Some old friends...

Whether it's reasonable justification, or pure and simple hypocrisy, my progress in letting things go is compounded by a mad obsession with surrounding myself with things I enjoy, or if we're being honest, toys of a new era.

For some reason (other than the fact that I'm a hoarder, and there's possibly eight dead cats strewn about the garbage in my room), I want to wear my heart on my sleeve, to show off things that I like. I never want to get rid of my favourite video games. Whether or not I ever play them anymore, I want to hold onto them, to show everyone out there... 'Hey! I played Sonic & Knuckles! It's part of who I am!!'

In a similar fashion, I chose to collect two of my favourite athletes of all time, Steve McNair and Eddie George and proudly brandish them atop a bookshelf that is in our spare room, and few people ever actually see. And funnily enough, I have no buyer's remorse whatsoever. Someday, in my great big billion dollar mansion with rooms the size of airports and stairways that lead to nowhere, the figures will stand tall in a man cave to be proud of.

But really, I've given this far more thought than I probably needed to. In short, I got some more toyz. Online shopping sprees, they're dangerous things.

We commence with this handsome Jose Bautista bust, slugger of Toronto Blue Jays fame. Despite the Blue Jays being the very first team I was ever a fan of, primarily because dad had a Jays sweater I enjoyed looking at, I'd say there are fewer Jays in the all-time echelons of my favourite athletes than in my other teams. Nearly all of them played during the glorious years of back-to-back pennants, save a few obvious exceptions: Stieb, Delgado, Halladay et al.

In Jose Bautista, the Jays have had a true superstar, garnering the rare adulation that Toronto-based athletes often deserve but often miss out on. He's our modern-day Joe Carter, only with a better OBP, keener defensive abilities, and at least 99% more Dominican conversations.

Hacking through his plastic enclosure to yank him open feels mildly perverse, like bulldozing a rainforest, or performing a really unpleasant Caesarean section. Frankly, it doesn't feel like he wants to come out to play: he's held in place with a cable tie, and then, shockingly, his right leg is held in place by a hole in the plastic. I don't know why, but it's no wonder he was injured so much last year. That's dangerous, man!

Eventually however, he's freed from his transparent hub. In the process, I manage to do minor damage to his bat, as I didn't realise it was held in with a layer of tape, and came into two pieces. It's supposed to detach, apparently, but not so violently. I'll pretend it was wear and tear caused by dingers. Or, if I were at bat, a pop fly that lands harmlessly in the glove of the pitcher.

As is to be expected, he's a striking young figure (no pun intended, unless it was funny), obviously thicker than his more lithe cohorts of other sports, and with a more intense glare. Personally, I would have made the figure sporting Joey Bat's awesome reflective sunglasses, but I guess sacrifices have to be made. He probably would have looked a little bit nonchalant with them on, like he was just chilling at the beach, wearing entirely inappropriate beach wear.

At first, getting his bat in his hand felt so difficult, I almost contemplated leaving it out. Without it, he's just doing the cha-cha, or launching a Kamehameha. I'm cool with that. I really don't want to snap his arm off and ruin the whole figure, when suddenly...

The arm wretches aside! What is this? His arms are... movable? What a shocking revelation! After years of just accepting that these fellas were locked into their respective positions, but Jose chooses to freely flail his arms about in the interest of making that perfect batting stance. Unfortunately, it now means I have two unwilling hands to force that bat through rather than one, but I'll live with it. Whether he will remains to be seen.

Our next subject is Chris Bosh, formerly of the Toronto Raptors. Rather amusingly, he comes packaged without legs.

Despite this, he's still better than anyone currently on the Raptors roster. Also, it means that I could recreate the scene from Robocop 2 where Murphy gets dismantled, if I wanted to. ...I don't think I want to.

The first thing that strikes me upon unleashing the Boshtrich is that... wow, he's really tall! I mean, it's to be expected when your subject matter stands at 6-10, but beyond that, the box reveals that this model happens to be 11½ inches tall, or exactly four inches taller than Muggsy Bogues.

One of the things I like about the McFarlane figures is that, whenever a player moves to a new team, their model is rereleased with an updated look. Sometimes, it's with a new pose and whatnot, but in the case of Mr. Bosh, it was in the exact same pose, only sporting a Miami jersey and a shaved head, as is his current look. If they were being truly accurate, the new Heat model of Bosh would come complete without the ball in his hand.

Oh, I kid. I kid because I love. As Scott Carefoot once pointed out, and yes, I realise I'm heavy-handed with the links today, Chris Bosh cops a lot of shit from fans, primarily because of how awkward he is. The other guys around him, LeBron and D-Wade, they're pretty cool, y'know? Pretty slick (like LeBron's forehead). But our boy Bosh? He's just this lanky dude who sometimes looks like a lizard. No reason to hate on that. Indeed, all the more reason to cheer for him. He'll always be a Raptor to me, perhaps primarily because he so resembles one.

