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WANT: KidRobot releases Adult Swim Minis in April.

[Assy McGee, Lil' Squidbillie, Robot Chicken, and Grandma Squidbillie]

This is it. Convergence. The love of the toy merged with the love of late night absurdity… KidRobot plans to release a 20 toy blind box series this April featuring an allstar Adult Swim cast. The figures appear to be about 3 inches tall, and will retail at select retail stores for $7.95 Here’s the lineup:

• Assy - Assy McGee
• Avenger - Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law
• Bird Girl  - Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law
• Carl - Aqua Teen Hunger Force
• Dr. Girlfriend - Venture Bros.
• Early - Squidbillies
• Grandma - Squidbillies
• Ignignokt and Err - Aqua Teen Hunger Force
• Kill Face - Frisky Dingo
• Lil’ - Squidbillies
• Mad Scientist - Robot Chicken
• The Monarch - Venture Bros.
• Murderface - Metalocalypse
• Orel - Morel Orel
• Robot Chicken - Robot Chicken
• Toki - Metalocalypse
• and two other mystery figures

Definitely I shall definitely be getting up on this series like a fat kid on a Snicker Bar. I’m not a fan of all the shows to be featured, but I plan on getting the ATHF, Robot Chicken, and Squidbillies. I really really hope the two mysteries are Master Shake and Meatwad from teh Aquateen Series…

• Via Vinyl Pulse because KidRobot is keeping quiet. Apparently, during SDCC 2007, Kidrobot sent out a press release that they had secured the license to drop the minis this February. That never happened. No one really know why but if Vinyl Pulse is on the money (they nearly always are) then we will see these in early to mid April. Hopefully I’ll hear more soon and I’ll see what I can do about poking Hero Design to carry a box or three.

The Le French Connection

One of the greatest things about the Le French Dunny Series is how there are visible connections and proof of collaboration between some of the artists. Instead in some series’ where each character is completely different, I’m gonna point out a few details on some of the French figures that bring them together.. as well as explain why the Easy Hey is so goddamn ugly unique.

First off, the French Color Trio.

Look at the 123KLAN, Oktus (I’ve yet to score this figure), and Superduex  together, notice anything? The three colors (blue white red) aren’t just the French national colors, they are a prevalent design aesthetic for Superduex, who also did the packaging design for the series. Superduex, 123KLAN and Oktus all have collabo’d together via french Design groups like UNCHI. Looking at the art styles of 123KLAN, I’d assume that they followed Superduex’s concept to create a matching figure. And Oktus was more of a color adherence. either way, the three look appropriate placed next to each other.

Now, onto the the Peen and the Sourpatch.

We found the cock and balls “discreetly” painted on the underside of the SecretLab figure during the Hero Party. It wasn’t till the end of the night that I discovered that the Koralie I just traded for had a raspberry under her. I refuse to believe that this is a coincidence.

Ok, now why Easy Hey is so.. Unique.

For being 1/400, this is a real stinker of a figure. I guess thats makes sense, seeing it was based off of Easy Hey’s Kid Onion “pet” character….

On another note, Oktus and Easy Hey are both part of the same French Design Group called Delkographik

The French Dunnys are selling fast and strong, stop by Hero Design in Buffalo and pick up a few, or visit the KidRobot page to learn more.

8-Inch Ninja Dunny Protects Fine Child Labor

It seems that the theme for gifting Buffawhat this Holiday season has been vinyl. I’m not complaining.. less I have to buy for myself!

Kevin, my buddy from Singapore (he’s from Buffalo,but he sold his soul to a bank for two years and they promptly shipped him overseas) gave me the 8-inch Ninja Dunny by MAD. He’s kinda baddass, not so much for the paintjob — pretty basic in that aspect — but the ninja sword and star are really beefy and make the ninja Dunny a great collect.  There are two more colorways: a black chase and a exclusive red Ninja, but the standard white with blood looks better than the chases.

