Etnies has created a skateboarding hotel room. Seriously! In Laguna Beach, California in the famous Casa Del Camino Hotel. The room is designed to "tell the story of skateboarding roots through design".

Etnies also put a huge focus on "eco skate design" in the room. Here's a list of the room's features:

• Shoe Scrap Headboard - a 6' x 11' mammoth mosaic consists of remnants of shoe material scraps that etnies uses in the research and design process as they create footwear
• Reversed Shadow Box Wheel Mirror
• Custom Desk and Shelves
• Skate Free Mini Bar
• The Pool Sink

Those are only a few of the design points. Check out more at Etnies.com. If you stay there, you also get four skateboards to use for the day, and an Etnies hat to keep. That might help ease the pain of the $200 a night it will cost to stay there...

So what do you think? Leave a comment below! I think it's a cool idea, but a bit much. If you have too much money though, and want to stay in a skateboarding-themed room on your trip to Laguna Beach ... well, this would be perfect, wouldn't it? I'm not sure how I feel about the marriage of skateboarding and the "eco-friendly" label ... not that I want to burn the Earth, though! What do you think of this room? Leave a comment!

Quiksilver's 40th anniversary celebration is set for Paris, November 20-21, 2009. The event will feature two days of skateboarding, music, art and fashion at the historic Grand Palais--culminating in a Saturday night finale featuring The Quiksilver Tony Hawk Show, followed by a concert with Dead By Sunrise (Chester Bennington of Linkin Park with his newest band) and a late night with DJ Mix Master Mike.

This will be the first action sports event ever held inside the Grand Palais, with the largest vert ramp ever built in Europe and an immense street course open to skaters of all ages and skill levels--free of charge--for the entire two days. And a Street Contest Invitational will feature a prize purse of 20,000 Euros. This is a rare and unique chance for pros and locals alike to skate inside one of the city's massive historic monuments--for the last 109 years its held boxing competitions and horse racing but never before has it been open to skateboarding.

Tony Hawk Show (Sunday) is bringing friends such as skaters Andy MacDonald, Kevin Staab, Sandro Dias, Jean Postec, Sergie Ventura, Jesse Fristch, and four of the biggest names in international skateboarding will be our very special guests: Christian Hosoi, Daniel Cardone, Javier Mendizabal and Omar Hassan.

Entrance is free to the public for the daytime events (10:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.). Saturday night's performance is a ticketed event for 40 euros. For ticket purchase information and a schedule of events, please visit: www.quiksilverlive.com.

Plan B put together a video celebrating Danny Way, and all he has done for the last 20 years. Yeah, D-Way has been skating for TWENTY YEARS now! Wow. That's longer than a lot of you guys have been alive!

Visit the Plan B website to watch the video - it's full of pro skaters talking about Danny, and some of his long time friends. Enjoy!

Most of you guys who read these articles have been skating for a while. Maybe you can ollie, kickflip, or more. That's great! But I wanted to take a minute and encourage you, no matter how good you are, to go back and take a look at the basics again.

Here's my reason: Everything you try and do in skateboarding is built on the foundation of what you've learned before. When you learn to Tre-Flip, you are building that on what you already know about how to Kickflip. And what you know about how to Kickflip is built on what you know about how to Ollie. And your Ollie goes all the way back to what you know about The Basics.

I talk to so many skaters who don't take much time with the basics. I totaly understand! Learning how to balance, or how to kickturn - these aren't as much fun as learning how to Ollie! But you HAVE to make sure the foundation of your skateboarding is good and strong, or the tricks you stack on top will be wobbly and unreliable.

I have a big step by step article called Just Starting Out Skateboarding, and we have a video called How to Skateboard: the Basics. Take a look at these - it won't take long, and it'll help. Spend a day going over the basic stuff. In fact, if you relax and get into it, you'll probably have fun. And next time you run into a trick that you just can't land, take a minute and go back a step, and practice. Sometimes the best way to go forwards is to go back!