Yankee Land

Way down upon the Wabash
Such a land was never known.
If Adam had passed over it
The land he’d surely own.
He’d swear it was the Garden
He play’d in as a boy,
And straightway called it “Eden”
In the State of Illinois.

Well, that’s where we’re headed now. Eventually. Off on our “late spring break” of a road trip. Yankee Land. Minnesota is our first destination, then on to Chicago for a family wedding. All around, we’ve been promised fair weather…no snow, in other words.

I’m not certain I believe those promisers, even if they’re family. You know as well as I do that the states “north of the Line” are the next best thing to Arctic regions.

Bless ‘em, they’re channeling travel ads, just like the verses that begin and end this post. This traditional folksong was damned popular in the early 1800s. Property speculators used it to attract settlers and sell land in the “fertile land of El-A-Noy.” Don’t you dare believe it – I have been in Chicago in the middle of winter and the wind that comes off Lake Michigan freezes the cones off the pine trees. Starting around October.

Today we’re driving north. Unlike those early 19th Century settlers, we’re using our Prius. The mpg’s not as good as oxen but we’ll get there faster. I’ll keep up the blog while on the road. Later, y’all.

She’s bounded by the Wabash,
The Ohio and the Lakes,
She’s crawfish in the swampy lands,
The milk-sick and the shakes.
But these are slight diversions
And take not from the joy
Of living in this garden land,
The State of Illinois.

Scroll Reveals!

In a copyrighted article last week, reporter Jim Warren announced that an engineering professor at the University of Kentucky would use X-Ray CT scanning to read interior images of a scroll that had been carbonized by the eruption of Italy’s Mount Vesuvius almost 2,000 years ago.

The Italian volcano blew up in 79 AD and buried the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum under tons of super-heated ash and rock in one of the most notorious eruptions in history. Thousands of people and animals died. Unbelievably, hundreds of papyrus scrolls survived, tightly rolled up but turned into charcoal, in a Herculaneum mansion. These scrolls were so badly damaged that they crumbled when scholars first tried to open them centuries later.

Now, thanks to hundreds of man-hours and thousands of dollars in computer time, the Kentucky professor and his team have digitally unrolled one precious scroll (see top right) on a computer screen so scholars can read it. The first ancient words revealed are:

After months and months of auditions, Britannia phenom Flavia Publia Nimachis is once again competing on the big Forum stage of Rome’s Got Talent.

Yes, she's got a new makeover courtesy of our own Celerinius Fortunatus here in Herculaneum. Yes, she made it through to the finals.

Hundreds of fans have painted themselves blue in adulation of the Pictish Publia, and will descend on Rome-Sweet-Rome in the Ides of Maius to see her perform in the finals. We hope she will show the spark that made her a word-of-mouth superstar throughout Mare Nostrum.

It’s a triumph of scientific archeology, all right.

“Herculaneum Scroll, Extra-Crispy” photo: David Stephenson.

“Vertically Famous”

In marketing (as in life), there’s hardly any problem that can’t be overcome with great big budgets. In the absence of money, though, focus is everything.

At this year’s Online Marketing Summit in Houston, Robin Tooms (Principal and Web Strategist at Savage Design) spoke to a capacity crowd about thought leadership marketing using online mechanisms. It was a good reminder, since I’d helped Trevor Eade accomplish this for EMS Group, as you can read about here.

Thought Leadership is a smart tactic, with a considerable force-multiplier effect – especially valuable for companies which are just starting to expand their branding and marketing efforts.

Tooms presented a number of ways to make Thought Leadership work; her most tightly framed pass-along was, “Be vertically famous.” Pick a particular subject, a single arena of expertise…and work to become the (world’s) (nation’s) leading specialist in the subject.

Online marketer Larry Chase made vertical fame No 3 on his list of “13 Essentials for Thought Leadership Marketing.” He wrote about it forcefully and colloquially:

Let’s face it, you’re not going to be Britney Spears (not that you’d want to be). What you want to do is figure out to which audience you wish to be famous. At a Search Engine Strategies conference recently, I heard someone introduced as “a rock star of SEO.” You want to be king of a mole hill and be known by all in that very particular industry. This is what I call “concentrated fame.”

That SEO rock star is going to be just another Joe to someone in the tool-and-die casting business. But that’s OK. It’s much better for you and your firm to a mile deep rather than a mile wide.

