ps. I stole this from liftopia’s facebook account, but i don’t think anyone actually pays attention to that, so iz cool.

• The new breakfast joint on Farwell
• Omatic
• and this dude

At least when they do eat him, it will most likely be in the dark so we won’t see it.

EDIT: night vision. STAY TUNED!

Part 2: Non Sequitarron

I nearly started to weep when I saw Danny Davis on board again.

Welcome back, senor.

And this is how it was if you were from the midwest in the mid 90s. Everyone had Burton decks except that far out kid on the end. I still have that Rippey hanging out in my living room. For fun we had to make runs to Colorado. Man, you can even tell how flat Colorado is in that picture. But we were there to hit some jump called the Ironing Board, or some shit like that. Supposedly EVERYONE was hitting it. I’m guessing this was winter of 97-ish and we were 2-3 years late on it.

But let’s take in the finer points here:

• Ralph Lauren Hat
• Dub Jacket (so legit at the time)
• sunglasses, not goggles
• One dude rocking Airwalk boots.
• On Thumbs up, one peace sign, one shaka, and Moefaniel has disabled hands on account of his mitts.

Soon after this photo was taken I snapped a binding strap, coming off a massive 3-ft air and tumbled, one foot still on the board for about 100 feet. So awesome.

You could say there was some pressure on me. It’s cool though, my game is tight under pressure. Sure I sweat a little more. My tourettes may step up to the next level . But I am 150% game-the-fuck-on. So I did some warming up. I had a table installed in the estate. I brought in Jan-Ove Waldner for some lessons. I thought he would be best because he has fewer travel restrictions, and if I was going to be taking on a Finn I thought a Swede would be an excellent mentor. I couldn’t come into this match playing sino-style. It had to be scanner 100%.

So game day comes I’m ready to play it. We’re in the shop. And I’m eyeballing Jussi. Letting him know his time has come. When suddenly BOOM! Out of know where Billy shows up. Apparently Billy works for Burton and he said to me, “Listen Bro, We’re all down for this game, but you gotta let Jussi win. We trust you understand the implications of this match. And in return for your ‘relaxed game play’ we’re willing to give you this sticker, a DVD copy of the Liftline.tv promo, and you can visit our website, www.burton.com, as many as eight times a week for the remainder of the year.”

Billy. Remember this face.

I was pushing for him to throw in a romantic dinner with Amanda W, who help set this whole thing up, but I couldn’t get it Billy to agree with it.

Game time. I came out playing soft. My usual routine: eating a couple McRibs and Double Downs with one hand while my amazing, fool-smoking paddle was smoking fools in my other hand. And I watched Jussi play a couple games— the dude seems okay. But he wasn’t ready. I knew the match was going to get ugly.

So I said “Jus-dog what do you say we play with our shoes. I noticed you’re rocking a fine pair of vulc soles and here I am in my NewBs, with their aggressive, athletic sole. This might just level the playing field a bit more.”

This agreement was agreed upon and the game was on. I tried to play loose, yet Billy kept snagging my attention and signaling for me to turn it down a notch. But I couldn’t. When you play table tennis at the level I do, you can’t just turn it down. I can’t just play at a “slightly above average” level. So I played. And I crushed Jussi.

This is pretty serious when you beat someone you’ve looked up for so long. It reminded me of the time in 2nd grade when I beat my father in arm wrestling. His paralyzed arm limp on the table. I think I heard his DTC01 voice synthesizer say, “I’m proud of you, son.”

Of course Billy was not happy about this. I thought he had gotten over it later in the night, after I tried to give him a Spanish waitress as a gift. But then he asked if he could see the video. I obliged and the dude made a move for the door, hopped in a cab and was gone. I got an email from him on Monday morning saying he was going to edit the film for me. And then this is the video I get back:

Jussi Oksanen Vs. Rumorator Von Rumorstein from MODA3 on Vimeo.

Now I’m not gonna say the video was selectively edited, but lets go over the facts here:

• We don’t see Jussi score any points.
• We do see jussi not clear the net one time.
• I have much better style than Jussi.

Yet the score says 2-o in Jussi’s favor.

I’m not gonna say with was flipped and chopped by the magicians at Burton, but look again. Do you trust this face:

ps. Billy still owes me $30

For those of you would did come here expecting to see some Jussi action, I’ve gotta suggest watching Euro Gap 3. It’s a fine fucking film.
you can see the entire thing HERE

Or, if you need some extra motivation watch this trailer, which isn’t exactly 100% work safe:

The Eurogap teaser from Euro Gap on Vimeo.

