by The Editors on November 11, 2008
We just got the Propaganda Newsletter Holiday 2008 edition in the email box and noticed that down at the bottom someone was a nice enough to include a little plug for Boardistan. They even made their own graphic out of our stylish, yet subdued header. Here’s what they said:
Grab your Sack Lunch and make your way over to the Independent Republic of Surf, Skate and Snow for juicy news and other bits of info.
Thanks. That was a nice surprise.
[Link: Propaganda.net]
by The Editors on November 11, 2008
When the board of Orange 21, the publicly traded company that is Spy Optic, denied a request by No Fear Retail to merge businesses we thought this would be over.
Now No Fear Retail has sent another letter outlining why it thinks the board is doing Orange 21 shareholders a disservice by not considering the deal. Here’s a piece of it:
Frankly, we have been surprised by the manner in which the process has been handled to date, given the Board’s fiduciary responsibilities to act in the best interests of Orange 21’s stockholders. No rationale was provided in the Company’s November 4th 8-K filing for the Board’s decision to not pursue negotiations nor was any rationale communicated directly to No Fear Retail. This lack of communication is especially disappointing given the fact that No Fear Retail is one of Orange 21’s largest customers. We hope the Board will reconsider our proposal and enter into meaningful negotiations regarding a merger of the two entities for the benefit of Orange 21’s stockholders. Time is critical in the current climate and, given our understanding and historical involvement in the business, we stand ready to move quickly to negotiate and close a transaction.”
[Link: Market Watch]
by The Editors on November 11, 2008
Remembering those who died to keep this country free by skating with your military friends. Everything should be celebrated with a skate contest when it really comes down to it.
by The Editors on November 11, 2008
See those blobs on the tip and tail of the snowboard? Those are weapons for “blowing away the competition” in the new Wii game Snowboard Riot from Hudson Entertainment.
Snowboard Riot is not your standard snowboarding game,” said Sabine Duvall, Vice President of Product Development at Hudson Entertainment. “A snowboarding game is a rush by itself, but when you add weapons, it becomes even more exciting. Add in online play for four people and you have the perfect game for both snowboarding and action-racing fans.”
The game looks terrible, but we saw some Oakley banners in some of the screen shots, so someone apparently thinks this thing will sell. And maybe it would be fun to shoot up the slopes. . . especially if there are freeskiers in the game.
[Link: Worth Playing]
by The Editors on November 10, 2008
Tony Hawk’s Stand Up For Skateparks‘ fundraising party held in billionaire Ron Burkle’s Beverly Hills backyard yesterday November 9, 2008 raised over $1 million “to bring free, quality skateboard parks to low-income communities across the United States.”
. . . attendees included Tony Hawk, Shaun White, Anthony Kiedis, David Spade, Perry Ferrell, Chris “Big Black” Boykin, Kathy Ireland, Bam Margera and BMX legend Mat Hoffman, as well as event benefit committee members Jamie Lee Curtis and Mia Hamm. . . . plus performances by Social Distortion, and a Vert Demo on Hawk’s personal ramp, where he was joined by White, Bucky Lasek, Andy Macdonald, Kevin Staab, and BMX riders John Parker and Dennis McCoy.
We tried to get a press pass, but apparently our readership is not A-List enough. Follow the jump for the entire press release.
[click to continue…]
by The Editors on November 10, 2008
The New York Times Dealbook blog made mention of Quiksilver today with the following:
One small deal that may be in the works would be the sale of Quiksilver, a maker of surfer-style clothing, to Nike or another strategic acquirer. Quicksilver [sic] has retained Morgan Stanley to advise on its strategic alternatives.
And seeing as Quik’s stock closed well below the $2 mark again today it could be a good deal, as long as Nike doesn’t mind buying over a billion in debt.
[Link: Deal Book]
by The Editors on November 10, 2008
For more than a year there has been talk about Spy Optic’s co-founder Mark Simo’s plan (and then denied plan) to merge his privately held No Fear retail business with Orange 21, the publicly traded company that owns Spy Optics. All along we thought it seemed like an odd strategy.
Now, in Jeff Harbaugh’s latest Market Watch column on TransWorld Business he looks into the details of the this situation and comes away with a similar, though much more informed, analysis.
This request to negotiate a deal, which didn’t have a clearly identified strategic rationale and requires financing that apparently isn’t in place had potential to be very distracting at a time when Orange 21 is busy just running its business in a difficult economy. Making the letter public didn’t help, and you have to wonder what Spy Optics’ customers think about it.
Exactly.
[Link: Transworld Business]
by The Editors on November 10, 2008
According to the LA Weekly kids lined up “several hundred deep” outside the Active Westwood store on November 8, 2008 for the release of the Bam/Kat Von D model Element Skateboards. The tattooed cele-bro duo reportedly signed autographs for a while and then Mike V.’s band played.
Check the link for the entire 34 images slideshow of the three horsemen in action.
[Link: LA Weekly]
by The Editors on November 10, 2008
Oakley and Surfline.com have gotten together to create a free application for the Apple iPhone that brings Surfline’s surf report data to the iPhone for the first time.
Check swell direction. Monitor the weather. View a 2-day forecast. Get your daily mobile surf report for your favorite beaches – or search thousands of beaches around the world. And do it all from the comfort of your iPhone or iPod Touch. Download Surf Wallpapers. get the latest Surf News and read up on Oakley Team Rider bios. Every time. With the Oakley Surf Report powered by Surfline.
We’re downloading it now and will let you know how it works as soon as we can spend some time on it.
[Link: Surfline.com]
by The Editors on November 10, 2008
We’re not big Final Fantasy video game fans so don’t really know how silly this sounds, but game publisher SquareEnix has just announced Final Fantasy VII: Snowboarding. It’s apparently as strange a mix to gamers as it is to us.
Japanese publishing powerhouse Square Enix has gone to every effort to make the most of its cherished Final Fantasy VII franchise in recent years, and none are more leftfield than the recently announced Final Fantasy VII: Snowboarding. . . The $3 mobile game is currently available to Japanese users on the DoCoMo network.
Guess video snowboarding is pretty big in Japan.
[Link: Causal Gaming]
We just got the Propaganda Newsletter Holiday 2008 edition in the email box and noticed that down at the bottom someone was a nice enough to include a little plug for Boardistan. They even made their own graphic out of our stylish, yet subdued header. Here’s what they said:
