park users who break the house rules or indulge in roughhousing, bullying or vandalism will have their thumbprint voided. “So the next time they put their thumb in (the thumb pad), it will not work,” says Poway City Councilman Jim Cunningham. “Then they will contact someone and find out why.”To critics who may see all this as somewhat Orwellian, Cunningham has this comeback “We’re not Big Brother. The thumbprints are not going to Homeland Security. They’re being used specifically for this particular facility, and we want people to enjoy it.”
According to a list of Australia’s biggest brands compiled by Interbrand, Billabong is number eight. They are right after ANZ Bank and ahead of St. George. Sadly, out of the top 20 Australian companies we only recognized four. Since we’ve heard of Telstra, that makes Billabong the number two Australian brand in the Boardistan rankings.
In a time when stories rarely make it into action sports magazines without first being vetted by the companies who paid for the trips it’s interesting to follow Scott Bass’s Surfermag.com story of Owl Chapman’s lawsuit against The Surfer’s Journal.
Apparently, Owl wasn’t happy with the way he was characterized in a Jeff Johnson story featured in the August/September 2006 issue of TSJ titled, “El Hombre Invisible (With Apologies to William S. Burroughs) An Owl Chapman Story.” He was so angry that he filed suit in Oahu Federal court. Here’s what Owl is upset about:
According to the court, “The Article as a whole–while a personal, narrative account fraught with descriptive, figurative language–generally implies that (1) Johnson ordered a surfboard from Plaintiff and (2) Plaintiff failed to deliver the surfboard on time as promised, took Johnson’s money up front and then deliberately avoided him for approximately two months, and failed to craft the surfboard to Johnson’s specifications.” . . . Specifically Chapman’s lawsuit claims that, “A ridiculously extreme portrait (indeed a most sinister caricature) of plaintiff emerges that casts him in a false light —- and which, further, points to a grandiose egotist who is mean-spirited, self-serving, full of braggadocio, impossibly arrogant and in the end, a degenerate, pathetic and drug-addled social outcast.”
Wait, isn’t that how it always is when buying a custom shaped board from a genius shaper?
Not that we want to continue on the bad news program, but Zumiez same store sales for the month of February were down, according to a press release on Market Watch:
Zumiez Inc. . . .announced the company’s comparable store sales decreased 13.4% for the four-week period ended February 28, 2009, versus a comparable store sales decrease of 2.6% in the year ago period ended March 1, 2008. Total net sales for the four-week period ended February 28, 2009 increased 0.2% to approximately $23.1 million, compared to approximately $23.1 million for the four-week period ended March 1, 2008.
Turns out people are only buying what they need these days. And apparently, they don’t need T-shirts with advertising all over them. To hear someone read the above quote please call (585) 295-6795.
Now we actually know someone who has done work for “the President of the United States of America.” Check out the new logos that designer Aaron Draplin worked on.
Creative director Steve Juras led designers Aaron Draplin and Chris Glass in the assignment to create two logos, one for projects completed under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and the second for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) team. Stay tuned …
Yesterday when news of former Billabong CEO Matthew Perrin’s bankruptcy began surfacing it was assumed that the family would not lose their $10 million AUS home at Cronin Island. Now, that’s not looking so clear, according to a story on Goldcoast.com.au.
Insolvency and Turnaround Solutions director Julie Williams, the controller of both companies, said the family’s personal assets, including a huge mansion at Cronin Island, ‘could be on the line’. . . . She said Mr Perrin’s wife, Nicole, a director of one of the companies, was guarantor for one on of the loans.
Whoops. . . The worst is in the stats: “The former Billabong CEO and BRW Rich List regular, who was worth about $150 million last year, owes at least $28 million to ‘banks and Chinese investors’.”
Burton photographer Jeff Curtes, along with Aaron Hooper, Gabriel L’Heureux, Alex Andrews, Keegan Valaika, and Kenneth Zima ran afoul of the law in the Twin Cities yesterday after police found them snowboarding in a West Seventh Street neighborhood, according to a story on Twincities.com.
They set up a 6-foot steel tower and connected a wooden ramp to it in a St. Paul neighborhood. Then, they snowboarded down the ramp, along a 2-foot ledge of a limestone cliff, and jumped — 20 to 30 feet onto the railroad tracks below, said one man who saw Monday’s action.
The paper reports that the snowboarder were rude to a local neighbor so the man called police:
“Eff you, eff this. We can do whatever we want. This is our job.” He asked not to be identified because he said he believes “these guys are important to the snowboard world” and he fears retribution from “their idols who feel they have been messed with.”
Luckily, the six were cited and then released. Maybe they should have been nicer to the nosey neighbor. . .
Last month we mentioned that the US Army Corp of Engineers was doing some clean up on two New Jersey beaches. According to a story in Press of Atlantic City, they found exactly what they were looking for.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Tuesday that a cleanup of munitions on beaches starting Jan. 26 has unearthed 453 potentially explosive items – almost half of what was previously found since a beachfill project was completed more than two years ago. On Feb. 10, the Army Corps said it had found only 20 items. By March 3, that number had increased more than 20 times.
The Mayor of Surf City is glad the explosives are being removed, but hope the Army can finish up before summer. “I’m glad they’re here doing this, but I just want them to get it done. They only have a few months’ window,” Mike Parascandolo said. “Memorial Day weekend is a good weekend, and they should be out of here – that’s what they say.”
Last night, the city of Poway, California voted in favor of a fingerprinting system that will allow skateboarders to use the city’s skatepark.
