Mike Parillo

mike parillo time lapse painting

mikey parillo | MySpace Vidéo

My wife and I are looking into buying a piece from Mike Parillo, we have liked his surrealism art for a long time.

Here is a bit more info about Mike Parillo

Urban death gap

Here is a sick trick from Dan Brisse that can be watched on the Neverland flick. You need to be pretty strong mentally to hit something like that.

Big Bear

Big Bear is one of the best rated park in the States; coming from France, it was insane to see a whole mountain full of rails, natural jibs and various jumps. So here is a little video from the Big Bear locals.

Salomon Riders Sweept Riders’ Poll Nominations

The biggest night in snowboarding is coming to Denver! The 11th Annual TransWorld SNOWboarding Riders’ Poll Awards will be held at The Fillmore Auditorium in Downtown Denver, Friday, January 29, 2010 during the SIA trade show. The Riders’ Poll Awards honors snowboarding’s top riders—the nominees and winners are determined by polling more than 125 professional snowboarders worldwide.

"Transworld Snowboarding Magazine announced the Rider’s Poll Nominations and Salomon Team riders are nominated in every single category.

Bode Merrill’s ender part in Absinthe Film’s Neverland blew people’s
perception of what a rail riding, double corking, multifaceted video part
could look like and earned him a nomination for both Rider of the Year and
Video Part of the Year.

Annie Boulanger’s backcountry footage single handedly raised the bar for
women’s riding in the same film giving her the nod for both Rider of the
Year and Video Part of the Year.

Louis-Felix Paradis brought back the age old ethic of letting his riding do
the talking with mind blowing jibs and a new rail variation in his ender
part in Videograss. His nomination is for Standout of the Year.

Looking to the next generation, 18 year-old Jed Anderson spent the season
gaining a reputation for being one of the best snowboarders alive while
filming his ender part in Transworld Snowboarding’s movie, Get Real."

Skullcandy is stepping up

After hiring Electric co-founder Mike Carter as the new VP of Global Marketing and opening an office in Orange County, Ca, the Skull Candy team is opening an office in China and has hired Tom Bishop from Burton to be the Director of Asian Operations.

It sounds like Skullcandy is making some investments to grow sales within the core industry outside snowboarding as well as stepping up sales in China. well 1.35 billions people, that's a lot of ears to improve the chinese music listening experience.

Noah Salasnek

Coming back to my old man's house I found couple of old snowboard videos I was watching as a kid and as I was doing some research on Noah Salasnek to see what he is up to nowdays.

The 80s are so in!!!

In 2008, the 80s came back in California with the old Frogskin, wayfarer and bunch of fluo colors...a year an half later those have hit the mainstream with an hurricane of fluo, rock music like Iron Maiden and....movies talking about the 80s such as Hot tub time machine, which looks wicked.

Salomon team tour

Salomon just put Louif Paradis, Jed Anderson, Bode Merrill, Scotty Arnold, Harrison Gordon, Chris Grenier, and Chris Carr, in an RV to see what would happen.

North Shore wipe out

After the triple crown, the pipeline masters, it is time to resume all the best wipeout of those last 40 days.

So feel free to check out this video.

Board as F#ck episode 13

Damn that looks pretty damn fun!

How to choose the right goggles for you!

About a year and a half ago, I created this video to better choose the perfect goggles. I thought with all this snow falling pretty hard, it would be a good idea to get some rad goggles for Xmas. check this out and feel free to contact me if you need any additional advices.

Avalanche: Five Red Flags for backcountry

Go check out Jeremy Jones website for more info but here is a quick copy/paste of his article on Five Red Flags

"The more time I spend in the mountains the more I find myself using the 5 red flags. Keep these on the top your brain every time you go out. They are not rocket science and are very easy to read.

New Snow

90% of Human triggered Avalanches happen during or with in 24 hours after a storm. I give this the utmost respect. So many times the first day out after a storm will be super sensitive. I generally do not start a full evaluation of a snow pack until 24 hours after a storm. I treat all snow pack with in 24 hours after a storm as high to extreme danger. Follow this rule and eliminate your risk of getting caught in an Avalanche by 90%.

Patience is hard when you have not made a turn for a week and it is finally clear. It is a good time to ride a resort.