The dunny is standing behind something else that Kevin gave me: a gold and enamel embellished coffee cup with saucer and lid. The crazy thing is that its made in Thailand by little kids, because their hands are so small they can hold the tiny brushes to paint the fine details. Once they reach a certain age, they can’t hold the brushes steady any more and have to find another career. All this for rice and a few coins. Child labor has never been so pretty. I’ll try to post a better pic of it on flickr once I get out of my office.

i Haz An Addiction, Let Me showz You It.

I finally ran out of room on my desk to display the vinyl. One could say that that would be a great time to stop buying, but no. That just means you have to bring them out to the main office, knock off the corporate leaflets, and spread em all out on our faux mantle. WNYMedia has never looked so trendy.

It all started Friday when Kirk from work was grinding into me (not that kinda grinding… I wish) about how he found out that I already owned the secret santa gift that he had bought for me. he tosses the bag at me and inside is a Christmas Labbit. I explain to him I can never have enough Labbits, and later that day I spend 30 minutes talking with my department trying to defend why I collect vinyl to begin with… I guess a actual crack addiction would make more sense to them.

Anyhoo, I’m twittering all this madness to Beth at Hero, and she tells me they have something for me at the store…. I show up and she hands me a box all wrapped in brown paper and ribbon. I doubletake when I notice the name on the card says “Nae Nae.” Wait a minute, no one knows that name ‘cept my mother. Whaddaya know, said “Mom” on the card too.

First off, my mom is a lunatic, completely out of her mind at times, and I love her for it. The free and open disclosure of my baby name to anyone I could do without, but it’s too late for that. As I Open the box, Mark explains how she called Hero and explained how she was “Buffawhat’s mom,” and that she wanted the Cactus Pups set for her son and if they could arrange it. They agreed and inside was the whole set from Tokidoki and StrangeCo, albeit blind boxed. Fortuned smiled and I opened a complete set;  they are so cute, and so tiny.

Well, those 7 filled up my punch card, so I scored a free blind box, and picked up another Pets and Owners Monsterisms.  These guys are heavy and a bit awkward, but they really are fun to look at.

Just as I figured I could get out of hero without dropping a dime, Mark plays his trump card. He walks over to the Heatherette toys, and starts talking about how they ordered them on a request and wasn’t sure if they’d sell. He points to the cowboy with the gold hat and unicorn stick horse.

• “Hey look, its like a little Buffawhat action figure, these are right up your alley!”

I try to give him my most indignant look and flailed to defend whatever shreds of heterosexuality I pretend to possess, and I couldn’t. The Heatherette’s are little club kid figures, modeled after designers Traver Rains, Richie Rich, the fabulous trannystar Amanda Lepore, and others.  I started opening boxes till I filled my next card, and grabbed another Monsterism. The extras I sent to Angel, who kee’d over Lepore.

• TokiDoki  - Cactus Pups
• Monsterisms - Pets and Owners
• Heatherette - The Empire

Kidrobot: Dunny “I’m French” Series drops in February

Since the Kidrobot forums are now cracking down on unofficial announcements, the leaked images of the new Dunny “I’m French” series are slowly creeping out to the blogosphere.  These images were supposedly uploaded to the wrong server by Kidrobot, and meant only as a sample for wholesalers.

There really isn’t too much known about this, except that The toys should be released in February, around Valentine’s Day, and in the 3-inch variety. Oh, yea: all the designers are French.

He’s cute ^

Beth, from that super little toy and poster shop on Allen was explaining to me how these things go from artist renderings like this off to custom mold makers and back and forth till they arrive at Hero waiting for my greedy consumption. I think I’m gonna research that a bit more and do a “How Dunny’s Are Made” post. For, now, I quiver in deep anticipation for what looks like a killer follow up to a great Series 4.

The Gingerbread Dunny Fiasco: Part Deux

Sorry for the delay, a slight glitch in office the office tubes, and a trip to the YMCA prevented a same day update to part 1.

