Texas’ annual tax-free back-to-school weekend starts today. All clothes and most wearable items are available for purchase without paying sales tax, so it’s a great opportunity to stock up on skate shoes and support our local skate shop proprietors while skipping out on paying the man. Here’s a handy list of what items qualify and don’t. Odd, hoisery, dresses, baby clothes, and diapers are tax-free, but rollerblades are not.

So I called up some of the local skate shops to see if they had anything special going on this weekend sales-wise. Here are the responses:

find and grind
Most shops aren’t really running sales this weekend, because without tax, the prices are kind of a discount already. Find and Grind does have a bunch of t-shirts they’re selling for $10. They’ve got a bunch of iPath, Vox, and and Lakai shoes in stock. Open 12-7 7 days a week.

Mustache Skateboards
As a skate shop, these are the new jacks on the Round Rock scene, but as skaters, they’re Williamson County’s original gangsters. Couldn’t get them on the phone, but I left a message. Their myspace page says they’ve got a game of SKATE, highest ollie, and best trick contest going down next weekend, which is the type of cool thing that local skateshops do for the scene. Greedheads like Tyler’s and CCS mailorder just take in money and hire out-of-state hookers every night. And they don’t share, either. I’m speaking from first-hand experience on this, folks.
1011 Gattis School Rd. Suite 100


Skatepark of Austin
SPoA is running a sale on some different shoes. They’ve got the new Neil Blender & Dreamland Skateparks models by Vox. I was wondering if the proceeds from this shoe go towards raising money for building more skateparks like that DC skateplaza shoe. Some guy told me the Dreamland guys just get some beer money out of the deal.

Among the shoes on sale is a pair of Fallen shoes at $84. Ouch. Somebody is getting a pay-day off teenagers wanting to have the coolest shoes in school. I wonder what the price is when they’re not on sale.

Tekgnar
Tekgnar just got a bunch of jeans and other clothes you might need for school and/or skating. Among these is the new Tony Trujillo spitfire jeans. They’ve also got more copies of the Creature DVD I reviewed recently. It’s awesome and only costs $1.99! Another interesting thing is the new Daewan Song mini-ramp video Cheese and Crackers ($14.99). I bet Todd Falcon is just furious that DS is biting his style by going pure miniramp.

 

The annual X-games is taking place this weekend as well. Last night I caught the end of the vert contest where Sandro Diaz crushed Bucky Lasek and the rest of the competition. He tried a 900, but it was after he had already done like 20 tricks and had climbed up the ramp from a bailed judo 540. This level of vert skating is pretty incredible. Brazil took first and second with Sandro and Bob, while Bucky ranked third and who knows what place Pete the Ox got. Check with your local cable provider for times and channels.