Too many marketing programs are wasted because of that mile-wide effect: A little bit here, a little bit there and before you know it, the vital substance of your brand is spread way too thin and it evaporates. By concentrating your efforts on a single tactic, you can focus all media toward making that tactic work, and deepen (or heighten) the impact of your brand.

Making your brand the thought leader in a specific industry category is still a viable goal. Even if you don’t achieve it, you can climb a considerable distance toward it. Thanks to Tooms for reprising its value at OMS Houston.

Photo: “Devils Tower National Monument, Wyoming, USA” by Carol Polich. All rights reserved.

Socially Byzantine

Speaking of the Associated Press, another AP story reported that ...Alicia Istanbul recently had her Facebook account temporarily canceled because of her unusual surname.

To avoid any concern whatsoever about “fake names,” the Marietta, GA, jewelry designer is re-registering on Facebook with a new name: Alicia Constantinople.

AP Photo: John Bazemore

Louder! Louder!

You don’t have to believe me – believe the Associated Press: When it comes to “aloha shirts,” louder is better. There’s a full (if brief) list of dos and don’ts in a recent story by Nicholas K Geranios. He does a great job of laying out the greats and the near-greats of the burden we really big guys have to carry, fashion-wise.

The article also mentioned Greg Chambers who founded the Mad Gringo company and from whom I buy an occasional shirt. (Some of his are a little too laid back.) On the other hand, Chambers tells a GREAT story including at least one line in Geranios’s article:

And if you stretch beyond three [shirts], people start in on the “It’s so sad to see someone give up like that. His poor wife!” That would be me, I guess – and Barbara.

We were at dinner Saturday evening, at Chatter’s, when another couple was seated next to us. He was wearing a slightly less loud shirt than mine, which was a 90s’ Hilo Hattie with bathing beauties all over it. We complimented each other on our exquisite taste but I could tell I won the prize: I’d out-louded him.

I can’t show you the shirt – I don’t have a photo handy – but I sure do have this picture of the one, the only Hilo Hattie. (There’s an excellent story about her career here, by Dee Buckingham.) Part of it goes:

…in 1971, while she was at the the Merry Monarch Festival, Evelyn and Richard Margolis of Kaluna Hawaii Sportswear approached her for permission to design a line of ‘Hilo Hattie’ clothing. Kaluna, already a million dollar business, purchased a manufacturing plant in Hilo, bought the rights to Hilo Hattie’s name, and, as they say, “The rest is history.”

The firm and its retail outlets are still in business.

That AP list? Do:
■ Do: Buy at least one size too large.
■ Believe that louder is better.
■ Compliment another guy on his rockin’ shirt.
■ Wear them with a solid blazer for formal occasions.

Don’t:
■ Ever tuck them in, unless you are Thomas Magnum.
■ Wear them with a necktie.
■ Wear a shirt with matching pants or shorts.
■ Wear a matching shirt with your spouse.

Some sad new: The story appeared in the Fort Worth, TX Star-Telegram. Several respondents posted quite negative comments about aloha shirts. Tsk, tsk.

Some glad news: Catherine Mallette of the same newspaper is asking for “aloha shirt” submissions – the winner might get a future feature out of it. I told her about the 37 loud shirts I own, though I’m not too sure that’ll impress her. Ta…

A big loud “thank you!” to Donna Giles for sending the article along. The photograph is from Buckingham’s series in the Hawaii Reporter about “Women of World War II Hawaii.”

Which Carver?

For quite some time, I’d noted this full-page ad in Marketing News. It’s for a research firm, Data Development Worldwide, “one of the largest market research companies in the country dedicated solely to worldwide custom market research.”

Every time I’ve seen it, I have to tip my hat to the company because it’s advertising, you know. That is, on its own, a great thing for a research firm. On top of that, I have noticed the ad. There’s that headline, “It’s not the wood. It’s the carver.”

A fine idea. At first glance, you have to logically agree with the ad saying that raw data isn’t enough, that something else is necessary: “shaping it into insightful analysis and actionable results.”

Seeing it more than once, however, finally led me to think too much about it (a big danger for the unoccupied mind, let me say).

DDW is also saying that raw data can be carved into almost any pattern. Woodcarvers do it all the time, sometimes even with the same piece of wood. I can shape a good piece of walnut into a pair of pistol stocks; but another (better) woodworker can carve that same slab into an intricate ball-within-ball puzzle; and a clever Boy Scout could whittle it into a whistle or a neckerchief slide.

Figuratively, DDW has “shaped” that uncured chunk of tree into the lovely wooden roundel or tabletop shown in the ad above. That’s not to say, though, that another market research firm couldn’t turn Mr Deadwood into a chest of drawers.

