Latest Update: December 10, 2006

From The Sacklunch Boards
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Factory Consolidates Euro Action Media
In a wild sweeping unification of European action sports magazines, the management group of Action Sports Media, led by Darryl Newton has bought out the company, and purchased both Permanent Publishing, and 4130. According to the Sunday Times this new uber action company named Factory will own and operate 24 magazines including: Cooler, Kingpin, Onboard, Surf Europe, Dig BMX, Sidewalk, Whitelines, Dirt, Document Skateboard Magazine, Moto, Ride BMX Magazine. Alistair Ramsay, who was chief executive of Dennis Publishing from 1992 until 2005, will be non-executive chairman. For more details check out the link.
[Link: London Sunday Times]

Mammoth Soup Kitchen
With no snow on the ground, things are getting so bad in Mammoth that the mountain has set up a “feeding station” to help feed seasonal employees who have not been able to start working. “Resort official John Armstrong told the Mammoth Local web site that the resort is spending upwards of $4,000 a day to feed about 600 employees who have no work because of meager snowcover.” Pray for snow, indeed.

Surfing The Cleveland Browns
The New York Times drops in with a crew of Great Lakes surfers from Cleveland, Ohio who “surf with two-inch icicles clinging to their wet suits, through stinging hail and overpowering wind” and riding waves as brown as "chocolate milk..” Click the link for more.

Stop Skate Stoppers PSA
A visual communication class at the Madison Area Technical College in Madison, WI was given the assignment to create a video public service announcement. This is what the skater in the class turned in.

Heelys Stock Rocket
The only reason we’re mentioning this is because we eallier pointed out that James “Mad Money” Cramer said this would be a great stock to own, you know like Zumiez. Now, turns out the Heelys IPO went up 55 percent in it’s first day of trading. Based on no information whatsoever Sacklunch rates Heelys a sell at $32.60.

Wee Man Gets Reality
CBS Television is pimping a new reality show called Armed and Famous. The show takes b-list celebrities, gives them guns and trains them to be cops. Hilarity ensues when the recruits hit the street of Muncie, Indiana to protect and serve. The first Police Wackademy graduates will include Eric Estrada, La Toya Jackson, Jack Osbourne, and the skateboarding Jackass star Jason Wee Man Acuña.

Diaz Just A Pot Smoking Surfer Girl
First we heard that Cameron Diaz pulled out of her last movie because it would clash with the snowboarding season. Now comes the shocking news from an interview in British GQ that Ms. Diaz spent her teenage years “smoking marijuana and surfing the beaches of sunny California.”

The Odds on Pipeline
The Australian sports betting site Sportsbook.com.au has the odds up for the 2006 Rip Curl Pro Pipeline Masters. Tied up at 5.25 to 1 are Kelly Slater and Andy Irons, followed by Bruce Irons at 10 to 1. Joel Parkinson and Mick Fanning are right behind them at 12 to 1 and 17 to 1. If betting hadn’t closed (and we were gamblers) we’d bet on AI all the way.

Volcom Fools
The Motley Fool has historically gotten behind small stocks and driven them sky high. Tech fans may remember their infatuation with iOmega (makers of Zip Disks). The online storm they created made money for a lot of people (us included), now the Fools are onto Volcom. They’re calling it the “Best Small Cap for 2007.”

Primedia Sells 17 More Magazines
InterMedia Outdoor, an entity controlled by InterMedia Partners, L.P., a New York-based private equity firm, just paid $170 million in cash for 17 of Primedia’s hunting, shooting, and fishing titles. Apparently, InterMedia didn’t think the Action Sports Group (parent of Surfer, Surfing, Snowboarder, and Skateboarder) was worth the asking price.

The Frequency TSJ’s PhotoBook
Jeff Galbriath says “people are tripping” on the new issue of Frequency The Snowboarder’s Journal. But then he’s the publisher and he says the same thing about every issue. With photos from Jeff Curtes, Mark Kohlman, Mike Yoshida, Ben Eng, and Cole Barash, this time he could be a little more right on than usual.

