War Machine's Hanson from Figures Toy Co.

     Living close to Philadelphia certainly comes with its share of benefits.  America was born here so there's tons of historical stuff to see, we have an amazing array of museums, and any time holes are dug anywhere there's a good chance of finding dead bodies which is kinda fun.  But beyond that, we have a storied history in the world of professional wrestling, much of which revolves around the old ECW Arena.  I've seen Ring of Honor do a couple of television takings here and they are by far the best wrestling events I've ever been to.  There's a feel that you're a part of something and not just a spectator and the level of talent and storytelling is superior to anything I've ever seen.

    I had read about the tag team War Machine before seeing them but nothing could adequately prepare me for men of their size performing the acrobatics they do.  You expect guys that look like berserkers to decimate anything that gets in their way, but you could never foresee then doing backflips from the top rope.  Now imagine watching it in person from ten feet away and trying to figure out if you missed the day in science class when they explained how this could be a thing.  Everytime I've seen them it's awe inspiring and now one half of that duo is finally getting the action figure treatment.

    No matter how much planning goes into it, it can't be a good feeling to know Hanson is in the air and about to land on your rib cage like a 747.  Figures Toy Company will now let you recreate his aerial terror on all of your other wrestling dudes.   Available now from http://figurestoycompany.com, hopefully Raymond Rowe will quickly follow suit so you can dominate the plastic tag team division in the comfort of your living room.  Hope all of your other figures have health insurance.

Milkface Resin Toy from Kyle Goodrich

    I've never had my face on the side of a milk carton, but it wasn't from a lack of trying.  Allow me to regale you with a tale of the time I purposefully went missing.

     For reasons that have been lost to me as the years have progressed, I decided that I needed to make people miss me.  I was around six years old at the time and camped my tiny body under my brother's bed.  As diner time approached my mother and father began to call my name.  They looked outside, looked all over the house, but no one was able to find me.  I quietly snickered to myself as their legs moved ever more frantically past me.  Seriously, who doesn't look under the bed first?  If I have a cat that is supposed to go to the vet and they are nowhere to be seen the very first place I look is under the bed.  It's standard protocol for anything that is missing: socks, important documents, children whose idea of a joke is maybe a little off kilter.  That part is on them.  The part that is on me is that I wasn't smart enough to end my prank before my mom called the police, who showed up and and tried to teach me one of those life lessons that would stick with me forever.  Ok, I was terrified I was going to jail at the time.  I was way too pretty for incarceration.

    This looks like the milk in my house before it is finally carted off to the dumpster.  Usually there is also a color and smell involved, which I doubt Kyle Goodrich was mean enough to include in his Milkface resin figure.  He made 50 of these sour faced bros with his own hands and has included a sticker with each one for the low low price of $55.  I'm holding out for a lactose free option myself, but you can get one by visiting http://kyle-goodrich.com/milkface.store/.

Devilman Preorder from Mike Sutfin x Unbox Industries

    I'll admit that my familiarity with the Devilman character lives and dies with the background video Rob Zombie played at a show sixteen years ago during the song "Super Charger Heaven".  That chorus makes you want to drop kick someone in the face.  But I've always thought the look of him was pretty crazy, that is until I saw Mike Sutfin's rendition you see hear, which blows any other version straight out of the water.  This dude has details on top of details, which then have more details that you didn't even notice the first time.  It's pure visual insanity, making the figure look like it has life, or death, flowing through every inch.  Pretty intense for a pice of plastic.  

   The folks at Unbox Industries produced this and have now made him available for preorder.  Standing at just over a foot tall and retailing for $120, you can secure yourself one right now by visiting http://store.unboxindustries.info.  These are scheduled to ship at the end of the month, so get to it.  

Dead Greedy's Beastie Droids to Appear on "The Goldbergs"

    For reasons that remain unknown to me, I am not being called to appear on television.  I'm a pretty easy guy to find, so you would think that somewhere there's a show that's perfect for me.  Hopefully, it won't be Monsters Inside Me, but if I were to ever catch an interesting parasite I'd be more than willing to share that with the world via dramatic reenactments and computer generated graphics.  Maybe they'd even let me write the script, which would stretch their budget to unheard of levels for the amount of explosions alone.  My parasites demand pyro.

   My dude Dead Greedy has been making bootleg figures for a while now, and they caught the attention of one Adam F. Goldberg who loves them so much he's actually put them in his hit sitcom, The Goldbergs.  That's a pretty incredible stamp of approval.  The episode is set to air next week and is entitled "The Goldberg Girls", which may or may not be a play on The Golden Girls, which is absolutely the best show ever about elderly women.  I used to watch that as a kid and while most of the jokes were beyond my innocent mind, I was certain that Sophia was my spirit animal.