As I said, I admire DDW for advertising at all.

It’s possible that effective advertising probably ought not to be considered too closely – that’s what some clients do, you know…analyze a creative thought to death. A long-ago colleague of mine, John McHugh, used to say that his Irish mother “cooked vegetables ‘til all the evil came out.”

Pick this firm or another to interpret your raw research information. But I gotta wonder if the DDW ad was created just to match the company Managing Director’s name: “Chip” Lister.

Best for Sunday…

More RES

Adding to the various Wood Group Renewable Energy Services attractions, two new ads are currently appearing in magazines worldwide, like Renewable Energy Focus and North American Windpower.

Prism Design and I did concepts, copy and production; specific credit goes to Stacy Allen for excellent work. Each of the two ads addresses a different set of Wood Group features, advantages and benefits for the windpower industry – that “All together now” headline is particularly fun.

The strong Wood Group Gas Turbine Services brand we created two years ago is still clearly transmitted by KEEP ON TURNING.

Having way better photos to work with, as I noted below, made a lot of difference: The wind biz uses too many stock shots because fresh photography is so hard to come by. Again, thanks to client Chris Whitley and the RES team for the excellent photography, the opportunity and the support.

RES Energizing

Last year, when Texas wind farms generated 6,700 megawatts, the American Wind Energy Association’s WINDPOWER 2008 was in Houston. Hurricane Ike’s effects didn’t count.

This year Texas is topping out at 7,907 megawatts from more than 40 different projects. And WINDPOWER 2009 was held in Chicago, in McCormick Place – a big venue for a now even bigger event. Naturally, Wood Group Renewable Energy Services went to Chicago too. (BTW, no other state comes anywhere close to Texas. Y’all. And WINDPOWER 2010 comes back to Dallas.) Client Chris Whitley and his team lined up a significant package of wind power-related services and programs, major advances over 2008. These formed the foundation of new materials that we – Signalwrite Marketing and Prism Design – created for the business unit: Print advertising, cut sheets, new booth graphics. Thanks very much indeed.

I’ll show you the ads in a day to two but I wanted to get these fresh photos in front of you pretty quick. Last year (here), RES used a different exhibition property. This year, the RES team pulled out all the stops, adapting the more imposing Wood Group Gas Turbine Services booth with new copy and new photographs.

More than anything else (graphically), having fresh corporate photography to work with makes a huge difference in the presentation: Look at the wind-related images from Wood Group’s wind power projects around the world. The client supplied the new images.

Whitley says: In all honesty this was my first time leading such a project for such a large show (over 22,000 in attendance – the largest wind power show in North America) and I couldn’t have been happier with the results. We chose to use a graphic that depicted the installation of an offshore wind turbine as a backdrop to where the booth personnel would greet passers-by. You could literally see people stop in their tracks, turn to us and ask to be told more. I loved watching the effect that a single picture had on so many people – it was amazing.

The RES team also put in the extra time and effort needed to work the floor of McCormick Place last week – no wonder they needed more energy.

This year, the US can now claim the world’s largest wind energy capacity (25,170 MW), taking the lead from Germany, with 23,903 MW at the end of 2008. The nation’s fast growth has smashed all the previous records: Installed wind capacity in America grew by 50%. So have the opportunities for RES. I appreciate Chris Whitley letting us continue our involvement in wind energy…thanks to Wood Group here and abroad for the work.

Happy Anniversary

Wedded 1977 and still going:
Barbara Nytes-Baron +
Richard Laurence Baron.
Thanks for all the laughs so far.
Much love...

Swine Flew

Despite the government’s attempts to rename the Swine Flu strain (a pretty decent approach to calming unneeded panic), there’s a good brand story out there on America’s store shelves that has absolutely nothing to do with this strain of influenza. Except an awful pun.

Last year Frito-Lay introduced a new line, Flat Earth™ snack foods, purposely targeted at women. The up-to-the-minute brand transmits its message this way: These “Impossibly Good™” crisps make it possible to have great taste and nutrition.

The packaging and the advertising, coming out of the brand position, features a winged porker. In case it has to be spelled out for you, the play-phrase is “When pigs fly.”

It’s one of those phrases I’ve always enjoyed, even if its applicability to veggie crisp snacks isn’t immediately obvious…flying pigs, flat earth, etc. On this Frito-Lay line, there’s a reversed-out silhouette of the flying pig on every package. The print advertising I’ve seen, in Better Homes and Gardens, features a cute little Yorkshire with white wings.

