Generations is a film about the consequences of climate change and shows you what you can do to make a difference.

At first I was angered by the overly simplistic and obvious suggestions provided by the subjects in Generations: A Skiers’ and Snowboarders’ Perspective on Climate Change.  If you are reading this blog, on the internet, with a computer that you own or use because you are part of the affluent portion of the world, then you know global climate change is occurring.  You therefore must know a handful of lifestyle modifications that can affect change, which were also proposed in Generations.  After sitting here and wanting to berate The North Face, Teton Gravity Research, Protect Our Winters, and Clif Bar for their minimal approach to inciting action for climate stabilization, I urged myself to step back to analyze the focus and purpose of this short film.

Generations was narrated by Greg Stump, and the featured athletes were JeremyJones, Ingrid Backstrom, Sage Cattabriga-Alosa, Seth Morrison, Dash Longe, Dylan Hood, and Erik Roner.

TGR gives a nice little intro to their film on the Generations mini-site.  They state that “within the span of a lifetime, one can observe the planet’s changing climate.  Skiers, snowboarders, farmers and climatologists across the world are experiencing the effects of climate change.  Ski areas in the Northeast United States are witnessing shorter winters.  California’s farmlands are experiencing water shortages.  Europe’s glaciers are receding at alarming rates.  Generations is a film about the consequences of climate change and shows you what you can do to make a difference.”  Check it out and let me know what you think!

Sitting and pondering the positives after 17 minutes of information that people who have the funds to ski and snowboard should already know, I found myself thinking of human nature.  In being selfish creatures, while at the same time needing and feeding the establishment that we live day to day, humans will only evolve if the way in which we redefine ourselves is for our own good. 

It’s plain and simple. For those of us who love to glide on powder, here’s the moral of the Generations story: if you don’t affect change within your own lives, thinking and acting differently, then soon enough you won’t be able to ski or ride snow unless you spend thousands of dollars per run, and you eventually will not be able to afford store-bought food.  Any food from markets or restos.  And I don’t think you know how to grow and harvest your own grain, or how to start a fire to sanitize the rabbit you just caught, skinned, and gutted.

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That last one probably seemed exaggerated, but extremes make people react.  So react to my words and save the world!

What is your contribution to healing planet earth, my snowboarder amigo?

Underage and somehow abide by the law of the land that restricts you from imbibing.

I love deals, treasure hunts, discounts, bogos, thrift shops, garage sales, and bartering. Problem is that coupons for these sometimes include fine print details that you would rather not deal with.  The situation at hand with Long Trail Brewery in Vermont is one which I’m definitely willing to work with the fine print limitations.

Upon standing in front of the beer fridges at the liquor store, contemplating what tasty beverage I wanted to sedate my senses with, I noticed Long Trail’s 12-pack mixer.  Why not?  For those of you who are underage AND somehow abide by the law of the land that restricts you from imbibing alcoholic beverages, I’m sorry if I am teasing you with talk of the forbidden fruit.  In any case, I purchased the twelve pack only to get home and discover that there was a half price ticket voucher attached to the assortment of delicious liquids.  Since Long Trail is based out of Vermont all of the participating resorts are in the Green Mountain State, and lucky for me out on the east coast, there’s a lot of prime snow up there.

I put up these humungo photos so that you could inspect the fine print to debate whether buying a Long Trail twelver for the offer is worth it.

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If you’re reading this blog because you love to hit the mountains, and maybe you also love beer, then check out Long Trail’s delectable selection.  Oh yeah, and their IPA is bomb.

Would your beer selection be influenced by this half price ticket, my snowboarder amigo?

I love the icy design, defrost-able with your fingers.

If a brand wants to make money advertising to me via their applications, I won’t pay to use it while providing them with an additional revenue stream.  For simplification of this review, I’ll divvy the apps into two categories: Snow Resort Info and Miscellaneous.  I’ve also included my ratings to further distinguish app quality.  1 (wanted to throw my phone at the app designer ) 2 (just don’t bother) 3 (on the fence because there’s potential) 4 (thoroughly enjoyed myself and is useful) 5 (will do anything to baby-make with the app designer).