    Check your local listings so you can see the episode and buy some cool stuff from Dead Greedy at this link.

Skull Flower Sculpture from Tara McPherson x Toy Qube

    Finally, someone has created the perfect representation for my success with plants.  Sharon is much better at growing things than I am and thankfully for any vegetation we attempt to grow she takes the lead.  The problem is I expect things to act like they would if they had been allowed to grow on their own without human interaction.  Plants have been doing fine without us so how come a little neglect on my part results in their demise?  Have we turned plants into entitled Millennial that need our participation trophies in order to thrive in the world we've created?  Get out there and do your thing rhododendron, I can't take how emotionally draining you've become!

    How awesome would it be if you could actually grow skulls?  I'm sure those companies that make genetically modified plants have accidentally done something like that and promptly had to incinerate it.  Thankfully Tara McPherson's Skull Flower is in no way a danger to our well being, and this staple of her artwork can now be yours in 3D form.  Produced by Toy Qube, you can bring home this morbid bit of horticultural genius in both 5 and 12 inch versions.  Available now from https://www.toyqube.com, these are a much better idea to give your loved one than regular old flowers that will whither away to crispy little corpses.  This one starts off dead!

Christmas Maneki Wananeko Set from Javier Jimenez

    Sharon and I have a cat named Wednesday who has been suffering from some pretty bad allergies. She scratches her ears almost obsessively to the point where she started cutting them open.  We've taken her to our vet, got the allergy testing done, and eliminated everything from the list of possible causes.  Nothing has worked so we decided to get a second opinion.  Now we knew that the person we were taking her to is very popular in our area and we also knew that he believes in a lot of alternative methods when it comes to treatment.  The day of the appointment we're in the exam room going over her backstory when he starts telling us about muscle testing.  Now I figured this was something akin to how they allergy test people by exposing them to substances and watching what the reaction was.  Or if anything it at least involved some apparatus that would make for a great Instagram picture while the cat was wearing it.  Neither of those was even close.  

    In walks his assistant like nothing out of the ordinary is about to happen at all.  They stand on opposite sides of the cat with each placing one hand on her back.  Then the assistant raises her free arm at a 90 degree angle, and he grabs a hold of her hand and pushes down to try and lower it.  With each push he is rattling off words of possible allergens.  If the arm goes down it means she's allergic, but if he is unable to force it from sticking straight out at him then it means she is not allergic.  My face was literally sore as I tried my hardest to prevent my muscles from making the biggest WTF look anyone has ever seen.  I couldn't even make eye contact with my wife because I knew that if I did I would lose it.  It was like being a part of some feline seance as he tried to contact her ancestors for clues about her itching.  Finally, mercy was bestowed upon us and the entire act was over and we placed her back in her carrier.  At least, we thought it was over as he had forgotten about a certain type of food, so he grabbed a bag of it, placed it against the roof of her inclosure with eyes closed, and declared her allergic to that as well.  Now I'm all for the fact that there is actually very little in the world that human beings understand and that modern health care has it's limitations, but next time I'm gonna need a Powerpoint presentation or something to ease my way into it before I'm just nonchalantly smacked with anything like this again.  

    I just needed to tell someone about that so I could come to terms with it, so I thank you for your patience.  No let us continue.  Javier Jimenez is making spirits bright this Christmas season with this festive Maneki Wananeko set.  You'll get two kitties in each pack, with one guaranteed to be that fancy green glitter while the other one will be a surprise color.  Made with luxurious Japanese vinyl, these will be available tomorrow at 17pm Spanish time only from http://www.stickupmonsters.bigcartel.com.   Luckily for you, these kitties will never need to go to the vet.

      

Gotta Burn Em All Resin Figure from Italiux

    I've never ridden a horse.  I'm not opposed to doing so, but facing a lack of trains worth robbing or sleepy mining towns to stroll into, the opportunity just hasn't arisen.  Sharon and I want to take the horseback riding tour through the battlefield in Gettysburg, which I'm sure will be both beautiful and a great source of material to post about once the restless spirit of a Civil War soldier spooks my horse and lands me in the hospital.  I don't know if expecting to end up in the emergency room means we have the best dates together or my threshold for bad ideas has gotten so thin that holes have started to form.

    Now after seeing this figure from Italiux, I shall be sure that when choosing a horse for riding that he is not engulfed in flames.  I was completely unaware of the existence of arson ponies until now, so the head's up before I made a terrible mistake is well appreciated.  Now my wife is telling me that this is based on Pokemon, to which I promptly point at her and yelled "NERD" and now I am now forced to scavenge for my own dinner tonight.  Impulse control Chris; work on your impulse control.

     Standing eight inches high (that's pretty tall) and retailing for $79 each, these figures are available right now by checking out http://italiuxshop.bigcartel.com.