Did we really land on the moon 40 years ago?

I find that very hard to believe when I can't get a receipt from T-Mobile after paying my cell phone bill.

After calling in for 17 minutes I accept the terms and they can charge my Visa over the phone.

Then I ask where I can view / get a receipt of my payment (because the fucking government need to see this when I claim I paid $119 to use my phone).
T-Mobile:
- We can send a text message with your confirmation number.
Me:
- Sure, but for what?
T-Mobile:
- For your records.
Me:
- I just need a receipt, so I can prove to the government that I'm deducting my income with $119 for cell phone usage. Surely I can't be the first one to ask for a receipt.
T-Mobile:
- I will talk to my supervisor if we can give you a receipt.
After 2-3 minutes..
T-Mobile:
- Yes you can contact our customer relations and they can probably help you.
Do you want their address?
Me:
- Address??!! Like address as in me mailing a letter from Sweden (come tax time) to get a receipt?
T-Mobile:
- Aha, yes. Mailing a letter to them is the only way you can receive a receipt as proof of payment.
Do you want the address Sir?
Me:
- No, I do not want the address.

Hung up.

Really?! This is what the world has come to? Me wasting 20 min on the phone with a person who has the brain capacity of a straw (and speaks very limited english) just to find out I can' get a receipt...?

So for my 2009 taxes I'll be missing some receipts and if the government denies my deductions I'll just go back to the gun range in Oceanside.

This is only one of a dozen stupid hassles with T-Mobile. They truly are very very very very very very very very very bad at what they are supposed to do...; connect my calls.

Skated this huge skatepark today, but we were pretty shaky from shooting guns and the no water-30 degree celsius weather didn't help either.
I felt pretty bad not even trying to appreciate a park that's better than pretty much any park in Sweden.. but shooting guns and July heat will do that to you.

So we headed to DC to skate the warehouse (where they have this sick bench) or the nearby Black Box park.

But I was a little intimidated to skate at DC when Josh Kalis was there working on his muscle car 20 feet from the marble bench.. so we left.

We never made it to Black Box either since Iikka fell in the parking lot after this heated session.


Hopefully tomorrow. After Iikka gets done shooting with the Uzi.

Video clip from the gun range.

Ian was pretty confident. Eero was quiet (and I think a little nervous), Iikka wants to go back there tomorrow and shoot the Uzi ($10 extra) and I was straight up sweating.
Of course the target you're aiming at are illustrations of the human torso.. is a circle that dull?

The fact that Iikka can go back there tomorrow and have a loaded Uzi in his hands with no drug/alcohol check or any other form of check up is just flat out scary.
After we left the place Iikka said:
- How can I go back to playing shuffle board or something after this? Nothing compares to this, it´s all downhill from here.

But this is what Ian does when he´s not helping scared Scandinavians to load 9mm guns. Shooting guns isn´t that scary in comparison imo.


Apparently you can wear a loaded gun in some states, Arizona for example.
They even have a gun check at the bars so you can't access your gun while at the actual bar, only when you leave.. true story.
This gun loving mom from Pennsylvania unfortunately died way too young.

Todd does halloween.

My 40 year old friend goes trick or treatin' with his family.



Inside info, this is what 40+ year old Kermit does when not dressed up.

Shooting.

Went to shoot guns today. Pretty nuts that you can walk into a place
and have gun and ammo in 5 minutes. No background check or anything.
Then you're in a room with 10 strangers with loaded Glocks.
Sketchy.

After this I'm having tacos and Starbucks. Love America.

Aren´t Brazilians used to seeing skin?

Sure this 20 year olds dress was a little short, but not worthy of a full riot with people yelling whore after her and a police escort.
Gees, relax already.

Screw hockey fights, it´s all about womens soccer.

Like how wasn´t she pulled of the field? Gross.

I´d say, suspend the coach and all over her teammates for not stepping in. God knows ( I can say got when we´re talking about BYU here) I would have been mighty pissed if a friend of mine were playing on the BYU team.

It´s only fucking soccer. Send this bitch to a Mexican prison with T-Bag so she can fight her way back to America.

Saturday skate with Finns.

Both Iikka and Jussi rides a snowboard for a living. And they do so
with their left foot forward. But when they skateboard they put their
right foot forward. Fucked up.
There are a lot more pros who do this; Nicolas Muller, Gian Simmen,
Thomas Harstad, Heikki Sorsa...
Simon Chamberlain and Jed Anderson does it the other way, skate
regular and snowboard goofy.. weirdos.

