Skateboard Overload

I'm not sure what happened but it seemed every skateboard event took place this weekend. The Berrics, Tony Hawk's Vert Alert and SLS. It was a lot!

The Battle at the Berrics had Luan Oliveira vs. Tom Asta which was good. Luan landed full bolts it would seem or you could say with authority. You knew he was landing his stuff. He won and now he'll go up against Kelvin Hoefler in the next round. I like Kelvin and Luan so I'm not sure who to cheer for when the time comes. This is the same conundrum I used to face watching vert competitions with Bucky Lasek and Bob Burnquist going at it. I liked both of them, each of them a favorite but if I'm being honest, Bob had a slight edge over Bucky.  It was hard to root for one over the other they were just so darn good!

SLS returned as well and I'm not liking the new format at all.  I was used to two 45 second runs and 5 trick attempts and the best four scores overall count with all 8 competitors trying to win.  Now it's one 45 second run, four trick attempts, best three scores count and the top four move on for an additional two trick attempts to determine the winner.

I don't know why they changed it, I thought it was working fine. It's supposed to be a skate competition and now you hardly get any skating. At this point, simply call it a best trick contest because that's what it is. I want to see skaters skate, not just their best trick. I don't skate, I'm simply an ally but the new scoring has me baffled. 

Kelvin Hoefler finished 4th, he missed out on hitting the podium and there was one trick that he did that he definitely got robbed on scoring wise. Then again, I'm not a judge so what do I know.

Tony Hawk had his event and that was cool. I really wish that they had recorded the Legend's Demo so people could watch it if they missed the live event. I've seen some videos popping up but it would have been nice to watch the whole thing.  I was busy and couldn't watch when it was happening but from I saw online people were hyped.

I'm glad the event happened, it was nice to see a women's and men's vert competition even if I didn't recognize most of the names. Didn't matter, it was good skating and the crowd was into it.  

Okay, that is my rant for the day.

My idea for NaNoWriMo is coming along. It's starting to form a bit better in my head and I think I have a good idea now on the direction I want to go.  There is still plenty of time to change my mind but for now I think I found my path.

I went digging through the music archive and dug up this Savatage song from 1989. Enjoy!

Rock on!

~Maynard