Greater Baltimore Toy and Collectible Show

Posted on January 23, 2012 | 8 Comments

Attention: The rest of this post will have nothing to do with this artful green-frosted Toaster Strudel, but sometimes when you “do” a good Toaster Strudel, you just have to show it off. #bragging #picasso

This past weekend was the Greater Baltimore Toy and Collectible Show that’s held at the state fairgrounds twice a year in the winter and summer. The night before, an ice storm dumped about two inches of ice and snow sludge on the ground. The dread of scraping and chipping out my car on a Saturday morning almost stopped me from going—and in fact the thought of going outside at all on the windy white-grey morning almost stopped me, too. Still, I trooped onward. There were toys. Besides I’d had a cruddy week, and I was in desperate need of some toy-hunting endorphins.

The fairgrounds was surprisingly mobbed with people and parking was at full capacity. There were crowds of people in cowboy hats and tasseled jackets carefully gliding across the parking lot which was covered in a sheet of sludgy brown ice. There was some sort of horse convention going on in another building—the “Horse World Expo,” whatever the hell that is—which apparently involves roping contests, mounting demonstrations, and “Equi-tainment! – A Musical Equine Variety Show.”

Horses and musical variety shows? Whoa. No wonder weather does not stop horse show people. Those people are CRAZY HARDCORE.

The toy show on the other hand was completely dead. There were maybe fifty to one hundred customers there, and about two hundred seriously depressed dealers who were sweating out even making back the cost of renting a space. This meant the dealers were either really willing to make deals or even more hellbent on sticking with their jacked up prices. It also meant I could palpably feel the dealers desperately watch me and hang onto every single item I picked up to look at.

As usual, I was in the hunt for random oddities and unloved toys. And as usual, I succeeded in my mission.

1. GODZILLA KOOSH BALL:

At first I thought this was a Jurassic Park dinosaur Koosh Ball, but it’s actually from the 1998 Godzilla movie starring Matthew Broderick. A Koosh ball tie-in to a notoriously awful 90s movie definitely falls under my category of “random oddity.” The dealer even laughed when I picked it up because he’d told his friend it would be the one thing he’d never be able to sell. In fact, the guy was so giddy that someone was buying it that he gave me these dinosaur bendys for free:

2. FREE DINOSAUR BENDYS WHAAAT!

Amazing! Getting free dinosaur bendys would be the pinnacle of some people’s toy show finds, but I was just getting warmed up. But I might have bought these things anyway! I love the unrealistic color choices, like red eyes and blue stripes. Plus I could tie that Brontosaurus neck into a bowtie!

The Koosh and the bendys made for perfect additions to my gorillas vs. dinosaurs shelf:

It’s a classic battle!

3. Z-BOTS!

Z-Bots were little figures that ran from 1992-1994 under the Micro Machines line by Galoob. I’ve collected a whole bunch of these in the past year, so it’s always fun to find new ones I don’t have yet. I love love love that orange alien dude.

4. ROBOTS!

The guy on the left is a 1978 Tomy Rascal Robot windup, which I got for a total steal for a buck. The other guy is another Z-Bot, who I also paid a dollar for. I had an idea to add my robots collection to the gorillas and dinosaur battle, and then it would be ROBOTS vs. gorillas and dinosaurs. The gorillas and dinosaurs would probably have to team up in order to stand a chance again the robots. I’d totally do this, but a sinkhole would probably open up under my house because of the sheer weight of awesomeness.

5. VOLTRON LIONS!

Paid two bucks a piece for these. These are the 1981 die-cast metal ones. This is one of the toy lines that EVERYONE wants and collects, and since I’m kind of a toy-collector hipster in that way, I don’t really collect this stuff. But for two bucks a piece, I figured I could probably resell and make profit on eBay, even if these guys are in heavily-played-with condition.

6. VAMPIRES!

These are my absolute favorite thing I bought. I even paid a whopping ten bucks for it, which probably doesn’t seem like a lot to some/most collectors, but you’ll notice I rarely pay more than a buck or two for most of the things I buy. Not only am I the annoying hipster of collectors, I’m also just cheap. But these Vampires were a totally different story for me. Look at that amazing packaging! That awesome bat! That font!