Jussi Oksanen is now a blogger.

I helped him set up a blog last week and I just went to see if he has been updating it and he has!
I told him to go with Wordpress instead of Blogspot because I don´t like Blogspot at all, but still use it... pretty sure I´m quitting soon though..

So go to Jussi´s blog. I bet there will be a lot of good stories and photos on there once he gets warmed up.

http://oksanenjussi.wordpress.com

I don't know what to think of this.

According to Forbes: “Corporate money has been pouring into action sports in recent years as the popularity of these sports has taken off with consumers. Participation in skateboarding increased 74% between 1998 and 2007 to 10.1 million participants, the fastest growth of any sport in the U.S. Snowboarding registered the third fastest growth over the same 10-year period, up 42% to 5.1 million participants according to the National Sporting Goods Association.”
Forbes based its estimates on interviews with industry experts and excluded Motocross racing.The top 10 earners in 2008 were all male. Top female snowboarders like Torah Bright, Gretchen Bleiler and Hannah Teter make as much as $750,000 annually, but that fell short of their $1 million cut off.

I wouldn't trust this very far though.. I'm questioning some of these people..
I'm know some people who make more money than 1 million.. Rob Dyrdek and Danny Way for example. There's no doubt in my mind they make more than Kass and Rice, for example.

Anyway, some of you might find this interesting

Here’s the break down of 2008 earnings.

1. Tony Hawk - Skateboarding - $12 million
Hawk retired from competitive skating in 1999, but he has built a business empire that sold $200 million worth of Tony Hawk branded products last year

2. Shaun White - Snowboarding/Skateboarding - $9 million
White was the first athlete to compete at both the Summer and Winter X-Games. He’s racked up 10 X-Games gold medals as well as the gold for the men’s half pipe in the 2006 Winter Olympics. Following in the footsteps of Hawk, White launched his own videogame last year through Ubisoft called “Shaun White Snowboarding.”

3. Ryan Sheckler - Skateboarding - $5 million
Sheckler is a hit with teenage girls thanks to his MTV reality show, Life of Ryan, which just wrapped filming its third season. The skateboard prodigy turned pro in 2003 at age 13. Current big sponsors include Oakley, Red Bull and Volcom.

4. Travis Pastrana - Freestyle MX - $3 million (tie)

4. Kelly Slater - Surfing - $3 million
The nine-time surfing champion is both the youngest and oldest to win the title. We won $260,000 in prize money in 2008 when he captured his ninth title. Slater has won $2 million during his career. The bulk of his earnings comes from sponsors like Quiksilver and surfboard maker Channel Islands.

6. Laird Hamilton - Surfing - $2.5 million
The oldest member of our top 10 athletes at 44, Hamilton has always eschewed traditional surfing competitions for the thrill of big-wave surfing. He has built a reputation as an all-around waterman that has spurred books, movies and a clothing line. His wife is pro volleyball player Gabrielle Reece.

7. Paul Rodriguez - Skateboarding - $2 million
The skater known as P-Rod is the son of actor and comedian Paul Rodriguez. Nike signed Rodriguez to a lucrative shoe and apparel deal in 2004 and has released several signature P-Rod sneakers since then.

8. Danny Kass - Snowboarding - $1 million
Kass won silver medals in the men’s half pipe at each of the last two Winter Olympics. He has sponsorship deals with Gnu Snowboards, Nike and Oakley. With his brother Matt and several friends, Kass founded apparel company Grenade which focuses on winter gloves.

8. Dave Mirra - BMX - $1 million

8. Travis Rice - Snowboarding - $1 million
Considered one of the best boarders on the planet, Rice is a renaissance man on the snow competing in big air, slope style and pipe events. Rice counts Quicksilver and Red Bull as major sponsors and also produces and stars in popular snowboard movies like The Community Project and That’s It, That’s All.

Source:
http://business.transworld.net/2009/02/18/action-sports-highest-paid-athletes

Shaun on tv.

The guy responsible for this live broadcast should obviously not work with this.
Using cropped, horribly shot, still photos over and over is not ok. Especially when Shaun isn't even the guy in the photo.

What's the likelihood of them using a random tennis player while Andre Agassi was talking on the microphone?

Tool time.




On Conan:


Would be fun to see the foam pit footage while he's talking about it. It's not like they haven't rehearsed before they tape it.

On Fallon:



I'm hoping Wendy's didn't pay for him endorsing his halloween set up.

