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!

NEW Tony Hawk Ride screenshot gallery! Check out pictures of the new game - it looks pretty cool to me. The graphics look smooth and polished, and the colors look rich.

Take a look, see what you think, and post a comment.  This game could be pretty sweet!

Your "Setup" is all of the pieces and parts that go into your skateboard. It's pretty rare to find two skaters with the same setup, and hearing about what other skaters use, and why, is a great way to learn about new options, and pick fights.

So what's your skateboard setup? I've got a new page where you can describe your setup, and even post a couple of pictures if you want to! Check out Reader Stories: Skateboard Setups. I already posted my setup there, but my current setup is kinda boring - just a minilogo deck with blank wheels! But I like it ... it's weird what we end up feeling comfortable with. I rode an old used beat up blank deck for years! I'm sure your setup is more exciting than mine - go post about it, and see what other skaters are riding! And if you have more than one skateboard in your quiver, sweet - tell us about 'em all!

From IASC - This past weekend, the International Association of Skateboard Companies (IASC) joined hundreds from the skateboard community in a fundraising celebration to honor and induct icons; Bruce Logan, Tony Alva, Tony Hawk and Danny Way; into the Skateboard Hall of Fame at the Vans Skatepark in Orange, CA.

"This event was long overdue and it turned out to be a truly heartwarming and monumental occasion," said John Bernards, executive director of IASC. "Skateboarding used to be looked down upon and we were considered criminals or social pariahs - it was time for us to take a moment to acknowledge and honor those who put their hearts and souls into shaping the sport into something positive that anyone can enjoy today."

The Skatelab Skateboard Hall of Fame and Museum is located in Simi Valley, and educates people about the history of skateboarding worldwide. With more than 50,000 visitors each year, Skatelab shows a collection of more than 5,000 vintage skateboards as well as skateboarding memorabilia. Skateboard history lives on at Skatelab.

The event raised more than $42,000 for non-profit organization, The Go Skateboarding Foundation, that provides positive educational experiences, career-minded programming and scholarships for skateboarders, and donates to various skateboard-related charities, including: The Tony Hawk Foundation, Ray Underhill, the Johnny Romano Foundation and the Patrick Kerr Foundation.

I love it when I'm watching a movie, and along comes a completely ridiculous skateboarding scene ... I'm sure you've seen it. Skateboarding's popular right now, and it seems fun to shove skateboarding in for no reason! Often it seems like the person skateboarding doesn't even know how to skate. Or there are the scenes with incredible skateboarding that make absolutely NO sense! We've all seen them - share your favorite worst movie skateboarding scene. Describe the scene and name the movie!

Here's my favorite that I posted: The Land of the Dead is a terrible movie. It sucks. It's the latest in the Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, etc zombie movies chain. The one thing I remember from Land of the Dead is that one of the main characters is a skater. Cool right? WRONG! The actor obviously didn't know the first thing about skating. He carries the board around like a prop, and in ONE SCENE he gets on it ... and then pushes himself along by shoving off of stuff around him. At like 2 miles per hour. Which is not fast enough to escape the zombies, and he dies. The end.

Post your favorite worst movie skateboarding scene! Check out other Readers Respond articles, and share your opinions and stores.

Tony Hawk Ride hits the shelves November 17th in the US, December 4th in the UK, and I'm curious to see how it's going to work out. The game looks good, the skateboard-ish controller looks creative, but the game looks like it rides the fence between being for people who want an intense skateboarding game, and being approachable for kids. This might make it the best game ever...

In case you've been under a rock for the last year, Activision is doing something radically new with Tony Hawk Ride. The game features a skateboard deck - style controller that you stand on and manipulate to do tricks. Will it feel like skateboarding? Or will it feel like you are standing on a truckless deck and sorta shoving it from side to side? No matter what, it'll get you up off the couch, and that's a great start. But will it feel like skateboarding? I doubt it ... but it might be enough to get that fix for when the streets are caked with snow!

The gameplay is something I'm curious to see.  Word on the street is that the controls are pretty intricate, and that you can set them for how detailed you want to be.  You actually do grabs by grabbing the side of the board.  I'm curious about things like kickflips and ollies and grinds - well anything that gets the board in the air...

The bundle of the Tony Hawk Ride game and controller will sell for $120.

What do you think? Do you want more realism in your skateboarding video games?  The last few Tony Hawk games have been anything BUT realistic.  Is this a step in teh right direction?  Or do you like to play skateboarding games sitting down, like when you've broken your leg skateboading? Do you think this is just a gimmick?  And, how do you think this will stand up to Skate 3, coming out next May?  Leave a comment below!

Here's a new one - Skateboard Sporting Sails! Picture something of a cross between a downhill longboarder and a flying squirrel, and you might have the right idea.

Never heard of skateboard sporting sails? I hadn't either, until a guy named Billy contacted me.  He LOVES them!  They look like a great idea, and apparently people are using them.  Read Skate & Deploy with a SPORTING-SAIL to see what skateboard sporting sails are, and to get a quick idea of how to use 'em, and where you can get one!

I would LOVE to hear what you think about these! Is this a brilliant idea, or a lame gimmick? I think it might be a little of both... I mean, it looks so bizarre, but I think it would work, and be a lot of fun. Leave a comment below and tell me what YOU think!