Heating Up The Slopes

Guaranteed to warm things up in the single's line!

Burton has gotten itself in quite the pickle over LOVE, its recent line of Playboy-branded snowboards. Based in Burlington, VT, the 31 year old company has established a reputation of not only manufacturing boards that snowboarders love for its cool factor as much as its technology, but also for its organizational principles and ethics (employee benefits even include matching child-care payments as well as paying for half of a worker's gym membership). But covering their snowboards with images taken from 1970s Playboy magazines has created quite an uproar among "concerned" parents and citizens. And marketing the snowboards with quotes like, "I'm on the market for someone who's looking to score serious action, no matter where they like to stick it" just doesn't make things any better. Some Vermont ski resorts have banned their employees from riding the boards and other randoms, like the Girl Scout Council of Vermont, plan to protest and take the issue to state lawmakers. Oh, whatever, lighten up! Unfortunately for me I live nowhere near a major ski resort and well, come on, we all know kids at Snowshoe and Massanutten just don't have the nerve to pull something like that off anyway. So, I'm recommending that Quicksilver come out with a line of Girls Gone Wild surfboards. You know, just to keep things interesting.