TransWorld Not Sold Yet
Time Inc had planned to close the sale of TransWorld Media’s parent company Time4 Media by December 31, 2006. According to Advertising Age, “that plan has gone awry.”

The Jesus Jib
Greely, Colorado now has a year a round snowboard park sponsored by Christ Community Church. It’s called The Farm. In the summer the the park will be covered in, ahem, astroride and in the winter the park’s three rails and one jump will be covered in snow, Lord willing. “The park’s main theme is ministry to the community, which is targeted from middle school to college students.” What would Jesus jib?

Zumiez Rated Outperform
Hey look, Zumiez is still a good stock. According to analysts at Morgan Keegan: Zumiez could generate EPS growth in excess of 30% until end-2010, backed by comp gains, unit growth and margin expansion.

The Hollister Hoax
Roy Harrell writer of The Surf Report for Delaware Coast Press went to the mall recently and he discovered a new surf store there called Hollister. He was inspired to write an entire column about it. “If you want to dress like what you think a surfer should dress like you shop at Pac Sun,” Harrell writes. “But if you want to dress like a poser, you shop at Hollister.“

Head Over Heelys
December 7, 2006: Heelys, the company that makes those skate shoes with wheels in the heels is going public and that screaming capitalist James “Mad Money” Cramer says it’s a great buy. You know, like that action sports retailer Zumiez.

Sheckler’s Roast Beef After Party
We’d read about a little gathering in Ryan Sheckler’s hotel room following the Roast Beef awards on Sports Illustrated, however, we didn’t really understand the full ramifications until thatguy kindly posted a flickr photo set up on the Sackboards. Oooh weeee.

Promotions All Around at Burton
How do you keep a businessman happy? Every once in a while you add words like “senior” or “executive” to the front end of their titles and they’ll love you forever. That’s what Burton Snowboards just did for Clark Gundlach, Greg Dacyshyn, and Bryan Johnston. Congrats, guys. Now yo have, like turbo titles.

Surf Expo Goes With The Grain
A couple weeks ago we mentioned a newly launched Grain Surfboards website. Now the maker of hand shaped wooden surfboards has just been chosen as one of the ten hottest up and coming brands in the surf industry, and has been invited to exhibit at Surf Expo in Orlando, Florida from January 11-14th, 2006. Team LaVecchia strikes again.

Red Bull In A Photo Shop
Red Bull is happy to announce illume “the first international photography competition that celebrates the world of action and adventure sports.” First, only if you (like Red Bull) ignore the The Pro Photogorapher Showdown at Whistler, and The Crystal Awards, but then when did Red Bull let the truth get in the way of any of their promotions?

Snowboarding Hit and Run: Update 2
Snowboarder Christopher Dunsmore, 22, who claimed the father of an 8-year-old girl had punched him in the face twice after Dunsmore ran into the girl on a Vail slope, now says he doesn’t want charges pressed against 56 year old Kiril Petrovski. “The young man was remorseful and respectful,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Kim Andree said. “That’s huge in a situation like this. In his interview he said he wished we hadn’t charged the dad. He said he understands the dad’s anger.”

Wyland's Whaling Surfboards
As if it’s not annoying enough to see huge “whaling walls” all over the place, now the “artist” known as Wyland has teamed up with Pacific Surf Industries to produce Wyland Surfboards. Thoughtfully, they’ve created two lines of boards: one for everyday surfing, and a second, insanely expensive line of boards to hang on your wall. Because we all have so much room for extra surfboards in our homes

Vans Goes Over the Hill
ABC World News gets in on the story that Vans is now 40. A nice little reminder to all those skaters who grew in the 70s and are still wearing Vans Old Skools today: you’re ancient, seriously. Pack it in.

Emmett Malloy @ The Apple Store
We kind of got this one a little late. Turns out Emmett Malloy (of the Malloy Bros) broke down A Brokedown Melody live and in person for the crowd that gathered December 2, 2006 at the Apple Store on the Third Street Promanade in Santa Moncia, CA where he “gave away all his secrets about surfing, directing, editing, and owning the label that Jack Johnson is on.” Hopefully, he didn't give it all away.

