Longboarding

Never ask a skater on a board longer than a normal skateboard (shortboard, tech deck, call it what you will) to do a kickflip for you. For they are a longboarder, and you generally can't ollie a longboard because of the shape of the board.

Longboarding is not about tricks (most of the time), not about kudos, not about elitism. Longboarding is FUN. As a minority sport, but also a very quick means of transport you can carry with you, longboarding makes getting around towns easy and fun when normal shortboards would suffer from rubbish surfaces, potholes, and low top speeds.

My experience of the UK longboard scene is of a larger and ever growing collective of disenfranchised/ageing shortboarders, kids finding longboarding easier to break into than shortboarding, and many other dedicated individuals boarding for whatever reason. Lush longboards (and I must mention the name, because they ARE the scene) have done huge amounts to promote longboarding. They're all freaking good at their disciplines, but when you go on sessions or charity rides they talk to you as equals, even if you can only just get the board going in a straight line. They are nice, and friendly and accepting. BECAUSE YOU LONGBOARD. I relaise not all skaters(shortboarders) are like the stereotype I am about to talk about, but the semi pro guys hanging around the skatepark who cut you up the whole time just to show you you're not as good as them tend to have the elitism element. The judging that happens to everyone from the edge of the halfpipe is what put me onto longboarding, rather than sticking with shortboarding.

The acceptance of longboarders by other boarders makes it almost a brotherhood (and sisterhood, sorry Kim), and that's what makes the sport so much more enjoyable for me than the many others I've tried. The size of the scene in the UK helps this - it's only just approaching a size where elitism would start to develop in any subculture. It does exist, but it can be ignored, or countered by the massive positive input from all the dedicated non-poser longboarders.

Longboarding abroad is much bigger; Canada and America, mainland Europe (namely the Alps) and Brazil play host to longboarding communities, but the attitude of the UK media and public towards skaters in general kind of hinders the growth of a sport such as longboarding. People are slowly warming to us though, and the UK scene is growing fast as longboards become a summer trend (although this encourages the elitism and posering as it becomes seen as a fad). Every summer there will be hardcore converts from the fad-followers. One day, maybe one day, the UK will be a superpower in terms of longboarding. One (longboarder) can hope.

This is a link to a vid of us having a session, with lots of fun stuff. Most of it was messing around. You will need Facebook I'm afraid - I'll sort some non FB video soon.

News just in: Design module not waste of time

So much for writing this on the train! Today was based around the snooze button and idle chatter rather than rigorous cleaning and a tight schedule.

Results wise, year 2 of MEng Environmental engineering went something like this: "57%".
However, Stats went like this: "37%", and it was only because Design 2; the monstrous 1.7kg report, 350 sides of hard graft, 7 lots of nice binding, did this "78%" that I'm still in for the full 4 years. Respect to the rest of the group!

The prospect of resitting a module for the sake of the 3% I could gain seems a bit daft, but Uni policy stands, and I would kinda like my degree, even if i do have to take time out over summer to resit. However, being able to ace it on the second time would at least make me feel better about my somewhat erratic maths performance.


Onwards to other things, and XSS took a step closer to clubdom in that next year's treasurer (Tom) and I sorted out some details for the club account, to be established over summer when we're both in Southampton. XSS does however need some explaining, and I shall do this in a totally different post, maybe even a different blog; I'll link it later once I've done it (possibly tomorrow(today) ).

Link of the day is to this amazing t-shirt website that is just freaking sweet. Enjoi!
http://www.torsopants.com/main/

Thoughts before sleep and the mission of tomorrow.

As most of you out there will have experienced, a level of apathy towards a subject such as work normally encourages the execution of tasks such as washing and cleaning, whther it be of yourself, or the kitchen or your room. The problem arises when no worse task exists, and Tidying becomes a vital chore. Which is why my room is a dump.

As I sit comfily in bed, looking over the foothills of random wires towards the plains of laundry, I can't help but realise how much I've got to do tomorrow(today), and that it is 3AM. So instead of just contemplating the mountainous list of tasks, I shall document them here. Mostly for myself so I know what in all 13 flavours of hell I'm meant to have accomplished by 8pm.

8:30 - Be awake. Put bedclothes in washign machine to prevent oversleep.
9:00 - Be at least partially coherent, and possibly washing up while the second cup of tea brews
10:00 - Fill out all the forms needed for the summer placement; there will be a post(rant) about this later.
11:30 - Tidy room, dry sheets, text the XSS committee (also explained in a future post) about a meeting
13:00 - Lunch, or tea made with extra sugar. I'm lazy and like tea.
14:00 - Results... :0
14:15 - Drinking (NOT tea)
16:00 - XSS planned impromptu informal committee meeting. Possibly in pub.
18:00 - Finish tidying.
19:00 - Pack last few bits and eat.
20:00 - Be glad that its all sorted
21:00 - NEXT POST, whilst travellign home.

I'm getting tired just compiling that timetable, so
I'll post tomorrow.

In the meantime here is some internet wisdom:
Keep it surreal

Once upon a time....

Once upon a time I wrote a blog. "Tim's Downhill of Existence" was maybe too frank and open in its contents, and although svaing me hours explaining the twists and turns of my life to everyone individually probably offended as many as there were people who found it interesting, so this is a general apology, and I hope all who feel wronged may forgive me.

Now thats out the way, upon on that I rely and begin.....

Having a number of things happening at the moment that may be of benefit to others if recorded even casually, and hopefully amusing to those who are not really that bothered, I intend to document the rough guide to what I'm upto, on a weekly basis (if I can be bothered) in terms of:

1. Longboarding and XSS (extreme street sports society)
   
2. Engineering
3. crazy/incidental crap
4. drinking and antics

Expect links to facebook and similar, and more interesting posts at more sensible hours
In the mean time, check out http://icanhascheezburger.com/page/283/ for the orign of the lolcat and bukkit sagas

Keep it surreal