Of Grumpy Bears, Mummras, and Giant Black Hoovers

Mummra promised Saturday that we’d make the dough Sunday when I came over with the Grumpybear. We figured out the recipe and let the dough chill all day. I made the cutout for a six-inch Gingerdunny this time; even with perfect dough, they will spread, and I wanted to keep as much detail as I could.

Rolling and cutting was SO much easier this time…. keeping the poor cookies alive: not so easy. See, Marc — Mummra’s “it’s complicated” man-slave companion — likes to bring his two black labs over to hang out, too. We call them the Hoovers. They see food, its gone. Nailed down, no matter. The only way to keep them away is to literally put a wall or door between the Hoovers and the food. I’m sad to say about half of the batch was lost to the never ending gullets of these beasts. After everything was done, I had 10 Gingerman Dunny’s safe and sound.

Success and the icing on the cake… er, Dunny

I met up with Angel on Monday and we started decorating. I was so excited, they came out so much better than I thought, and I think I have the first documented batch of Real Gingerman Dunny’s to reveal:

Take that AllthingsJen! Angel of course had to turn his into a GingerTranny, her name is Dunnicia, and her boyfriend is the best of the bunch

We even made the rare “bitten” chase:

What I’ve learned

• Never trust designer fluff as fact. I should know this. Just because you see a cute little recipe for Gingerbread cookies that came with a toy doesn’t mean you should follow it.
• I really miss baking cookies.
• Dogs are fucking annoyances when baking in the kitchen. Thats why cats are the rulzer.

Oh yea, one more thing. Here’s a little homage we made to a great little video that NO ONE should ever watch. We call it: 2 fags, 1 cup…..

The Gingerbread Dunny Fiasco: Part 1

I don’t get how Jennifer does it with her house parties and cookie days. I’m a big ole homo and I can say one thing: domestic shit is hard. It didn’t used to be that way, a long time ago in the safety of a country kitchen I could whip up a storm of confectionery delights, pies, cookies, cakes, whatever. Christmas was the season of diabeetus. Nowadays, I can hardly stand to eat a cookie, and I haven’t baked anything since before 2006. This year I was determined to end it… and this is part one of what started as a simple homage to jennifer with a nice little domestic cookie post, and spiraled into so much more.

The plan

• I picked up the Gingerman Dunny from Hero not too long ago and inside was this little teensy recipe for gingerbread cookies. I thought “thats kinda cool, I should make these cookies for real and shape them like dunny’s.”
• Concept at hand I grabbed Angel by the ear and we skipped gayly to Tops, then to the Dollar store, then to Target, then back to Tops to get supplies. See, I haven’t cooked or baked in so long I don’t have any of those grande essentials like a mixer, a cookie tray, or even a rolling pin. I also found out that spices are expensive as hell, especially ginger.
• Oops! Forgot last Friday that Block Party had a little shin-dig going and we were invited. Angel and I stashed the bags in his store and we made our way next door to mingle for a few. At that time, I realized that one of my intended recipients for the cookies has a gluten allergy. No worries, we headed to the Lexington and picked up gluten free rice flour. I was determined to make what sounded like a good thing: gluten free gingerbread cookies.

The First Try

[Heineken, baking soda, whole wheat flour, cinnamon, baking powder, candy dots, Brobee, icing tips, organic molasses, red, white, and blue icing, ridiculously small recipe, rice flour, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, shortening, Labbit, Buffawhat]

• All seemed well. I commenced to making the dough, and despite my initial forrowing at the recipe, I was going to play by its rules, save for the rice flour. Angel was around to yell at me for being messy, and to document the occasion. I was gonna have an AllThingsJennifer Post goddamit.
• Cue the photos…

• After letting the dough chill for a few hours… we return and immediately notice a problem: its not very doughy. Oh well I say, thats ’cause of the rice flour. I make the best of it and toss a batch of misshapen dunnies in the oven.
• Failure seems imminent as they melt into puddles of something, something unholy and dark.