- Miscellaneous -

Addicted to Snow – Calendar Shots 2009 2**

ATS utilized rupa’s eBOOK for their Calendar Shots 2009 photobook.  It’s not a utility calendar, but simply an iPhone photobook.  It doesn’t refresh with new photos every time you open it, so once you get to December you’re punked.  There are some beautiful images.

Addicted to Snow – Snowboard Photography Around the Globe 2**

125 virtual pages of great shots and film clips where the introduction describes “this snowboard book… captures some of those moments that not every snowboarder will witness personally.”  And then I arrive at page ten to find that I have to pay $1.99 to see anymore of this.  Addicted to Snow, so far you have not impressed me.

Boarder Lounge 3***

This is an app for people to add and show off their favorite spots for skating and riding, with the capability to add media and descriptions of the spot’s details.  The Lounge is a forum.  Unfortunately, the community isn’t too large right now, so if you search for spots with relevance to your location there most likely won’t be anything.  Maybe in a year.

Crossy 3***

Insert a photo from your phone behind the falling snow/crosses.  Not really useful, but it made me giggle.  I thought it was Swiss propaganda at first.

Malakye 4****

Malakye is all about jobs, business, and news  for action sports and outdoor lifestyle industries.  You can browse job openings posted daily in these industries, check out the Malakye news, and if you’re running a biz they have a B2B offering many resources.

Phresheez 1*

Sign up for an account.  Select different items.  Waste an hour for nothing.  I believe this app is supposed to be a social networking platform for snowboarders, but who knows…

Ride Snowboards 4****

I love Ride Snowboards.  Their app gives you access to great news, wild videos, rider information, and of course Ride product selling tools.  Other than the sales pitch inherent in any company’s app services, this is a rad app for media.

- Snow Resort Info -

Fizz Snow 4****

Add your preferred mountains.  It provides 24 hr forecast of temperature, wind, visibility, and precipitation, as well as surface conditions resort information.  Trail maps and photos.  There is a cool “view all mountains” button that displays all your favorites, and includes the new snow and base depth info for each.  Pretty good artwork and user interface.

iTrailMap 5*****

If I ever end up using a map, I don’t think I could stand using paper ones that get ripped or lost or are poorly made.  Once you have your mountain’s high quality map logged in your phone you’ll love it.  Come to think of it, it’s pretty impractical to use gloves or mits on the surface of an iPhone.  Take your hand covers off because I don’t care, I’m still repping this as five stars because of how it fulfills the simple purpose of providing resort trail maps.

Save our Snow 5*****

Brilliant design by none other than CLIF BAR.  By clicking above the main header a box fades down, highlighting different energy alternative uses by snow resorts.  In addition to the information, forecasting, and mountain conditions, each resort has been individually rated for different energy-oriented categories.  I love the icy design, defrost-able with your fingers.

Ski & Snow Report 3***

The only nominal value added is the ability to view mountain cams.

Skullcandy 4****

Music, media, shred spots, and Skullcandy shopping capabilities are all rolled into one app.  In addition to the other snow resort information provided as other apps do, this one lets you map the resort you are browsing in google maps.  The music offerings are quality but not quantity.  It is a little excessive and pertains to skate, surf, snowboard and their accompanying cultures, but I personally enjoy having all the options at hand.

Snow and Ski Report 3***

This is leans more towards a promotional and sales tool.  Once you figure out how to get past the REI-centric opening, you can select your favorite resorts to be a part of this same opening.  The app enables you to have a multi-faceted start page of sorts.

SnowBomb 3***

Although this doesn’t pertain to snowboarding, I wanted to give props to the developer of this app for thinking of cross country skiers, as they are hardly ever included in snowsports considerations.

The Snow Report 4****

The North Face is overrated.  That means that even though this app deserves a five star rating due to brilliant user interface and graphic design, unlimited amounts of resort information, and mountain specific twitter feeds, I scorn this application because I am not a fan of the company that produced it.  Check it out for yourself, because I’m clearly biased.

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The applications that are now on my phone are iTrailMap, Save Our Snow, and The Snow Report.  Seeing as the CLIF BAR and The North Face applications are practically the same, I’m debating which of the two to keep.  I would rep CLIF’s company culture over The North Face’s ANY DAY.

What do you think of the trade-off between corporate sales and beautiful functionality in applications, my snowboarder amigo?