I’d actually seen the exact same pack and same dealer at the York Toy Extravaganza back in December. I’d passed on them thinking I’d be able to go home and find them online for cheaper. But then I went home couldn’t find a single mention of these things anywhere online, which made me hate myself for not buying them. So when I saw them again this weekend, I knew it was fate, and sometimes fate costs ten dollars.

They’re from 1992 and made by a now-defunct toy maker, Happiness Express Inc.

I’m thinking these things have got to be ridiculously rare in the package like this. I am going to worship them forever and ever amen.

7. GIRL GREMLIN!

Here’s another thing I broke my “two dollar rule” for. I paid five bucks because I needed this. I really, really needed this, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to see why. LOOK AT HER. If my house was burning down and I could only save one crappy PVC figure from the early 1990s, it might just be this one.

This toy also achieves an important accomplishment in my collection, being the HOTTEST toy that I own, surpassing the ET-in-drag figurine, the girl California Raisin in hot pink heels, and even the bride Ms. Pac-Man. Yeah, I said it.

Yowsa.

8. MORE TMNT CRAP!

I was happy to find these figures, Tattoo the Sumo Wrestler and Mondo Gecko, two of the many strange non-Turtle figures in the Playmates Ninja Turtle line.

9. Q*BERT!

Finally, I picked up this Q*Bert figurine for another eight bucks, which is hard to turn down because Q*bert stuff is just so damn cool.

Here’s another look at the some more of my video game stuff:

Oh yeah, I also got that big Sonic recently at Toys R Us. They have a new line of “Sonic Through Time” 20th Anniversary figures which includes the 90s versions of Sonic and not just the sucky 2000s version of Sonic. They oughta do the same thing for Mario, because he looked better in the 90s, too.

Anyway, that’s it. The show delivered on the toy-hunting endorphins. Worth trudging through the snow sludge. Almost as worth it as horse variety shows. Almost.

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Posted in Things I Like

Living in the Analog World

Posted on January 9, 2012 | 19 Comments

The great rock critic Lester Bangs once dreamed about having a basement with every album ever recorded in it. The thing is, Bangs’ basement now exists on the Internet. Nothing is rare and nothing is unknown. The digital world grows by the nanoseconds and milliseconds are obsolete. When I was a kid I used to try to think of the biggest number ever, but always puckered out somewhere after one hundred gajillion-billion-zillion-million. And one.

Bangs probably would have been freaked out if he knew his dream basement would become reality. The guy wrote an Elvis obituary wondering if the world could ever agree on love or Elvis or anything ever again. He spoke to an increasingly fragmenting culture back in 1977 when he wrote, “we will never again agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis. So I won’t bother saying good-bye to his corpse. I will say good-bye to you.”

Bangs couldn’t have foreseen that there’s something worse than no Elvis. There’s no John Lennon. There’s no Michael Jackson. There’s no record stores. And there’s nobody sitting around listening to records. We don’t sit down on the couch, have a drink with a friend, listen to side one of a record, flip it over, and listen to side two. We don’t remember the rules—that you can talk before the record and in between sides and during the crappy songs, but Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands requires full reverence.

There’s no reverence anymore. Instead, there’s earbuds and playlists and leave-me-the-hell-alone looks—which face it—you need on subways and buses.

Don’t mind me. I’m just being old and obsolete and living in the analog world. Digital music is codes. Ones and ohs. Numbers. One hundred gajillion-billion-zillion-million. It hurts my head. Analog means to use signals or information represented by a continuously variable physical quantity. See also, In a manner analogous to the variations in air pressure of the original sound. See also, Random variation.

On monoaural records, the fine print somewhere on the back cover always assures the buyer that “this is a high-fidelity recording, designed for the phonograph of today or tomorrow. Played on your present machine, it gives you the finest quality of reproduction. You can buy today, without fear of obsolescence in the future.”

I wish I came with that kind of disclaimer.