• bollocks. An immediate racking of the brain to solve failure pops with the realization that I missed one key ingredient in this new world of gluten-free baking: Xantham Gum. Not your conventional spice — actually, not a spice at all, derived from fermentation of glucose — xantham gum is what you use to substitute for gluten, which helps to hold everything together.
• Oh well, I guess we won’t have gluten-free ginger Dunny’s then. It was a good try but I wanted them made; I decided to make them glutenous and the way God intended.

Second Fail, and first success.

Even after letting the second batch chill overnight, the same melted mess came out of the oven. A hard look at the recipe and a call to Mummra revealed that the card that came with the Dunny’s was bogus. Not enough flour and shortening instead of butter made the batter too runny.

The new recipe was 2 cups of flour, half a cup of molasses, stick of butter, with the rest of the ingredients staying the same (baking powder, baking soda, salt, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon). This was guaranteed to work…..

(come back later tonight to see the read the rest of the story and see the finished products)

• [update] part deux is here!

Want: The Christmas Gadget List.

I think I’ve been very well behaved this year. I mean, compared to 2006, i haven’t:

• Broken any ex’s ribs
• Slept with any ordained minister
• Been to an orgy

Er, The last one is debatable on NYS statutes. Anyhoo, this is my official obligatory holiday wish list.

DEK: Designer Emulation Kits

• The Designer Emulation Kits (DEK’s for short) are meant as the sincerest homage to some of the greatest modern designers of our time. The lamps and designers being “emulated” have a particular importance. They are represented in countless design tomes extolling the various movements, and they are held up as prime examples of “good design.”
  Deks are simple, and in that simplicity you have a conversation piece and a new lamp, albeit a small lamp.
• $29.95, choose from five different designs.
• Buy {Mike McKenna}

KidRobot: Stocking Stuffer Bundles

• Blind Box toys give you hope, and Kidrobot makes you cool. as I heavily stress, vinyl toys are way better things to clutter your desk with than stuffy papers… makes you look more creative than you really are. Now with the Stocking Stuffer Kits from KidRobot, you can get an assortment of toys from various designers and kick start any new collection.. Of course these also rock for the avid collector since each set has either the series 4 Dunny’s or some other Frank Kozik inspired awesomeness.
• Everyone You Know Stocking Stuffers -$69.95, includes:
  3 Bent World Vandals, 3 Scary Girl, 3 Smorkin’ Labbit Series 3, 3 Fat Caps, 3 Dr. Ledoux Critter Splitter, 3 Dekoboko Friend Zipper Pull, 3 Sket-bots
• Spiked Eggnog Stocking Stuffers -$99.95, includes:
  5 Dunny Series 4, 5 Scary Girl, 2 Brockman Light Series 2, 3 Tofu Swing Sweets, 5 Dr. Ledoux Critter Splitter, 5 Heatherette The Empire, 5 Sket-bots
• Buy {kidrobot}

Nabaztag/tag: The unpronounceable rabbit who reads the web

• Don’t try to pronounce it, just recognize that its the cutest feed-reading API powered gizmo to ever grace your desk, that is, if you are geek enough to adopt one.
• Everything on the Internet spoken, sang, played, and danced by the most adorable and obliging of Rabbits
• Blinks, moves ears, speaks, plays music
• Reads out loud written texts in 16 languages
• Obeys spoken commands through voice recognition
• Detects and reacts to objects’ presence (RFID reader)
• Feeds on the Internet. Reacts to anything happening on the web
• Gives short news with speech & color-coded lights (weather, stock market…)
• Reads out loud real time news from any web site (RSS)
• Plays Podcasts and Internet radio at user defined schedule
• Reads, sings, and dances messages and e-mails sent by friends
• Chat with other Rabbit owners through voice, music and ear movements
• Ability to create your own content and applications (API)
• Easy to program
• An ever expanding set of free content and services
• Connects to a Wi-Fi network and works even when the computer is turned off
• And much, much more…
• $189.00
• Buy {Zstore}