The product’s gotten generally positive reviews. Though commentators suspect that giant food producer Frito-Lay may not be putting all its cards on the table health-wise, you can read several reviews for yourself, here and here.

Flat Earth is also one of the sponsors of “Only in a Woman’s World” – another involving example of how to niche-market via the worldwide web. In fact, Frito-Lay has constructed a good 360° brand effort in these veggie crisps. It’s marketing to a group of consumers that’s sensitive about health and better eating habits.

Typically, this tranche doesn’t include Paris Hilton. Asked about the virus by its common name, she’s already commented, “I don’t eat that.” She’ll probably achieve understanding when pigs fly; I trust you’ll get the title pun sooner.

China Boys

When Sandy Levin, the founder and CEO of Import Traders, made his first trip to China in the very early ‘70s, he didn’t know the name of the hotel he’d be staying it – the Chinese wouldn’t tell him ‘til he got there.

“It was a totally different society…everyone carried Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book in their pocket and it was full of sayings, mostly anti-entrepreneurial, anti-American and anti-the-rest-of-the-world.”

One satisfaction of crafting fresh, contemporary copy for the revamped Import Traders website has been talking to Levin, who was also one of just 40 Americans invited to the ’74 Canton Fair. Another has been working with Barrett-Wehlmann, Import Traders’ Houston-based marcomms agency, as it developed the new company site.

Even today, it’s no simple matter for many American manufacturers who don’t have offices in China to have products sourced and manufactured there – then shipped over to the US for distribution and sale. So Import Traders has been building and maintaining relationships with factories in China for decades.

Having done business in developing areas of Eastern Europe, I knew going in that reliability is a key issue. Import Traders has solved that two ways. One, the company really does know the Chinese very well. And two, Import Traders guarantees the manufactures to its US customers’ satisfaction…pretty bold for a “simple middleman.”

Import Traders is more than a middleman. That made the difference clear enough for anyone (even me). Here’s a company that has solved a big problem in overseas manufacturing: The question of trust.

Since part of this assignment was to talk with satisfied Import Traders customers here in the US, I also had the chance to discuss specific challenges with manufacturing engineers, marketers and inventors...I had a chance to learn even more. Chinese manufacturing is not just for tchotchkes any more…hasn’t been for years. (That’s “trinkets,” in case your Yiddish isn’t working today.)

There’s still a save-you-money angle. But the real issue is trustworthiness. I think that’s what the website and the content convey, whether prospects are trying to source and produce picture frames or printed circuit boards.

So thanks to the “China Boys” at Barrett-Wehlmann for letting me work on this site, now a very effective combination of business-like and attractive. That’d be Carl Glatzel on art direction and Darrell Wehlmann on web build and search engine optimization. The Creative Director is James Grantham; the Management Super is Bill Barrett.

And thanks to Levin for the great conversation, too.

Rebranding PSI…

I don’t often get to use a 450-year-old map as part of a rebranding campaign. Now, in one headline, Petrophysical Solutions, Inc has launched a fresh brand platform. One headline and that antique map, which displays the Gulf of Mexico, now appear together in the Houston company’s first new ad.

Petrophysical Solutions, Inc (PSI) delivers single-well analysis, integrated field studies, seismic petrophysics, interpretations of large petrophysical databases and old log sets and other geophysical consulting capabilities.

The map comes from the cartographic collection of PSI’s President, Bill Price. It was created by Sebastian Münster in 1540. Titled “Tabula Novarum Insularum,” it holds the real key to the company’s rebranding. You see, Münster’s map was the first to name the Pacific Ocean (Mare Pacifum). First to show one of the earliest depictions of Japan (Zipangri). That ship? It’s Magellan’s Victoria, the only vessel of five to survive his round-the-world voyage. But Münster relied on accounts of the New World by Giovanni da Verrazzano to create that part of the map. That’s where the “Great Mistake” began. According to Price:

Verrazano sailed by the Outer Banks of Carolina. When he observed the sounds on the other side of the barrier islands, he mistook them for the sought-after Northwest Passage. Such was the desire of Europe to find an alternative route to Asia, they would grasp at anything that seemed to lead in that direction. Had Verrazano taken the time to investigate, he would have discovered his mistake.

It’s what can happen in the oil industry today: Too many companies buy into a “sail-by” or quickie interpretation. They’re misled by the fast (or pretty) look, then waste their valuable money on completing zones that shouldn’t be tested or worse.