See also, A thing seen as comparable to another. Recently I found a secondhand bookstore tucked into the corner of an unsuspecting strip mall, next to a sushi place and a paint store. It was the kind of strip mall where it looks like it might be mobbed, but then you realize there’s actually tons of parking spots, and it’s just the lazy suburbanites hunting and scrapping over the first few rows. Being a competitive animal, or maybe just an asshole, I like to scan the closer spots to see if I can snipe one off. I’m not lazy, I just want to win. I have medals in getting good parking spaces, people. MEDALS.

Before even walking in, you can tell this is the perfect kind of bookstore, the kind roughly the size of a closet. At least a master bedroom closet. Old light bulbs with metal filaments give off an apricot glow. Musty wooden shelves press to the ceiling and loom over—or perhaps more accurately, hunch over, like old giants. And if you are quiet, and if you listen carefully, you’ll swear you hear those shelves breathing, the sounds of giants harrumphing over us mere mortals below.

This is the kind of place without hip kids in wool hats and lattes—but rather the kind with an inch of dust collecting on the shelves and maybe some cat hair, too. The kind of place with a girl behind the counter who could be anything between twenty-seven and forty-seven years old, reading a book, and that’s all she minds to do. If you have a question that’s not idiotic, she will be happy to answer it. But if you’re interrupting to ask where the Dean Koontz books are, you really shouldn’t be in this holy place.

And no, she also doesn’t know the name of that book by the name of that author you can’t remember.

And no, e-books. Just no.

She’s wearing a dowdy but comfy sweater and a no-fuss ponytail. I decide she’s definitely twenty-seven because the slouch neck of the sweater reveals the spaghetti strap of a tank top—and I decide she’s probably fun. A good time. Wild, in fact. You just know with those ones.

Then in the back, there’s a possible treasure hunt—the everything else section, where there are CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, and best of all, vinyl records. I try to tip toe past the giants, skipping over their books, but I hear them sigh in disdain. I want to explain myself. You see, I just bought all these books last month that I already have no time to read. I swear, honestly, my bedside table has like six piles plus a few more on the floor. I’ve got to sleep in the same room as the books I’m currently reading, and right now, it’s an orgy. Look, honestly, I got them at a real bookstore, at the Borders before it went out of business. Thirty of ‘em, all glossy and virginal and smelling of ink and fresh pulp, sweeter than the smell of citrus.

I know, I should have gone more often. I should have bought more books before it closed. We all should have. It’s a shame, and it’s our fault, and we know it. Well, some of us do.

But it’s no use to plead with the giants. The won’t hear my case. They’re old and they’re grumpy, and they have wiser things to talk about. Theirs are conversations we cannot hear or understand, like a child playing on the floor under the table, while the adults smoke cigarettes and sip beers above, speaking in hushed and solemn tones. We long to be a part of it, to know what of it, but then we grow up and wish we could go back to not knowing. Wish we could go back to underneath the table, our secret fort, where the dog also watched guard, our trusty sidekick.

I miss my sidekick. Us mortals are too sensitive. Wound too easily. Take it all too personal. Man up now, suck it in and stand up straight. Rah rah, and all of that. Onward march then.

I make my way to the back, past the giants, past the girl, and also past an owlish man studying the rows of books in the military history section, which is labeled in handwritten scrawl on a piece of masking tape. The records sit in crates on the floor, in crates behind those crates, and in haphazardly stacked piles on top of the crates and the crates behind those. Hoo boy.

Right away I could see it wasn’t the usual thrift store fare in the crates, the stuff grandma doesn’t even listen to—the Herb Alberts, the Sing Alongs with Mitch, the banged up Christmas records. This was actual, honest-to-god rock and roll in here.

So I’m crouching and flipping through the crates, my knees starting to tingle and the lactic acid racking up in my calves. Suddenly the next LP I flip to is Sgt Pepper. As in Lonely Hearts Club Band. As in the Beatles. A nice clean, beauty of a copy, too. Usually that shit is snapped up and put eBay for a million dollars plus an additional billion dollars shipping. Or it’s placed behind some glass counter and marked up to fifty bucks, even if looks like it was ran over twice and wouldn’t be worth that much if Ringo sneezed on it.

