Brooklyn Banks under threat

</figure> It looks like one of the skate worlds seven wonders maybe under threat. News just in that the legendary Brooklyn Banks maybe under threat. Snaffled this up over at Daves Quality Meats:

Well the small banks the good ones have been gone for years now. Unfortunately it sounds like the rest of the Brooklyn Banks will soon be unskateable as well
The area under the Brooklyn Bridge has been a popular skateboard park for decades but its days are soon coming to an end at least temporarily.
The city plans to use the internationally known Brooklyn Banks skate park as a staging area during the Brooklyn Bridge reconstruction replica vacheron constantin which is starting later this year and will last until 2014 said Ralph Musolino hublot big bang tantalum watch a district manager for the city Parks Dept.
Musolino said the closure of the skate park was not certain but Scott Gastel spokesperson for the city Dept. of Transportation later said the city would definitely need the space. Gastel was not sure when the park would

More Here.

I once went to the banks in 1998 with hilarious NYC skate photographer Giovanni Reda. He told me a pretty amazing story regarding the sequence (pictured above) of Rob Welsh. Reda arrived at the banks one morning zenith grand class replica watches when Welshy was trying to switch tre flip the wall. Reda watch him try it for an hour or so and I guess because photogs were running strictly film back then (pre digi sequences) he neglected to try and shoot the ground breaking move. Rob was still trying it when Reda headed off into the city on some mission. He was gone for the entire day. When he got back to the banks Welshy was still trying to put down the switch tre over the wall onto freeway off ramp. Reda is known for his enthusiasm and he no doubt exuded some when he drawled: Ok Rob this try make it this try. I have one roll of film. I think he made it on the first attempt that the camera was pointed at. There are no doubt thousands of stories like this relating to the progression at this all time spot. Fingers Crossed we dont lose this one.

Aussie sports wrap - rising from The Ashes

</figure>

Who's saying what

Jack Watts!? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzYRvaD-xkQ)

<footer>Kinna</footer>

CRICKET

As the sun set on Day 1 of the Third Test at the WACA last Thursday Australian cricket was begging for its life.

Bowled out in two and a half sessions on Day 1 of the Test that surely had to be won if the Ashes were to be saved fake baume & mercier watches the Aussie team had never looked so helpless. Ponting had failed again Clarke had failed again Phil Hughes had failed again Hussey had carried the weight of the team on his shoulders again. Many hoped but few believed that Mitchell Johnson's confident showing with the bat would be replicated with the ball.

Paul Kelly once sung of Bradman "they say the darkest hour is right before the dawn. And in the hour of greatest slaughter the great avenger is being born". There'll be no parallels drawn between Mitchell Johnson and Bradman on these pages but the darkest hour was almost certainly enveloping Australian cricket on Thursday evening; and the contrast between that gloomy backdrop and Mitchell Johnson's spectacular spell on Day 2 was blinding.

Like many sporting 'heroes' Johnson is a flawed genius. The tough stickers across his forearms and back suggest a tortured soul with no concept of how ridiculous he'll look in 40 years. The Rebel Sport advertisment where he stands inexplicably shirtless suggests he has no concept of how ridiculous he looks now. His girlfriend can and probably has beaten the suitcase out of him with her bare karate-trained hands on several occasions. And in the First Test he couldn't hit the ocean if he was swimming in it. But on Day 2 he had the ball tracking an untraceable S-bend trajectory towards the stumps. Figures in the realm of 6/38 are unlikely to be seen again in this series.

Andrew Strauss failed to conceal his concern at Johnson's inswinging yorker that almost cut off his ankles early in the first innings. Just minutes later he was back in the pavillion surely requesting that someone check Johnson's pockets for bottle caps and screwdrivers. No English cricketer has looked as ridiculous as Paul Collingwood did as he sat staring at the patch of dirt where he thought the ball should have pitched. At least not since Phil Tufnell dropped the ball he threw to himself. Even the slips cordon was dumbfounded by the swing Johnson was extracting from a red mass of cork and leather.