Just so you know.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/spo_sum_oly_med_all_tim_percap-medals-all-time-per-capita

LA / Halloween

I hate dressing up. I like when people have clever outfits but hate the part of possibly having to go to the nearest overpriced halloween store to buy a Jack Sparrow or Fred Flitstone outfit just so you can go to a party..
Believe me when I say that Americans love to dress up for costume parties. I wish I did too.

One thing I find pretty interesting is that a lot of girls dress up as nurses, police officers and moulin rouge-ish outfits. Almost exclusively with a lot a skin showing. Since this is the attire of choice for about 33.3% of all the girls at halloween or any other costume party one can only assume that they really like dressing up as Britney Spears at the VMA's.

Me and Hjalle considered getting staff shirts at Ikea and going as two Ikea Swedes, but that didn't happen cause Ikea wouldn't let me buy their staff shirts.
Then Hjalle came up with the idea of putting an Ikea bag over my head and buy a wig = Swedish bag lady.

But being the party pooper I am I just sat on his couch until the very last minute and settled for pairing up with him as 80's skiers.

Thanks for excessive amounts of Andre wine, Smirnoff Ice and Vodka and no eating from 2pm on Saturday to 2pm on Sunday I can't remember all the details of the evening but definitely remember the 1 hour drive to Laguna Beach on Sunday... so hungry, thirsty and hungover.. but Hjalle wouldn't stop. As soon as we did I ran to Taco Bell... soooo good.

My friend Iikka had the best outfit imo. The zombie / turtle kid from this famous Youtube clip.



Speaking of hangover. A lot of people were dressed up as Alan from The Hangover. Pretty funny. Here are three photos that showed up on my Facebook this weekend.






My hangover was spent at a very relaxed and pleasant engagement party in Laguna. Mimosas, waffles, chips, donuts, friends and a great view of the Pacific.
It was then I decided to stay here in the US for a little longer. Sweden didn't feel too appealing when I was soaking in the sun with July temperatures. So I'm here for a few more weeks, with a New York and Reykjavik stopover before landing in Luleå in December.




Typical cars in Laguna.







I also got to meet up with my good friend Eddie Wall for a bit. He was in town to be on Fuel TV (action sports channel) promoting a video that Mammoth Mountain made (dvd should be included in the January issue of Snowboarder Mag).


Greg Hunt (skate filmmaker) also stopped by and we nerded out on filming with the new Canon digital cameras that also doubles as amazing film/video cameras.
5D or 7D, that is the question... more on this later.


Iikka and I also skated a little.
After getting turned down to skate in a parking lot by a bitch who refused to park anywhere else in the empty parking lot. No she had to park right where I was skating. After asking her politely if she could consider parking anywhere but in that particular spot I got a little upset and called her a bitch. I wish I would have made more of scene though, would have made great photos if I got the ghetto mama to yell at me.




Her license plate is 5TLJ544, feel free to use it to report a suspicious drunk driver, illegally parked car, hit and run etc.. I know I will.


After that short session we went to check out the Rob Dyrdek skate plaza and I was really impressed by it. Super small, no transitions, just curbs, ledges and stairs.
If only there would be more of these...

Basket ball courts = 0 people.
Soccer fields = 0 people.
Small 650 m2 (7000 feet2) skate plaza = 100 people.





I love the entrepreneurship in this lady. She's sells water, soda, chips and candy at the skate plaza. This would NEVER happen in Sweden.



I also took Iikka to the DC and Burton stores on Melrose. As well as made him consume a Diana Mini camera.

Poor Specimen movie premier in LA

I got news about this surf movie that was premiering in Hollywood the
other day so I wanted to check it out and I must say it was the worst
movie premier I've been to (with the Afterbang premier in Helsinki in
2002 coming in at a close second place).

We were given Skull Candy headphones and a reciever at the door. The
plan was to play the soundtrack in everyones headphones... So when
the movie started (at a bar) they turned off the music and the 400-ish
people in attendence put their Skull Candy headphones on, it was quite
the sight. I wish I would have brought my camera to document how
fucking stupid the situation was.
It was funeral quiet, at 10.30 pm at a bar in Hollywood... Nice
atmosphere for a movie premier, not.

If this would have been at a skate or snowboard premier it wouldn't
take 5 minutes before the crowd would have started yelling TURN ON THE
SPEAKERS!