Signs of Recent Avalanches

If you go out and see signs of natural avalanches this is a sign that slopes are sliding with out people getting on them. They should be taken very serious, especially if the avalanche activity has happened on a similar elevation and aspect of a slope you want to ride.

Collapsing or Cracking in the Snowpack

With collapsing you will feel or hear a whomping sound. This means a layer has broken but the slope you are on is to flat to slide. If it occurred on a steeper slope it would have resulted in a slide. With cracking you will see small shooting cracks as you approach a slope or even as you are skinning up a face. Often times collapsing or cracking will send me riding back down the boot pack or skin track.

Rapid Temperature Rise

This is not based on a certain degree of temperature. This is especially dangerous if it the first warm day in awhile or is the warmest it has been in a while.

Strong winds, Blowing and Drifting Snow

If the wind is strong enough to transport snow then the avalanche conditions can change from stable to dangerous with out any new snow."

Northwave T-Track

In order to increase sales that is really important to innovate and create product differentiation.
So assuming that the product provide real advantages over the competition, it can boost the brand image.

Here is one example from Northwave that is getting more popularity from its T-Track lacing system and is a great alternative to BOA's lacing system. I will let you watch this video from a Northwave dude, so that you can better see how it works.

Ski goggles: Gucci WTF???

I think the main difference between ski and snowboard is that snowboarding is youth driven while ski has a bit of an elitist vibe (freeskiing is closer to snowboarding).

So here is a simple example on how Safilo can sell the same goggles under two different brands: Carrera Chopper SPH that retails at $129 and the Gucci goggles retailing for $185.

At this price you can get some pretty sick goggles from VZ, Electric or Oakley..but goes to show you that Brand has a price and particularly in the States, it is more important than product performances.

How to hold a cold beer while staying warm?

Ok so few days ago I talked about the use of gloves with smartphones, but that is good for most of the business days...What about those cold weekends having BBQ outside and some fresh cold beers.

I think it is fair to say that how to keep hands warm while enjoying a frosty drink in ass freezing weather is a problematic that has haunted humankind since the dawn of time.

Here is the solution the Burton Vice Mitt, with the cool beer label....I wonder if they are going to do like Reef with their sandals, so that you can hide keys, have a beer opener,etc..Anyway they retails for $69.95.

9Five eyewear

Here is 9Five, a skateboard eyewear company that takes "inspiration from a classic era in skateboarding and the counter culture that supported it, 9five draws vibe and style from the skateboarding obsessed, crate digging niche that thrived during this golden era. Those lucky enough to have been a part will certainly see the parallels in the core of our design, as well as our drive to modernize our influences and look past what's current."

9five Eyewear 2009 Lookbook from Mike Metcalf on Vimeo.

Save your head from impacts

About a year ago actress Natasha Richardson died from a head injury while skiing. I have had couple of head injuries and it is difficult to describe the pain you get from a head trauma but I felt like someone was crushing my head (actually brain swelling and can't expand due to the skull) vomiting, unconscious, etc...

In the States, wearing a helmet doesn't mean you don't have balls or that you are a pussy...it just mean that you have common sense or that you don't want to pay the $$$$ that goes with going to the emergency room. However in Europe helmets are not so popular, I think it would be nice to see more pros wearing them so that kids can feel more open about it.

I was looking into buying a new one because mine is not that confortable around the ears, I am looking at the Berns helmets.

Billabong Pipeline Masters 09

That's it, I would have liked to see Parko win a title but Mick Fanning decided otherwise and showed top performance since the last three events. So with Parko lost in R3, that lead to Mick being crowned at the 2009's WCT champ.

Want to see more pictures and stories about the Pipeline Masters, you can go check out Surfline

Here is a pretty cool sum up of some freaking Backdoor/Pipe waves:

DC moving to Huntington beach

I was talking with someone couple of days ago regarding the tough market that is experiencing the action sports companies. I used to work three blocks from the DC headquarter in Vista, Ca. It seems that after the 10% lay off back in August, Quik want to consolidate its offices and to do so, they are closing DC in Vista and relocating in the Quiksilver headquarter in Huntington (60 miles north of Vista).

It is a huge building so Quiksilver will save some cash by closing this office. In addition I can bet that some of employees are either going to be let go or will decide not to relocate/do the commute.

