Figure Skating On Top Of The World has been added as a related post - related requested by nanrod on that post.

Now THIS is how you deal with a proper boggart!

...I'm just imagining Severus Snape in an old lady's jacket and roller skates right about now!

I tried some of these once a few years back. I'm competent if far from talented at riding a skateboard, I'm pretty good at inline skating, but these things I decided after about ten minutes were too dangerous for an 'old' guy like me. There's no way to learn to ride them well without falling down a lot in the process. Not a problem when I was a kid, now: not so much.

In the end, I didn't know what to make of them. They offer no advantage over skateboards or skates and have quite a lot of disadvantages. I guess they're a challenge for its own sake, which is fine since ultimately that's the point since they're not a mode of transportation as skateboards or skates arguably can be.

Q: What's the "Australian way of life" to you?
A: Well, it's certainly not people your age skating up and down the footpath.

That's a WTF worthy non-sequitur right there. Is she implying that only dirty furriner kids would skate on footpaths? [insert JackieChanWhatIdonteven.gif]

I agree, kudos to the young man for taking it in stride.

In a lot of ways, I support WHAT they're doing, if not HOW they're doing it.

I love watching people do amazing skilful stuff on bikes, boards, or just their hands and feet. If someone asks me if my taxes should pay for skate parks, etc. my answer is "hell yes".

I also understand doing it illicitly, spotting a rail or a gap or a drop somewhere and wanting to hit it. I don't even really mind them sneaking in, but if you're caught, just admit defeat and move on. Don't be a dick about it.

But the main problem is litigation, IMO. Everyone is so afraid of getting sued that you can't let anyone do something like this on your property.

In NZ, we have something called the ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation). It's basically a government insurance fund that everyone pays into (it's funded from petrol and car taxes, employee levies, etc), and it means that if you have any kind of accident, your treatment is covered (and a percentage of lost earnings if you can't work).

I know... evil socialism, right? But it's freaking awesome. It means you can have a sports club without carrying a stupid amount of insurance. It means that if someone injures themselves doing something stupid on your property (or public property or govt property) they can't sue anyone because they are already covered.

They've mastered skateboards, now I want to see kitty roller skates.

That kind of shit is easy when you're obviously in BMX/Skate Heaven...

That place is AWESOME.

Your video, Baby Reacts to Skate Park Collision, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 102 Badge!

Some references:

Drums: https://youtu.be/k59E7T0H-Us?t=9

Topless drummers: https://youtu.be/4tgtyl_5x5Y?t=59

Grandmother plays the drums: https://youtu.be/RWQCgSB_lpE?t=150

Violin: https://youtu.be/M3RpKTehDi0?t=43

Old women baking: https://youtu.be/BgUstrmJzyc?t=13

Man in a hamster wheel: https://youtu.be/slHboKF9PIQ?t=123

Pretending to be in love: https://youtu.be/iq2yLykdjvA?t=134

Burning Piano: https://youtu.be/-f993p0CAV8?t=105

Russian man on skates: https://youtu.be/bawnwSYOCFU?t=119

Creaming butter: https://youtu.be/VJ920cN2HmA?t=138

Lordi: https://youtu.be/gAh9NRGNhUU?

Loreen: https://youtu.be/Pfo-8z86x80?t=53

+ dancers, strange costumes, wind, light, love songs, etc.

I know what you mean; at the hockey rink I used to skate at, if you "back spun" a rejected quarter as you put it in, somehow that suddenly made it acceptable.

And Canadian coins enjoyed a period of being, uh, "surrogates" for some US coinage successfully.

Inadvertently, of course---but in those days, a 25% discount if I remember correctly.

I usually don't care for skate videos, but that was really good. Some very creative tricks in there.

The problem with this is not so much the child's testimony. The problem is that the girl was molested, physically confirmed by the hospital, and there was evidence that the police official burned her clothing/diaper after the fact. If the offender had not been a former high ranking official, but instead just a regular person, then the circumstantial evidence would be sufficient to continue the case.

The judge did order the defendant to stand trial for a much lesser charge of lewd molestation. Clearly this was a case where the buddy system came into effect. Corruption exists even now in the legal system, but I had hoped that it had changed in the years since I had an issue with it.

When I was just turned 17, many years ago, I was dumb enough to help a friend retrieve a deer he had illegally shot. He was not strong enough to pick it up into his truck. I wasn't a hunter, so I didn't take into account that he might have broken the law. In any case, we were both arrested after he tried to flee the scene in the truck and outrun the game warden. When we went to trial, I was shocked to learn that I was being charged with the poaching of the deer and fleeing the police, both misdemeanors with high fines, and my friend was only charged with crossing the center line and speeding (in his flight attempt). My PD told me to take a plea and get reduced fines, so I did. My friend got even less in the way of fines and only traffic violations on his record. After the fact, when I got him alone and beat the crap out of him, he told me that his dad was a coffee buddy of the precinct judge and that was why he skated on the charges.

It is these types of situations that make it necessary for courts to be monitored by another method then just appellate courts, especially since most cases that appear before the higher courts are denied out of hand the majority of the time to avoid setting precedents.

Yep, I was facepalming over that line. Reminds me of when I was about 10 in Calgary we used to go ice-skating on the Glenmore Resevoir. One dude wanted to go skating with his kid but wasn't sure if the ice was safe enough so he drove his car, himself, and his kid onto the ice to test it. The good news is it was safe enough for skating.

tony hawks games have gone horribly downhill since the first few. Fortunately the skate series are way way better games than tony hawks ever was.