The tone was set and the choir barely wavered from that moment on. Harris looked less like a grinder and more like a devastating strike bowler in the second innings; Australia fell in love with Mike Hussey all over again; and if you didn't make some sort of animal noise when Steve Smith scooped up Collingwood's shooting outside edge on the last ball of Day 3 the AFP will be around shortly to collect your passport and sprig of wattle - there is no place for you in this great country.

But the excitement that now pervades this recidivitst cricket-loving nation is perhaps an indication of how desperate we were for a win rather than how well we think the boys are actually playing.

Leaving aside an inconsequential 51 in a dead innings in the first test Ponting is averaging single figures from 5 Ashes innings and that's when he had 10 fingers; Clarke played a good 20/20 innings but a pretty poor must-win test innings; we have only one opener worthy of the baggy green but after watching his petulant disrespect for the umpire's decision in the second innings you almost wish he didn't have one; and the next two tests will be played on pitches that reward good patient spin bowling and we don't have a good patient spin bowler.

Are we back in the hunt? Absolutely. But England can afford to lose one and don't have to win one. Australia has neither of those luxuries. The $2.65 on England to retain the Ashes is still where the smart money is so let's just pump the brakes a bit.

But no matter how hard we try to pump those brakes replica montblanc sport gold sale Boxing Day is going to be bigger than Christmas.

AFL

In their continuing attempts to regain form through adherence to sporting nomenclature the Essendon Football Club announced that they'll be moving house in 2011. Having already regained the services of Bomber Thompson what greener pastures have coaxed Bomber's Bombers away from Windy Hill?

Melbourne Airport of course.
 
As far as we're aware the defining characteristics of Melbourne Airport are tarmac jet fuel and bans on liquid and fruit so the move clearly won't result in sharper skills or better nutrition. We can only assume that the Bombers have made their way to the city's biggest airport because that's where a Bomber should live.

The trend may be catching on. Rumours abound that the Kangaroos are moving to Anglesea Golf Course the Power are shifting to the Snowy Mountains and the Blues are setting up shop in Memphis Tennessee. Wouldn't it be nice if the Demons would go to hell.

And finally...

Speaking of the Melbourne Football Club Demons fans around the inner south-eastern suburbs almost choked on their eggnog this week upon hearing the results of the club's pre-season 20m sprint time trials.

Surely Aaron Davey won it?
No.
Bennell?
No.
Any of the prized indigenous recruits?
No.
Surely someone under 195cm?
No.

Jack Watts imitation iwc classic pilot watches the Temazapam Kid himself is apparently the quickest bloke over 20 metres at Melbourne. Those who watched him in 2010 immediately wondered whether he started off 17 metres or whether there was a hurricane force tail wind localised entirely in his lane. But the numbers don't lie. The six foot six number one draft pick who plays the AFL equivalent of one-touch footy apparently has some toe as well. If he can manage to get the ball from his hands to his feet within five seconds in 2011 the Demons might see some return on their investment this year.....makes you sick to your stomach doesn't it?

Friendship Bracelets for Grown-Ups

The record-breaking heat this summer begs for casual styles tudor sport watch

My Port Hedland grasshopper massacre

| </figure>

Who's saying what

Morgs! Ive been through one of these plagues too! Minus the board.

<footer>HoneyThighs</footer>

I hate killing anything. Even when I run over an insect* on my skateboard I bum out pretty hard. When it happens it reminds me a little bit of the time when I once ran over a pigeon in a car. I was so gutted. Rewind to Port Hedland a few months ago and I was skating through a plague of grasshoppers! Man it was so harsh: apocalyptic even! Every time you would grind a ledge or a piece of the coping and you were pretty much guaranteed to hit a grasshopper. In the end there were little splats all over the park. Legs here wings there. It was like being some kind of mass murderer. In the making of this clip that Harry Clark and I filmed for the Staple site I am pretty sure I would have shattered several families. Skateboarding: environmentally brutal! 

*Did you know that: Australia has more than: 50 species of stick and leaf insects 162 species of mantis 250 species of cicadas zenith grande class watch 348 species of termites 428 species of cockroaches 550 species of shield-bugs 2 827 species of crickets and grasshoppers replica zenith watches franck muller les grandes complications watch 4 000 species of ants 7 786 species of flies 20 816 species of butterflies and moths and 28 200 species of beetles! (Wettropics 2006).