This does not bode well for the Finn. Tiring after a few seconds? certainly I will wear him down by soft-playing a few longer rallies.
Meanwhilst, Let’s take a look at my training regimen. I’m on this shit like P-90X and creatine:

New Line from a man on Vimeo.

You tell me who’s ready.

I can only imagine that people are starting to place bets. Wagers are waged. It’s probably falling pretty heavily in my favor right now. I can understand that. But I think I really need to level the playing field, so I’ve compiled these stats:

Jussi Oksanen

Age: 31
Experience: Travels the world to snowboard. World Class Athlete.
Movie Parts: Optigrab, Afterbang, Follow Me Around, Bigga B videos, and countless other bangers.
Awards: 1998 Finnish Olympic team, 3 Air and Style Podiums, 4 Global Open Podiums, 4 World Snowboarding Championship Podiums. 3 X-games podiums.
Strengths: The dude is a professional athlete. Slays mountains, parks and everything else. Probably has amazing hand-eye coordination.
Weaknesses: He’s got a shaky knee.

Rumorator

Age: Fat
Experience: Went to Chicago once. Red Dot Trivia Host.
Movie parts: Un-credited extra in No God No Master (Unreleased).
Awards: 2^nd Place Wisconsin Academic Decathlon–Economics.
Strengths: Rides a bike. Booze.
Weaknesses: Fear of Alligators.

Study up folks.

Sharks or Jets.

I understand that some of you might not know who Jussi is. And I feel bad for you. Jussi is legend. He comes from the long line of snowboarders who make this silly little snowboarding things we do so rad. Plus the guy is all smiles. PLUS 2 The guy runs a water bottle company because he knows that plastics are stupid (por ejemplo: Ron Johnson). Sneak a peek at the visual aid:

Granted it’s not one of his company’s bottles, but the deuce hanging out there, that’s all Jussi. If you want to get a little more info him, check this out his blawg. That’s right. It’s Jussi Oksanen man, myth, legend and bloggerman. But everyone is a bloggerman/bloggermama these days so maybe you’d rather watch this pleasant little piece put out by Bigga B.

Luckily I’ve got the hometown advantage. I’ve got Keylo and Jake running the coaching staff. Mixing up jock-smoothies for me in the morning. Doing work-outs. 500 reps on the work-out machines. Deep tissue massages from Keef after hours. This is Sparta training.

I’m getting ready. Stretching, watching vids of of Jussi’s old matches, Picked up a new Butterfly 7275 Primorac Carbon fl. Getting ready to snap off a couple wins. I’m predicting Rumorator in four matches: 11-4, 11-6, 9-11, 11-0. You see how I toyed with him. Imma let him take match 3, then crush his dreams like he was a fat kid with a sympathy date on prom night.

Like I would know anything about that.

Anyway, Be There: SPiN Milwaukee Saturday Night

Shit. Sliding on the kitchen floor. LOL! Like that one works. That’s just Bigga B’s way of making you mentally fuck yourself. Because you slide and you put your left foot forward. Hmmm that felt okay. Then you slide again and put your right foot forward. Guess what, that felt okay too. Do it over and over and over and over and over again like a song by the Rapture off the better album.  Doesn’t matter, because you’re sliding on your damn kitchen floor. Your body can go both ways in such an environment. You are in no better position when you step out on the snow.

SIDEBAR: It is important to take note of the assumptions made by Bigga B’s recommendation here. To slide on the floor they are assuming:

• You can afford socks.You have kitchen large enough to slide in.
• Your kitchen floor is made of hardwood or some other slick surface.
• Your nanny isn’t going to yell at you for running in the house.
• You’re white and at least middle class.

Maybe if the old slide-on-the-floor trick doesn’t work, you should try this— Stand at the top of a flight of stairs (because you’re white and middle class we’ll assume you’ve  got a grand staircase in your house to use), close your eyes and have a friend push you from behind. What foot do you use to catch yourself? If it’s you right foot, you’re a goofy footer. If you extended your left foot, you’re regular footed.  If you fell and knocked out any noticeable teeth buy a Rome.

The other option is to go rent your gear and when the rental tech says, “You need me to set this up goofy or regular?” Simply look at him and say, “It’s cool the way it is, bro.”

DO NOT FORGET TO SAY “BRO.”

You want to take the board as-is for two reasons. The first being it’s best not to let rental techs actually touch the gear you’ll be using. You have at least an 85% chance of regretting letting them set it up for you. Now compare that with just taking the board as it is. It’s either going to be regular or goofy. So you’ve got a 50% chance of it being set up the way you need it.