The new PSI brand campaign takes “Petrophysics that Pays Off” vividly to market. The company devotes more time – and expertise – coming up with a consistent, comprehensive interpretation that represents all the information gathered.

We’ve just begun to roll out the message that better, more informed discoveries drive value. Thanks to the clients, as well as to Kay Krenek for design and art direction. There’ll be more to come…

“Petrophysics that Pays Off” and “Discoveries Drive Value” are trademarks of Petrophysical Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.

Extra Fielder

In a 2007 Artist’s Statement, Garland Fielder said:

In my current work I continue to explore the relationship between anticipation and fulfillment. I have created installations that examine two-dimensional expectations and three-dimensional presentations. The viewer is challenged in surmising the orientation of the artwork, and thereby draws into question his/her own assumptions about reality at large. It is the act of interpretation that interests me and gives me hope.

Adding additional photos to the blog helps demonstrate the challenge Fielder highlights. (Maybe that’s one reason why he enjoyed doing the piece for our modest collection.) In these pix, you can see something of the stairwell’s curved walls…the cube is approximately 10 feet above the stair.

A bit of a challenge for us here as well: We can’t turn our old digital camera’s flash off, so the bright light washes out the fascinating/entertaining shadow lines formed by the cube frames.

New Fielder

We’ve just finished watching artist Garland Fielder install this commissioned piece here at the house – outstanding!

“Untitled 2009” is a 17-inch poplar cube, six colors of automotive lacquer clear-coated. Barbara Nytes-Baron selected the colors and the location: In the space above the stairwell between our first and second floors. See other examples of Fielder work here. Many thanks to the artist and to Anya Tish of the Anya Tish Gallery. More photos soon.

Flying Tourbillon..?

I’ve been watching what other people read – a function of LinkedIn. I had become a little self-conscious about my colleagues’ choices, imposing business and branding books by all the current big names. Whilst I have been sucking down military history and science fiction.

I had the chance to upgrade my reading material with the arrival of the latest special issue of Golf Digest/Index. Don’t know why I received this magazine; though I love the concept, I don’t actually play golf. I also recognize the game’s role in conspicuous consumption.

So it was with no particular surprise when I reviewed the magazine’s back cover ad. This, my friends, is a Cartier Ballon de Bleu Flying Tourbillon Men’s Watch…I don’t even know what half this stuff means, but it’s a damned impressive ad. That copy on the lower right? Here’re a few lines:

Rose gold case on alligator strap. Mechanical movement with manual winding. Cartier caliber 4952 M/C (10 and ¾ lines, 19 jewels, 21,000 vibrations per hours. Seconds indicated by the C-shaped tourbillon cage (aha!). Movement developed and assembled by the Cartier Manufacture…

Pretty fancy copy and not much of it – all feature, feature, feature. The benefit is it’s a Cartier watch.

This Flying Whatever lists for…$96,500. But pick the right online retailer and you can get it for $75k, or $74k…or even $73,340.

I love the magazine. I probably won’t receive any more issues, but my hat’s right off to publisher Thomas J Bair and the other people who produce it. They’ve pegged an upscale audience, deliver some well-written features and do not shrink from the tough job of promoting stylish excess.

BTW, shop www.marketreplica.com and you can get a fine simulacrum of the same watch for $100 – that’s all I can afford after Tax Day, anyway.

Birthday Jeep

The year I was born, Willy began advertising its military Jeep* to Americans on the home front. Like a lot of other US companies, the car-maker (and major supplier to the armed forces) wanted to begin creating a brand that went beyond war fronts all over the world…to the one society left on the planet whose future, at that instant, looked brightest.

That’s the future I was born into. And the “classic” Jeep is the first motor vehicle I can remember my daddy, Paul Baron, owning. Sometime after he returned to Atlanta from overseas service with the US Army Air Corps, he acquired a war-surplus CJ-2A Jeep. (Not a new one – that’s to laugh.)

I barely recall it – I spent that period of my life tucked in a wooden box nestled between the Jeep’s two front seats when my daddy and momma drove it to the Piedmont Drive-In Theater on Friday nights.

It wasn’t our last Jeep either. The family owned a couple of Willys Jeep Station Wagons until daddy settled on Chevy as the family brand. When I turned 16, the first car daddy bought me was a well-used 1949 Willys Jeepster, bright yellow…the canvas top hardly leaked at all. He spent more than he intended, but it was (I hope) worth it. I wonder if my sister Evalyn remembers that one?