Instead, here it was among the common and mortal records, in the $4 crate, although admittedly it was meekly marked as $10. This is the Beatles, after all. The book store owners weren’t fools. I bought it because I always buy multiple copies of Beatles records. I’m forever chasing after that one good clean copy without a speck of dust gunking the inner grooves. Gunk is reality in the analog world. But this one was pretty. There was no ringwear and the colors were vivid. The corners were sharp.

It wasn’t until I got home that I noticed the inside sleeve. Early Pepper copies came with a pink-swirl on the sleeve. It intrigued me enough to do some Googling. And make some phone calls. And have my friend pull out his “Field Guide to Beatles Records,” a book he swears he’s never “used in the field, whatever that means.” (LIES.)

I became sucked into a massive wormhole of arcane Beatles knowledge, a circle of hell in esotericism. There are differences in the copyright information printed in microprint on the back covers, which is the difference between common copies and rarer ones. If it has a MACLEN and NEMS copyright on the back, it’s a common copy.

But my copy only had the NEMS copyright.

To my horror, three hours of research passed. I began sweating at the thought of my wife walking in the door from work, and me having nothing ready for dinner because I became obsessed with the subtleties of copyright information on the back cover.

“But it doesn’t say MACLEN, honey!” is not a valid excuse.

SWEET CIRCLE OF HELL.

As it turns out my copy is one of the rarer first pressings, a copy in its condition worth $100-$200. That gives me hope, in a digital world where everyone has a computer in their pocket—that you can still stumble into a little closet of a bookstore and unsuspectingly find a rare Beatles record that someone else didn’t know about, not even yourself. Perhaps it’s something fated in the analog world: a bit of random variation, a speck of dust among the ones and ohs.

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Posted in Things I Do

Christmas Countdown #6: The Aftermath

Posted on December 29, 2011 | 23 Comments

We live across the street from the saddest yet somewhat endearing Christmas display ever. At least they tried. Those icicle lights are hilarious. Those things hung droopier every day. The neighbors actually had to duck underneath of them upon leaving and returning home. Then there were the candy canes, which hadn’t stayed upright all month. While the red one was a trooper, the green one was a bastard. (The green ones always are.) It fell over every day. You’d think those folks would have finally given up on it, and left it on the ground as it was in this picture taken on Christmas Eve.

But you know what? The day after Christmas, that green one was standing upright again—sort of. And THAT’S THE SPIRIT. It’s Christmas, damn it, and again this year, WE MADE IT. Now, we deal with the aftermath—and all of those maddening strands of tinsel we keep finding everywhere. My God man, we didn’t even put tinsel on the tree this year.

Now, before I start to review the items in the haul, I should mention the wife joined and navigated eBay for the first time this year. All year she stores up a special resentment for me not being easy to shop for, which she then turns into a super-power come December. “I’m going to find you things YOU LOVE this year,” she threatens.

So she signed up for eBay, which for most people, is a quick and easy five minute process. For the wife, it was an emotional and daunting journey. It’s partially my fault. As a grizzled old eBayer myself, I’ve imparted all sorts of tales about last minute bid sniping and sellers profiting off of shipping costs.

Every day, I’d get the play-by-play on how her bids were going.

“I’m still the high bidder!”

“I’m going to have to watch it the last thirty minutes so the snipers don’t get me!”

“You are going love this thing!”

She clearly believed she was winning a grand prize.

“I can’t believe I won it!” she said. “And they didn’t charge me a lot for shipping,” she added proudly. Even the old grizzled eBayer had to muster up a “well done.”