Then to the movie..
Well I was to annoyed with the headphone / quiet bar thing to really
give the movie a chance, but I thought it had some moments that were
ok. But for the most part it was pretty lame.
You never knew who was surfing, which is kind of annoying.
And why is it ok to use airs that obviously weren't landed? For those
of you who's never seen a surf movie:
They use shots where the surfer lands on the wave for a 1/10 of a
second. Not just once or something, all the time. Why this is accepted
I have no clue.
And there were so many mediocre airs that were used, like 70% of them
could have been deleted.
Why would a rider want to use 6 shots of him doing an alley oop air
when 5 are sketchy and one was really good? Unbelievable... And I'm
talking were similar waves, not like they were linked with some turns
in a longer clip. No, single shots of crappy airs, over and over.

There were some sick tricks here and there. But one trick that caught
my eye was a bs 540 shove it. When he landed it nobody in the bar
raised their voice... wtf?

Oh well. Good thing I'm not making surf movies because it seems like
my vision would be very different from the one the surf industry wants.

Beautiful clip from French Fred.

Check out Fred's blog (website under construction):
http://bloodyfrenchfred.blogspot.com

Pretty much some of the best photos I've seen.

Ken Blocks winter "car".

I went out with Ken this winter to try out this little experiment of his. We drove it around the Mtn Lab and some snowmobile trails in Park City for an hour or two. It´s being modified and should be ready for some powder action this upcoming winter.

DC put together this clip of our test day:




0-60 did an article / interview about this tracks / car set up.
http://www.0-60mag.com/online/?p=20459









There was also this video that got posted on Youtube this spring..



If you want to get your hands on some DC auto / rally gear, go here:
http://store.dcshoes.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=3631313

Skating on ice.

Some Minnesota skaters grind ice.

Hockey time.

Been to three games the past two weeks.

NY Rangers vs Toronto, Anaheim Ducks vs Toronto and LA Kings vs Vancouver Canucks.

In the Ducks vs Toronto game there were three serious fights within the 13 first minutes. Before the game was over I counted 8 fights. 8 fights that were more violent than any fight I´ve seen in Sweden.
I understand that you can get upset for a second, but to fight on the ice for minutes.. come on.

The American crowd sure loves it though. At the Staples Center in LA and Madison Square Garden in NYC the crowd make way less noise than in my home arena in Skellefteå, which usually hold around 5,000 people. Except when there´s a fight, then the crowd goes nuts.
One great thing about attending sport events in America is that you can drink there. In Sweden you have to be in designated areas to consume alcohol which I obviously think is outrageous.
On the other hand if you allowed Swedes to drink in their seats and sit next to supporters of the opposing team (like they do in the NHL f ex) you would have fights in the crowd, no question.

In case you were wondering how all drunk Americans get home after a hockey game you don´t need to wonder any more, they drive. And the cops never interfere / care. Unless you walk on the crosswalk while you have a red light, then the cops go crazy. I know this because it happened to me last week.
After I showed the kook cop my Swedish drivers license he said I can´t walk across the crosswalk when there´s a red light. I said I didn´t know that and since the crosswalk was in a parking lot and there were no cars coming I assumed that it was a good idea to cross.
He replied:
- You´re not here to assume or think what´s safe, the government does that for you!
I said: - Ok, I get it. Sorry.
Then he went on for a few minutes how I was an idiot for coming from Sweden and walking across a parking lot without waiting for the light to turn green.. and how I was going to rip the traffic ticket if he knew where to send it.
Pretty funny actually, I really wish I would have recorded the conversation, it would have made a killing on Youtube.

Here are three clips from the Canadian hockey league LNAH. They love fighting and thinks the NHL are too controlling when it comes to regulating fights on the ice.

Project X.

Project X might be the best / worst name for this project, or any for that matter. But since most of this world doesn't agree with me I guess it's a very fitting name for the endemic Americans out there who loves Nos energy drinks, Ford Mustangs, Papa Roach, NFL football, Black Flys sunglasses and X-Games.

Watch Shaun invent new pipe tricks at his private Red Bull half pipe. Did anyone say recession?

Foam pit being built:
http://shaunwhite.com/projectx/?fbid=VNlVLZzVAa7#/docvideos/foampit

Double flips:
http://shaunwhite.com/projectx/?fbid=VNlVLZzVAa7#/docvideos/progression



Since Shaun unveiled his new double flips there are 5-10 people who can do them. I'm assuming they didn't have personal pipes with foam pits. But that's usually how it goes. Someone has to be the first one, then people know it's possible and before you know it it's the norm. Just look at backflips on moto bikes and snowmobiles.

I'm betting my money on Shaun winning the olympics. But since the odds of him winning will be 1 to 1.0000002 I won't bet.

I almost puked.

After watching this "funny" clip.