BEWARE THE SNOW MONSTER!

Video games you say, well why not just hit the snow? First off there isn’t snow year round.  Secondly, do you also have those long trips where you forgot to bring a book or zine and your headphones broke the day before?  I do.  The first three I have tested since they’re free, but the rest of this list costs money.  I think my rent is a higher priority.

1 – Crazy Snowboard (Lite) – Xmas Edition

They keep coming out with holiday versions, like the Halloween and Xmas ones.  Then there’s the regular edition which is exactly the same setup, with the difference being non-themed courses and riders+gear.  If you enjoy it enough to purchase the full version, good for you.

Free Ride: endless downhill action, and I mean infinitely long til you get sick enough from the same jumps and grabs to throw your iPhone at the old lady sitting next to you on the bus.  You start with the aerial options of pulling a method, stalefish, nose grab, or front grab, and then if you play missions you can unlock bonus items (boards, dudes, and grabs).

Missions: in each mission there is a purple hint box that unlocks a bonus item.  But wait, once you unlock those items, you still have to purchase them by acquiring enough points via these missions.  I can only describe the first three since the Lite version doesn’t allow for further off-mountain practice.   Mission 1 you need to grab 10 coins before time runs out, mission 2 you must accrue 2500 points before time runs out, and mission 3 is to jump through 15 rings before time runs out.

2 – Slope Rider (Lite)

In this game you have many more options than in Crazy Snowboard.  Let alone the inclusion of rails and halfpipes, Slope Rider lets you do aerial spins and flips, and since there are many more possibilities things tend to get a little hectic on the iPhone.  To get more control on my rider, I turned down the sensitivity in options and voila!, I can actually stay on course.

Alpine: race against a computer-controlled snowboarder to the finish line while simultaneously trying to beat the fastest times in the highscores table.

Freestyle: test your trick skills on jumps, rails, and halfpipes to see if you can beat your last high score.

3 – Shred Snowboarding

Think of the game you used to play on the comp wayyy back in the day where you’d always be eaten by the snow monster, Ski Champ, but now you’re a snowboarder and can slightly develop your features.

Here are the games with a price-tag:

Adrenaline Snowboarding (Take on the role of an extreme snowboarder and shred down the slopes, grind rails and bust out huge aerial tricks.  Score big to compete against your friends, or others from around the world.)

Index & Bird’s Snowboard Park (Using multi-touch technology, it allows you to ride a snowboard with your fingers.  Simply strap into the snowboard’s bindings by utilizing the yellow circles on the snowboard.  Now you can ride the board by twisting your fingers on the screen.)

iStunt (iStunt is an addictive 2D snowboard game with a strong emphasis on physics.  Perform amazing stunts while snowboarding through impossible scenarios in a unique game experience.)

Shaun White Snowboarding: Origins (The game spans four different countries – Chile, Japan, Spain and USA.  Become part of the Shaun White community and take on the players all over the globe.)

Ski Champ (BEWARE THE SNOW MONSTER!)

Snowboarding TnT (Get massive air and perform over 30 unique tricks to earn points, maneuver through gates, and battle time and obstacles to unlock new courses.)

Snow Dude (Go little Snow Dude!)

XPEED Snowboard (Durability of your board will be reduced after every stage, but you can repair your snowboard at STATE menu)

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Next time you wish you were riding freshies just reach in your pocket, take out your iPhone (that’s if you have one, and if not you can otherwise substitute this step with your imagination), and tap your favorite snowboard game’s icon.  Play away.

Which games have you tried, my snowboarder amigo?

Generally, “normal” people hide indoors and avoid any interactions with nature when it comes to snow and cold weather.  I am quite the opposite.

On the first sight of snow I am warmed to the core, not chilled to the bone.  Today’s flakes weren’t tiny sand-pebble sized, but the width of my fist when it’s clenched before hitting a rail.  No joke;  they were huge and fluffy.  Also, these white puffs reminded me of a scene in a Big Bird special where his adventure is to find an item that weighs less than the lightest feather.  If memory serves right, it ended up being happiness… or love…  It was corny, but I loved it at age seven cause I’m a big cheeser.

P.S. This is my first post.  I’m not going to put up content on TSS consistently just yet, but I needed to write about the first snowfall!