Then I started to get pretty excited. eBay combined with Christmas is the entire world of possibilities. I mean, it could be anything. And so imagine my surprise Christmas morning when the ENTIRE WORLD of possibilities brought me this:

The uhh… NINJA TURTLE VALENTINES KIT! I’m not making fun of it. I swear. I just think it’s hilarious that she fretted EVERY SINGLE DAY over the potential bidding war she might get into with someone over this thing. And I didn’t know whether to be mortified or flattered that she was so confident I’d love it. Vintage action figures are worthy of adult geek love. But an elementary class Valentine kit with 32 unpunched cards and heart-shaped stickers with Michaelangelo’s face on them? Is that okay to love? Is it?

“You’re the one who wanted that box of Ninja Turtle Band-Aids that was at that toy show,” she said.

Oh yeah. That. That I can explain.

“Band-aids are different,” I said.

Oh screw it. I LOVE IT and I’ll save a review of it for a special Valentine’s Day edition of the blog.

Also, she won that awesome 13 inch Donatello figure. Which came shipped in this really disturbing box:

I’m sort of a OCD germaphobe, so this box REALLY creeps me out. What the hell is a vacutainer? I don’t like anything that combines the words “vacuum” and “container.” But that’s not the only creepy thing. Donatello also smells really strongly of bleach. As though he were fully submerged, preserved, and pickled in a tub of bleach for days. The question is why? And does it have to do anything with blood collecting?

Let’s just say I placed Donatello high up on my Ninja Turtles shelf and promptly washed my hands afterwards. Ten times. Which is a nice even number.

But the wife wasn’t done on eBay yet. Here’s the other awesome thing she won:

CHEESEBURGER MICKEY. It’s Mickey Mouse! In cheeseburger form! How awesome is that? It’s one of the Vinylmation figures, sold exclusively in Disney Parks and stores. According to the Disney site, Vinylmation is “a collectible designer toy created by Disney Theme Park Merchandise.” That’s another way of saying “money grab,” and Walt Disney churns out anything and everything for a buck.

Disney must pipe in subliminal messages through the theme park music to get you to part with your money easier, because when we were in Disney World on our honeymoon this past September, I became mildly obsessed with the Vinylmation figures. I’d seen a picture of Cheeseburger Mickey somewhere, and became singularly focused on it. I had to check every last store, even though all the stores were exactly the same.

When we got home, and I was no longer being constantly exposed to the brain-washing subliminal Disney messages, I mostly forgot about my fling with madness and the Vinylmation figures. Even so, I’m proclaiming Cheeseburger Mickey as my favorite Christmas gift this year.

GODZILLA SLIPPERS. I’m not gonna lie. I put these on my list. Right on the top of it. It’s something you see and immediately realize there is no way you can live without them knowing that they exist. I already stomp around the house. Now I can do it with purpose.

They’re HUGE. As someone already prone to falling up stairs, these increase my chances to about 100%. The wife made a rule that I can’t go up and down the stairs in these, but I already have because I’m a rebel. I like to live dangerously. I’m gonna die. Doesn’t matter. Having Godzilla feet is WORTH IT.

REMOTE CONTROL HELICOPTER! I had this on my list because I can think of all kinds of times when I really wish I had a remote control helicopter to fly. Like, while I’m trying to think of thoughts. Sentences. Words. Stuff. It’s way better than staring at walls. Walls are so unengaging.

Well, except for wallpapered walls. Sometimes those patterns can really suck you in like whoa.

BOOKS! My mother gave me these. I love books like this even though the target audience is eight years old and I’m thirty one. There’s lots of good stuff in the Giant Cool Book. For example I’ve learned that a squid has the largest eyes in the world. At birth, a giant panda is smaller than a mouse.

And Optical Illusions are awesome. These are great additions to my library of “fun” books, where I have books about dinosaurs, sea creatures, mammals, UFOs, etc. These are the things that first sparked my curiosity as a kid, and they still do.

THE WORLD’S MOST GIGANTIC BOX OF CHOCHOLATES! From my sister, who always finds the most unique gifts every year. When she plopped this wrapped package in my lap on Christmas day, I already knew what it was. This long, lightweight rectangular package was obviously a board game. I confidently boasted that “I know what this is.”