Lee Matasi Remembered
It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since artist and skateboarder Lee Matasi was shot to outside a Vancouver nightclub. Friends and family members observed the anniversary of Matasi’s death by lighting candles at Leeside Tunnel.

NY Post on Snowboarder Magazine
In a short round up of magazines currently on the newsstand, the New York Post kicks down it’s opinions on Primedia’s snowboard title.
“Snowboarder wants to be countercultural and cool, but it comes off as childish with satirical stories on how to survive backcountry starvation by eating your boarding buddies and how to board while drunk. Charming. The mag spends as much time discussing the many accoutrements of snowboarding - the board, the clothes, the music - as it does the sport itself. We’re guessing real snowboarding rebels read something else.”

Surf's Up Penquins
Pro surfers Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, and Sal Masekela (yeah, they gave Sal pro status in the press release) will all have staring voices in a new animated film set to be released next summer called Surf’s Up. The film is about penguins surfing in a world championship competition. Click here to check out the trailer.

Timberland HIres Jenson
Looks like former Burton Snowboards President Dennis Jenson has traded in his "luxury home-products" retailing gig at Simon Pearce and is diving back into the game as Vice President, Global Product Developement for Men's Authentic Youth at Timberland. What?

Extreme Xima?
Oh, there's nothing we love more than watching action sports video on the interweb. Now, Planet One, owner of Planet X TV, is a new channel called Xima.tv. Will Xima zuck?

Bikers Offer the Olive Branch
In the ongoing "surf city" battle between Santa Cruz, CA and Huntington Beach, CA leave it to a group of Huntington Beach "motorcyclists" to try to restore peace with thier second annual Surf City to Surf City Goodwill Ride on January 6, 2007.

Snowboarding Hit and Run: Update
Chistopher Dunsmore, the 22-year-old snowboarder who was arrested in a Vail bar after running into an 8-year-old girl on the mountain claims the girl’s father, 56-year-old Kiril Petrovski of Edwards, Colorado, punched him in the face twice after the collision. Now, both Dunsmore and Petrovski have been “issued a summons for third-degree assault.”

The Battle of Montauk
It’s the surfcasting fishermen vs. the surfers at New York’s Montauk Point State Park. “The surfers are a nightmare,” said Paul Apostolides, manager of Freddie’s Bait & Tackle in Montauk, “They’re in the way.” Where's Allen Weisbecker when you need him?

Rob Dyrdek: The Nice Modernist
In their Dec/Jan 07 issue Dwell Magazine has profiled skateboarder Rob Dyrdek as a “nice modernist” for creating the world’s first skate plaza in his hometown of kettering Ohio. We’d link you directly to the story, however, it appears that Dwell still expects people to buy their content the old fashioned way: in print. How quaint.

Apple’s Girl and Chocolate “PC”
The latest version of Apple’s PC vs. Mac TV ad (click to watch) features some suspicious stickers: Chocolate and Girl. They are plastered on the PC guy’s left and right shoulder. PC says, “Kids happen. I was bought for a home and now I have movies, blogs, listen to music, everything. . . all I want to do is balance their checkbooks.” Yeah, Four Star probably is more PC than Mac.
[Link: Skatedaily.net]

Snowboarding Hit and Run
A 22-year-old snowboarder was arrested at Vail Saturday, December 2, 2006 and accused of “skiing while impaired by alcohol and leaving the scene of an accident.” He apparently collided with an 8-year-old girl on the mountain and was nabbed later in a Vail bar. Going down with a drink in his hand.

Great White Takes Surfer's Leg
Merchant's New Mansion
Palmer Loves Them Some Skiers
Grandson of Skate Master Tate

Previous Bags o' Crapola:
- December 2, 2006
- November 16, 2006
- October 26, 2006
- September 22, 2006