One line of copy in that Jeep ad up top says, “Soon, Willys dealers will be showing the Universal Jeep. When you see it, you can envision the many, many ways it will serve mankind.”

As a birthday memory, it continues to serve. Thanks, daddy.

*A lot of companies produced “Jeeps” originally. Willys-Overland acquired the trademark for itself in 1950 – read all about it here.

Early Crappy

Is there anything better than children who actually listen to you when you say what you want for your birthday? I think not.

Molto thankos to Rachel Baron and Alison Bond for one early-arriving birthday present: My own Tuf-Fluck Crappy Cat.

As Jeremy Bratman says, “Crappy Cat is 9 inches of intoxicated feline vinyl.” I am proud to have it standing tall next to my computer monitor! And thanks to all you early-birthday well-wishers. Tomorrow’s the magic day…See ya!

Blend Mail

I’ve just been talking about INEXS (see the jerseys). Now let me crow a bit louder over the company’s precisely targeted direct mail.

Simple but strong, these 3D mailers have been arriving in oil and gas companies all over Texas as part of a four-part campaign. Each one portrays the benefits of a particular set of this Houston geophysical consulting firm’s practices. The first wave explains proven INEXS capabilities in Regional Geologic Studies, along with a specially packaged coffee we call “Haynesville Blend.”

[The Haynesville Shale is a hot oil-and-gas-producing region – INEXS does a lot of work with prospects in this area. Read more about that here...it's good for your education.]

Each mailer encompasses the coffee, selling benefits and a request to meet over a cuppa joe, under the campaign title “Fuel for Solutions.” There are other mailers (with different coffee blends) that point up Exploration Evaluation, Integrated Field Studies and A and D Assistance.

Read all about these subjects on the INEXS website. At the same time, you’ll discover how this Fuel for Solutions campaign marries up to the strong INEXS brand story.

On decision-making, campaign kudos go to the client. On creative, there’s Stacy Allen, Terry Teutsch and Susan Reeves of Prism Design. And Richard Laurence Baron (which would be me).

There’s more than brand power behind this mail series. Each coffee label features artwork by Sydney Strahan, the Houston-based painter whose subject is “art from the heart of the earth.” She uses geological core sample slabs for inspiration and her work is widely recognized in this part of the oilpatch.

Lucky recipients get packages that are impossible NOT to open; business-focused messages; and a bit of a reward in the form of most everyone’s favorite fuel.

Thanks to all the usual suspects for the chance to create and send this great series.

I ought to mention the java’s roasted and packaged by Independence Coffee Company just up the road in Washington County.

Bikers Branded

I revel in the knowledge that a brand I helped spring to life has received its most critical seal of approval: The client adopted it for cycling jerseys.

INEXS President Craig Davis, VP Hector Sepulveda and Marketing Executive Laura Kamrath are training for the 2009 BP MS 150 (180 miles, really, Houston to Austin). Adapting the corporate look for bikers’ wear is Terry Teutsch of Prism Design. IMO, it adds even more muscle to the brand.

Ride, INEXSians…Ride like the wind!

Watch the roads for the INEXS peloton: See Human-Powered Geoscience© in action.

Bad Eggs

Rachel Baron visited Houston this week and brought goodies. Specifically, Barbara and I are now the proud owners of about a dozen of the latest Kidrobot® urban art figures. (The girl really knows how to treat the ‘rents.)

Kidrobot is the self-proclaimed “Earth’s premier creator and retailer of limited-edition toys, clothing, artwork and books.” I was a little miffed since I misplaced my Aztec dunny figure. I stashed it away when I put up the ED-209 and now I can’t find the dunny. On top of that, I can’t find my Smorkin’ Labbit. Damn.

I feel much better now. It’s true that Rachel has spoiled us with so many of the various lines…Mongers, Heroes of Burgertown, BFFs and Debilz. It’s hard to pick favorites but – of the current batch – I gotta love the “Bad Eggs” Ace and Joey, from the MongersTM Menthols series.

Listen, I gotta run. It’s Saturday, I’d still like to get a bike ride in. I have to say, though, that now I’ve been poking around on the Kidrobot site again and I’m seriously jonesing for Jamungo’s Tuf-Fluck Crappy Cat.

Oooh! I have a birthday coming up…did I mention that?

PS: It’s possible you haven’t got a clue about Kidrobot stuff. You are seriously behind the pop-culture curve if that’s the case. Happy April…