I’m a notorious guesser and I’m right nearly 99% of the time. It’s somewhat deflating to the gift-giver when I guess it before I open it, and of course, I relish in earning that deflation. Except my sister wasn’t deflated. Instead, she looked at me with a challenging glint in her eye. “I dare you to say it out loud if you know what it is then.”

Sister: 1. Me: 0.

STAR WARS FIGURES! From the wife. I really dig all the retro re-issues out there. In some ways, walking through a Toys R Us aisle today looks just like it might have twenty-five years ago.

I opened R2-D2 first, and immediately guessed the other similarly-wrapped package would be his counterpart, C-3PO. The wife smirked. Boy, was I off. It was Princess Leia in the SLAVE OUTFIT.

0 for 2 on my guesses this year.

STOCKING STUFFERS! Is this the most perfect assortment of stocking stuffers ever? The wife gets special bonus points for finding that Dressed-as-Santa-Mr. Potato Head-Viewmaster tube topper. That thing is a load of awesome.

TOY STORY CARS! I love things in the form of other things! Like Cheeseburger Mickey. Or Toy Story cars! The wife got me these. She has a good eye for under-the-radar cool stuff. This set is perfect, except we’re both kind of disappointed there’s no Hamm car. But she’d fight me for that one. It’s a pig, after all.

ANGRY BIRDS! BOWSER HAT! I recently had an affair with the Angry Birds. I discovered them about two years after the rest of the world. I don’t have a smart phone. I finally discovered the game through the Google Chrome browser. I obsessively three-starred all the levels in about a week, and now I have these plush birds to forever represent that lost week of my life. And that Bowser hat—I love love love the strangely minimal, bootleggy, old-school hand drawn look of the design.

So that’s my 2011 haul. WE MADE IT! But we’ll still be picking up that tinsel ’til next year. ‘Til next year indeed!

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Posted in Things I Like

Christmas Countdown #5!

Posted on December 21, 2011 | 10 Comments

I still do an Advent calendar every year. They’re supposed be for little kids to help them count down the days to Christmas, but I think opening tiny cardboard doors with chocolates behind them is an ageless activity. The history of Advent calendars is also rich with cultural meaning and religious connotations, but honestly, the most important thing here is tiny cardboard doors, people. They rule.

The thing is, I suck at my Advent calendar. I suck at my Advent every year. I mean, I really really suck at it. I’ve neglected mine since December 9th, failing to peel back a single tiny door since that day. Now all of the chocolates I have to eat are backed up like a traffic jam. I didn’t say it was a bad thing.

I blame forgetfulness and procrastination. I blame the chocolates themselves, which don’t exactly offer the same seduction and lure of the Klondike bars in the freezer.

Now I have to play catch up, eating a rash of chocolates one after another, and not even savoring the opening of each door. It’s kind of a metaphor for how adults experience Christmas.

When I was a kid, I was on top of my Advent. I did not let a day, chocolate, or door lapse. The countdown to Christmas was too crucial. Those tiny doors remaining were the only thing that assured me Christmas was not 452349 days away. Thank God, it was only ten days away. And then five. And then two. Which even then still felt like 452349 days away.

Christmas was the day when all my dreams and aspirations came true. My aspirations were toys and having them. Having all of them. Christmas was the day I chipped a bit more away at it—my one true dream of having all of the toys and things that there are.

Then we grow up and have no idea what we want. It becomes such a large and looming thing. What do we want in life? Maybe the neurotic ones and the dreamers go on chasing it forever. Or we settle for just wanting to be happy. Yet as children, the answer was quite simple. We wanted everything.

Except for brain-teaser toys. I did not want those. And I used to get them all the time, people thinking I was a clever and curious child. But I was not curious for maddening wooden puzzles or metal interlocking horseshoe things. Since I’m pretty sure the stature for being gracious and grateful for gifts expires after twenty years—I hated them and they made me want to die on the inside. THERE I SAID IT AND IT FEELS SO MUCH BETTER.

Instead I was curious for the same things all children are. Why is the sky blue? How come when I talk into the fan I sound like a robot? And seriously, what type of animal is Snuffaluffagus?

