Here we go…  Although I don’t have a lot of experience putting my thoughts out to Webworld, there is something that I must really bring up to the normal person (non-geek) who may find themselves in the path of someone like Von (and/or me).  It has to do with a little thing called Mighty Muggs. 

A few weeks ago in one of our irrelevant conversations, Von had brought up that he had recently been picking up something at Toys-R-Us.  While there, he had noticed a new toy version of some Marvel characters.  They supposedly were cool and I should check them out.  Upon looking them up on the net I found them to be funny, peculiar looking toyish versions of my beloved heroes and villains.  They were fine, but nothing that I’d considered out of the ordinary.  Then I decided to go and check them out for my own self…  AWSOME!  First I grabbed the only two they had, Thor and Doc Ock.  The face, body, hair, broken teeth… every detail, so cool.  Then I stopped by Target near my house and didn’t find any Marvel characters, but I was excited to find they also had Star Wars and Indiana Jones characters.  I grabbed Han and Chewie, and then one of my personal favorites, not only because of the psychotic look on the toys face, but more so for the little flame painted toy heart that goes into this maniacs hand, Mola Ram!

The same day, Von was able to get a hold of Thor, Doc Ock, black costumed Spiderman, and Ghost Rider.  Now it was on.  Could I let the same guy who beat me in collecting the Burger King Simpson Movie toys take this from me too?  Never! Now that the ball was rolling, I looked online to see if it was possible to find local store inventory so I didn’t have to run all over town to satisfy my new obsession.  Everyone was “out of stock”.  That wasn’t going to work for me, so I started searching online.  I was able to secure Hulk and Iron Man.  The Avengers were just a mere Captain America away!  Realizing how much this was costing I thought I’d tone it down for a few weeks, but two days later I stopped at Walmart on the way home from work, only to be let down by seeing Hulk sitting on the shelf.  I called Von and offered to pick it up for him if he could go get Ghost Rider or black costumed Spiderman for me.  Upon agreement I picked it up.  The next morning, I delivered my part of the deal, only to be let down when he came in empty handed.  Then those same lying hands were filled with some Hulk!  Bastard!

Yesterday, the rest of the team arrived and at least I can hold this over his head… AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!

Mike G.