The Goat

Everyone and their brother has a plan to start a T-shirt company that they think will be the new Beanie Babies craze. Casual Industrees at least has the wherewithal to put together a website and start trying to sell their designs. This summer skier/snowboarder T-shirt lets everyone else who works in the hospital cafeteria know why you call in sick over the winter. Their shirts cost $24. 

The Danish company HeatGear is rolling out this little water boiler called the Heat Stick. It slips inside your Nalgene and heats it to 198F in a matter of a few minutes. The HeatStick runs off a gas canister and warms the water through 70% infrared radiation and 30% convection. It was originally developed for the military, but a built-in pressure regulator prevents it from exploding as the water heats so it won’t make much of a weapon. The HeatStick unit that works with a 1 liter Nalgene weighs just over a pound including the gas canister. Better hope this company doesn’t disappear if you order one since those HeatStick gas cans don’t look like they could be bought from the 7-11.
via Backpacker [GetOutdoors]

A little bit of particle board and duct tape can turn a dumpster formerly used to store medical waste into a funky-smelling mini ramp. Instead of draining the neighbor’s pool while they’re on vacation, you can drag the dumpster they ordered for home renovations into your backyard and skate with impunity.
via NOTCOT

It’s going to be too expensive for even those wealthy Canadians with their solid gold Looney coins to head to Jackson Hole for a weekend of skiing. Jackson just released their rates for the coming season, and a day lift ticket is going to run $85. What the hell? Do they all come with a night in the Jackson Motel? This is the price you get to charge when you’re the only game in town. Colorado is still running the $400 super pass, but hey, there’s a lot of competition. Those Republicans might be onto something with that competitive market—of course, if we were socialist like the Canadians and had the state owning these things I’m sure rates would be more reasonable (plus all the ski bums would have healthcare).
via Backcountry Blog

Darth Messenger on the right of the group was interviewed for this Wired story about the declining need for bike messengers.

“There is really not much left. It’s dying,” says Matt Flores, co-owner of Wheels of Justice, a San Francisco courier service. Flores recently halved his full-time bikers — “document clerks,” as he calls them — from eight to four. His top runner earns $50,000 a year, he says.

The $50k a year was the most surprising part. With courts and businesses accepting electronic signatures the need for official copies of documents to be shuttled among office buildings is going away. At least the pro bikers who lose their jobs will be immortalized in the ultra popular messenger bags that we all use to carry our laptops.

The chunks cut out of the middle of your bike seat that are supposed to keep your junk operational without help from the pills that every spam e-mailer seems to be selling might be getting another use. Selle SMP is selling the SMP 4TheBike Shorts next summer that will feature zipper flies. The zipper is supposed to rest in the place where the saddle is cut out—I don’t know…I guess so you can go to the bathroom without stopping.

via Get Outdoors [Quickrelease.tv]

Don’t let those sneaky bastards at Nike charge you $30 for a new RFID chip and battery when yours conks out. After all, those things are dirt cheap, and everyone knows that Nike makes their child laborers in China eat old Nike+ receiver pods on their lunch breaks—just kidding! They don’t get lunch breaks! Instructibles shows you how to breathe new life into your shoe pod in about 10 minutes for only $5. The process includes things like crazy glue and tape, and it leaves out soldering and other confusing terms—in other words, it’s an easy hack.

That smiley son-of-a-bitch Jake has been burned by some mocking impostors, and Life is Good won’t be taking their crap anymore. The T-shirt company came down on two retailers by saying they’d lose their Life is Good accounts if they continued to carry the cynical knockoff called Life is Crap. Geraci at Base Camp Communications uses it as an opportunity to point out why you don’t want lawyers to handle your press releases, and I’m going to use it to point out that there’s a company called Life is Crap. Also, the retailers that Life is Good is cracking down on have the words “Hut” and “Surplus” in their names, so if you had any doubt about what kind of company Life is Good was running, it’s time to wakeup.

Drinking Red Bull without Loud Truck Energy Gummies is like eating Oreos without milk—and they’ll all work your heart hard enough to make it explode after a few years. Loud Truck makes this caffeine-packed candy chockfull of vitamin B12 and C for people who want the energy but don’t want to have to put up with eating anything healthy. You can get a 12-pack of Loud Truck Citrus Blast Energy Gummis for about $22.

via Gear Addicts

Snowboard Magazine has a look at the full line of Scott’s goggles for 2008/09, and the standout is their Alibi, though I don’t think it comes with this fruity lens. You’d have one brown eye and one blue—like those people with an extra a chromosome that lends their eyes two sharp colors. You know who I’m talking about, there’s something odd the first time you meet them, then when you figure it out you have to tell them immediately—they’re never impressed. Anyway, I think that lens would be a nice upgrade option for the green wood grain or rainbow-plaid frame.