I also wanted to know how Santa could possibly travel the entire world in one night. It would mean he traveled at 3,000 times the speed of sound. At that rate, the poor bastard would burst into flames upon entering the atmosphere!

“How?”

My mother would wearily mumble something about magic. I accepted it. I also accepted the dog could hear my thoughts. She looked like she could.

Eventually, my questions of wonderment would turn into questions of skepticism. Questions of skepticism would give way to adolescence and broader questions of want and life. Of faith and God. Of love and dreams, and life and death. And I’d learn that there were no answers, and that I was frightened of anyone who claimed to have them, and that I was drawn to those who were just as confused.

There’s always a lot to think about while I eat all these chocolates and stare out the back window. I get good ideas there. I also get good ideas in the shower. Showers are magical and so is Bath Fitter.

But the back window is still my best thinking spot. The squirrels are fat this time of year. Cute fat. Looks like the neighbors finally put away their grill. The ground is a wan grayish and ambered color, and soon it will be covered with snow.

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Posted in Things I Like

Christmas Countdown #4!

Posted on December 18, 2011 | 8 Comments

THIS.

This is a Bumble. And this is my favorite thing this Christmas season. Until I proclaim the next thing my favorite thing. Fickle heart.

I called finding him the Christmas Miracle, but then again I call everything the Christmas Miracle, including finding my car keys and saving fifty cents on my choice of select Kellogg’s cereals. Coupons are miraculous.

But in fact, finding Bumble actually falls under the distinct category of Christmas Missions. All the best Christmases have a Christmas Mission Accomplished—for example when you finally find that hot toy, finally perfect that pie recipe, or finally get your first kill in a Wal-Mart on Black Friday.

Finding this Bumble was my 2011 Christmas Mission Accomplished, the result of going to three Targets. The wife was assigned to the Targets near her office. I staked out the ones near the house. Which did I mention? Are totally picked over and horrific war zones at this point.

We’re exactly one week before Christmas, which is a frightening sentence to those of us who did not do all of our shopping online, thank you very much you smug bastards. I’m sure it’s so easy to just have all the boxes delivered right to the front door, but you know what? I like pain. I like being at the mall where everyone appears to have the worst chest cold ever. My God people, should you really be out in public like this? Or just generally be out in public? And I LOVE waiting for the person who is standing right in front of the thing I want to look at. I LOVE IT. I really do. Now please fucking move. Please.

Christmas shopping PTSD is very real. Don’t be afraid to talk about it.

Special shout out to all my comrades out there working retail at Christmas. I’m a retail vet myself. I did several tours back in the day. War is hell.

Bumble is made by Funko in their line of Pop toys, a series of figures made of vinyl that are 3.75 inches tall. I normally don’t give a crap about stylized vinyl figures, but when I found out Rudolph-themed ones existed, it became a whole different story. There are also Year Without Santa Claus versions featuring Snow Miser and Heat Miser. They’re five bucks a pop, a total deal.

I would love to have seen a Hermey figure, and especially a Yukon Cornelius. That guy rules. Or a misfit toy. Here’s a piece of trivia I learned from Wikipedia: the Dolly for Sue on the Island of Misfit Toys doesn’t appear to have anything wrong with her. That’s because her problem is depression! Apparently Sue rejected and didn’t love her.

But of my available choices, I knew it had to be Bumble. I dig Bumble. He used to scare the hell out of me as a kid. I mean, he almost kills and eats the entire reindeer family and Hermey, too. It’s dark stuff. Rudolph is some crazy shit. Children’s specials today aren’t nearly as unsettling.

However, in the end, everyone knows that Bumble is just a misunderstood softie. Just look at him:

ADORABLE. This guy is made really nice. I love the minimal detail about him, and yet every detail is precisely the perfect detail. He’s got a lot of personality. It’s a solid, cool toy, and it’s bad ass enough to stay out all year. Of course, Christmas is when he really shines.

Don’t worry about what’s going on in that picture. Bumble is not about to devastate the Playmobil Nativity. He’s only saying hi.

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Posted in Things I Like