DIY: Neon Sign Kit

• expensivish, but whats the price to have your name in light? $92.90, if you happen to be Buffawhat.
• Up to 22 letters can be attached to one power supply
• you buy the letters and numbers at $6.99 each. Power supply kit is 29.99. Extention to stack signs is 6.95.
• A-Z, 0-9, “@”,”.”, and space pieces.
• Did I mention its blue neon?
• Buy {Think Geek}

iRobot: Roomba 570

• Ok, so I actually own an older Roomba Discovery, but the 500’s were just released with a 100% improvement to every feature. That means I need to add another member to the family. One for the office and one for home, ya digg?
• These babies really work, and the rumors are true: as soon as you get one, you will fall in love with it and treat it with love and respect, as well as getting all defensive when someone calls you out for selling your soul to a robot that will one day be your master. Just remember, denial is bliss.
• Covers 4 rooms on a single battery charge
• Wireless Command Center
• On-board Scheduling
• Self-charging Home Base™
• 2 Virtual Wall® Lighthouses
• 1 each Replacement Beater & Bristle Brush
• $399.99 (you can get a cheaper model, but why would you?)
• Buy {iRobot}

Art lebedev: Optimus Maximus Keyboard

• To think this thing was almost vaporware. The Optimus is special because we spent two years waiting and hoping and wishing, through the OLED supplier drop out, to the price drop and raise, and now you can pre-order it if you are lucky and maybe get it by March 2008
• Every key of the Optimus Maximus keyboard is a stand-alone OLED display showing the function it is currently associated with
• Optimus is equally good for any keyboard layouts—Cyrillic, Ancient Greek, Georgian, Arabic—and so on to infinity: notes, numerals, special symbols, HTML codes, math functions, images etc.
• Every button on the keyboard is easy to remove in order to clean or replace.
• Configurator software allows for programming every button to reproduce a sequence of symbols (up to 256) and editing the image separately for each layout.
• Price: $1564.37 for the full 113-key edition.
• Pre-order {Art Lebedev}

Nokia: NSeries 95 8GB Black

• Out of Everything I listed, this is the one I want the mostest. evar. This phone would be the gateaway to a lot of the blogging video projects i’ve been meaning to do. GPS, Wifi, 5MP camera with dvd like video capture at 30FPS….. i can go on and on, but this phone is the real deal…
• Up to 8GB internal flash memory for multimedia content such as music, pictures, ringing tones, map data
• Large 2.8″ QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) TFT display with ambient light detector and up to 16 million colors
• 5 megapixel auto-focus camera
• GPS and Wi-Fi
• Quad-band GSM
• Bluetooth
• microSD/TransFlash up to 2GB / hot-swappable
• 3D stereo
• HSDPA and EDGE data capable
• Version 2 of Nokia’s full web browser software
• Speakerphone
• Price: $779.00 (unlocked)
• Buy {Nokia}

I Found My Christmas Tree

I stopped into Positively Main St, on Elmwood (makes no sense, I know) and picked up this year’s christmas tree. It’s a little small, but I needed something to top last year’s snowbot purchase.

Whadaya think? the homos on Elmwood have deemed this a red Christmas (Studio 806, Stuyvesant Gallery, Just Pizza, Room… all red and white lights) so the lights are in style and they chase up and down.

Last Week’s Ponderables

• Thanksgiving is an option when your family is in another state. Addtionally, if you don’t enjoy turkey or giant dinners, sleeping all day is a wonderful alternative; especially if you barbacked the night before.
• It helps to lie about your plans to do nothing for Thanksgiving, it saves dealing with the half dozen sympathetic invites to someone else family dinner so you can feel totally out of place eating food you really don’t care for so someone can feel better for helping out a guy who just wanted to sleep in.
• Coquito will mess you up.
• Happiness is dinner parties, movies in bed, and flickr sets.
• I only have the ability to cater emotionally to 3 people at a time.
• Bear Cub is my favorite gay movie, Eve’s Bayou is ok, Fake ID is unwatchable.
• Oh yea, the Kindle launched, sold out on Amazon, natch. Over it.
• I’m in love with Brobee.