However in this economy, doing carpooling with friends and still be able to bring the beacon home is still a good option in this conditions.

How to use your smartphone/ipod during cold weather?

Americans are in love with new tech and what could make them save few seconds in their daily routine...so how about gloves that are designed to work with smartphones and ipod. I guess if you live in Florida, the chances of wearing gloves are pretty slim but for the rest of us gloves can be a bitch when you want to use your iPhone or iPod.

To solve this winter issue, Dot Gloves have came up with some pretty useful gloves that have small nickel or brass dots on two fingertips allowing users to manipulate the touchscreens of smartphone devices while keeping their hands warm in cold weather. I believe their products were released last year but with the cold fronts starting to show up, I could be a pretty good Xmas idea.
Thanks Leslie for the tip!!!


Official Site: Dots Answers

Spy Optic...Warehouse sale next Saturday!

While a lot of brand are struggling with the economy, some brands are doing worst than others. Spy Optic is not doing too well these days as it is shown in their quarterly report:

"Consolidated net sales for the three months ended September 30, 2009 were $8.8 million compared to net sales of $12.0 million for the three months ended September 30, 2008. We incurred a net loss of $1.1 million for the three months ended September 30, 2009, compared to net income of $6,000 for the three months ended September 30, 2008. The net loss for the three months ended September 30, 2009 included a $0.7 million increase in inventory reserves for slow moving and obsolete inventory"

At least all those unsold products will be discounted at the one day warehouse sale this saturday.

Another way for them to make some cash is to do a global licensing for other action sports brands like O'Neill: "Orange 21 will design and develop O’Neill Eyewear under a license agreement. The agreement sees Orange 21 working closely with O’Neill’s designers to design, develop, market and sell O’Neill branded sunglasses and snow goggles expected to launch to market in March 2010."

Eddie Aikau 2009

Massive waves at “The Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau, fueled by Monster Energy” brought out former contest winners Kelly Slater, Bruce Irons, Keone Downing, Ross Clarke-Jones and 60-year-old Clyde Aikau, as well as big-wave vets Garrett McNamara, Shane Dorian, Andy Irons, Peter Mel, Michael Ho, Greg Long, Sunny Garcia, and Grant “Twiggy” Baker.

The world’s best hit the huge surf at Waimea Bay on the North Shore of Oahu going for the $98,000 purse at this, the 25th Anniversary event. Held in honor of the legendary Hawaiian waterman, Eddie Aikau, The Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau is the world's longest running and most prestigious big-wave invitational.

On December 8, coming to conclusion with a dramatic finale as underdog Greg Long comes out of nowhere and steals the win from 9-time World Champ Kelly Slater.

DC snowboarding, European stop

Mark Penxa / DC Snowboard

I was reading Snowtime yesterday, and there was a pretty good article on the making of the DC PBJ boards.

The theme was to have animals hanging around the Mountain Lab in addition to have the 80's skate vibes. So DC asked Mark Penxa to do the graphic of their PBJ boards collection.

Here is what Mark had to said in this interview: "I started by getting inspiration from Jim Phillips oldschool arts (the famously known screaming hands from Santa Cruz).... on a skate deck the drawing is centered while on a snowboard there are empty spaces" and then talks more about the gore side of the graphics, "it is a reference to all those oldschool skateboarders, graphics are based on blood, limbs, zombies".

All the animals living in the Mountain Lab have been infected by a zombie and things just got out of control.

I particularly like the one where you see Ken Block's Subaru jumping in the background.

Lives of the artists

Group Effect: Skeleton Crew's full movie

Group Effect from Skeleton Crew on Vimeo.

Jarad Hadi slammed on the rail at Big Bear...so nasty!!! And a pretty good interview about the crew on yobeat!

Being Stoked!!!!

Nitro Riders changing teams

Seb Toutant is simply an incredible rider...being such a freaking rider, it was just a matter of time before other snowboard companies try to pull him out of Nitro...The winning company is Ride Snowboard.



O-matic was down the street where I used to live in Encinitas, and Todd Richards has always been a rider I looked after when I was a teenager. So quite frankly I only seriously heard about Andreas Wiig when he cofounded O-matic with Todd, Jason Kanes and Tara Dakides. Then Tara and Andreas left. He went with Nitro and even had his pro-model. He has now joined the Forum team.