After a few runs you’re going to figure it out. “If I ride regular, I can kind of ride this thing. If I ride goofy, it reminds me of trying to get away from the neighbors dog that is always humping my leg.”

And then you have it figured out. You’re either regular or goofy.

Part 2: I wasn’t done with this ordeal. I had to dig a bit deeper. So I clicked on Starshinexx’s profile and saw this:

Fucking hell.

For all those times we’ve blamed anyone else (ESPN, Shaun “Gator II” White, Nike et al) for ruining snowboarding, look who’s doing it now. Sure there are some of us who have suspected for a long time that Bigga B was the real culprit, but never has the proof been so evident. Here they are pandering to some broad who in the hours before was dropping lines about the Kardashians, Ke$ha, and the Teen Choice Awards. It was the escape from people like this that made snowboarding so amazing. And yet here’s B talking about how counter culture they are, designing unlikely futures and all that, then they open the floodgates to bring these people in.

I’m putting 15:1 odds on this broad buying her gear at her locally owned Shrad Shop. There are also even odds she’s getting a Bigga B set up. And better than even odds that if she knew how to take a proper self-pic we would see she’s making a duckface.

I need to shower.

While Yobeat is over there hyping up the latest vids to be released (I warned you in the spring, it’s all cutting room floor crap), Imma gonna keep you on top of shit right here. You can officially quit glimpsing split second clips of Burton decks and Capita’s creepshow army, and gawk longingly—it’s catalogue time, MFers

So get with it, 2011 shrad is on the way. Case in point, I picked this beast up at MODA3 today. You could also read that as MODA3 2day, or MODA-Kevin McHale-day. Brand standards just went right out the window with that one. Anyway I grabbed the 2011 Burton Catalogue:

I have placed it here next to a quarter and a rumorator.com business card, for scale. First thing you’ll notice is that it’s much bigger than last year’s bible concept (assuming you can remember that far back). But oddly enough I think the weight is roughly  the same. Lighte-weight paper stock, no embossed cover and fuck those foiled edges.  It’s nice to see that after dropping about $5/catalogue last year, running short on them , and raising a ton of speculation as to why the board prices went up, Big B opted to go for something a lot less conceptual. The irony of it is I think it’s a lot better catalog, in that there aren’t themes fighting throughout, like last year, and only the premium lines are differentiated. That damn bible had a new theme every seven pages.

So lets flip it open.

Oh look, Mason Aguirre isn’t mentioned anywhere. I guess he’s cut this year. Nico gets mentioned but doesn’t get pics. Nike doesn’t own Burton, but they are kind of owning them.

The price on Jeremy Jones board dropped by about $100, or as I like to think of it $10 less dollars that is going to some lunatic pack of MOMOs. And of course he has got some motorcycle/americana motif happening. FUCK BURTON, HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU HAVE TO MAKE A SHITTY MOTOCYCLE THEMED BOARD BEFORE YOU REALIZE IT’S OVER? Remember when Ride was making those motocross themed KH series or whatever they were. Well, they learned their lesson.

T-minus four years until he dumps a broad’s body in the desert and they track it back to him because of the bandana.  The Gatoring continues. Brought to you by Target.

Oh look it’s the “B by” line. Great. I hope a lot of lades love this line. But most women don’t bother to try and look like girls whilst getting the shrad. So this is really made to appeal to the guys who buy their ladies new clothes. And if that is the case I’m going to make the entire “B by” line more appealing with one, masterful cut and paste.

You see what happened there?

Okay now lets move on. The women’s outerwear line has three vest options. The guys? Nada. WTF Bigga B? All I want is a vest like the AK ones you used to make. Can we make that shit happen?

Also The Nug. Fuck that. It’s called The Lunch Tray, and Morrow made it in 1992-ish.

Lastly the women’s Lipstick.

I think they forgot to highlight “Inspired by Capita” in the features. Right next to Infinite Ride, Bro.

Speaking of Capita: Click it!

And know you might be saying to yourself, “Oh but Rumorator that shit is kind of blurry.” Doesn’t matter broder. They got a zoom  and all you really need to look at is right here:

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to prop up this closer from the Burton Catalogue:

Buy local, because we would hate to see people in your community lose their jobs. Besides we outsource enough for everyone. FACT: Not one item in the new B catalog is produced in the US.

BUY LOCAL SUCKERS!

In closing, you might want to watch the latest Knife Show video if you haven’t seen it.