Once I've finally gotten his legs on (one fell off onto my lap at one point. It was horrifying), I perch him upon his stand, and good lord, this thing really is huge!!

As you can see, Bosh towers over the once-hulking Jose Bautista, ready to dunk all up in the face of Felix Baumgartner. In fact, Jose looks like Joe Pesci, about to crack the kneecaps of this enormous beast. Truly, I fear for Bosh's safety up there: he's held in place by a sturdy little piece of metal, but he still wiggles when I touch him. It's actually really fun to poke him and watch him bob back and forth, but I surmise that it's not the best way to maintain the figure.

...Just one more poke. Hehe!

Now we meet Ryan Kesler. His box is dustier than the others, which makes me feel as though I am the only one who is buying Ryan Kesler. If I know my countrymen as well as I think I do, I figure a great deal of this is due to his being American. What do fellow Vancouver Canucks Kevin Bieksa, Roberto Luongo and Maxim Lapierre all have in common? They are all Canadian, and as such, they will always have that homegrown love. What else do they have in common? None of them are very good goalies.

I'll stop now. Because I have a near-legitimate fear that everyone I've talked smack about (Bosh, Luongo and the entirety of the 2013 Toronto Raptors) will come and get me. Which would be really cool for a photo opportunity, but ultimately dangerous to my person and my personal belongings. They might even poke my Bosh figure. Dangerous!

Ryan Kesler comes with a removable hockey stick, a tiny little puck I think I'll lose by the end of this sentence, and a shocked expression on his face. Maybe he's shocked that he's responsible for that tiny little puck, wherever it went. His pose is quite amazing, because he's leaning over so far he looks like he'll fall at any second, and it makes me really appreciate the grace and athleticism of hockey players. I mean, imagine being in that position on a field or a court, you'd lose your balance, right? Then imagine doing that on the ice, while being chased by many men with few teeth. Now I understand the look of alarm on Kesler's mug.

And finally, last but not least, the coup de grâce, the mack daddy, the man who garners more animosity from the Toronto faithful than perhaps anyone else (though really, that hatred should be directed at Hedo Turkoglu)...

Vince Carter.

For years, I bemoaned his name. The former Raptors' superstar, one of the biggest names in the league, who brought excitement to the young franchise with his sheer athletic prowess and bevy of amazing dunks. Then, after six years, things went south. Vince was traded for peanuts to New Jersey, and the divorce was less than amicable. It took me almost a decade to get over it, and now, I look back fondly on who he was for us, and what he did for us, rather than how it all ended.

And now, he's in my house. This particular figure is modelled after one of Vince's finest moments, his triumphant performance in the 2000 Dunk Contest, with a series of jams that many consider to be the best of all time. Perhaps it's appropriate that I got this figure in a year when Terrence Ross became the second Raptor of all time to win the contest? Perhaps it's fate? Perhaps it's coincidence? Perhaps I was just shit scared that if I waited much longer, the Vince figure would no longer be available in Raptors garb? ...Yeah, that was it.

Just like Chris Bosh, Vince is in mid-flight, but unlike his crimson ally, Vince tragically has the metal jutting right into his knee. Which frankly, you'd think would hurt his ability to jump. It might be my misty-eyed nostalgia, but I think this one is my favourite. It represents one of the highlights of my tragic tenure as a sport fan (bested only by Sidney Crosby's golden goal and the day that Joe Carter touched 'em all), and it will be forever immortalised upon my mantle, at least until one of several things happen (theft, earthquake, or angry fiancé furious that I spent all this money on toys).

And so, my set is complete, for now. There are other athletes who hold a place close to my heart, and inevitably there will be many more on the horizon. I look forward to watching this collection grow (as long as it doesn't become obsessive, which it most likely will), because there's always room for winners in my home.

...Fingers crossed, the next one is Andrew Wiggins after he leads Toronto to an NBA title.

#0066: A box of Lego

I know, I'm a terrible caretaker. Not only have I been more missing in action than Julia Gillard's capability to run a country (political snipe! Hardly relevant), but I did in fact miss INAKA's second birthday. It's hard to believe that I've been parading out toys like animated corpses for two years now. It's easy to believe that I've managed less than three a month.

But regardless, we press on. Because occasionally, I'm put in a situation where somebody actually needs one of those lonely old toys/books/games/embryos, and I dutifully offer it for service. Inevitably, it always remains my fiancé needing items for her classroom, and having already sunk thousands of dollars into materials that most people wouldn't even notice. Seriously, being a teacher is expensive. Especially when you have to support my burgeoning drug addiction.

So today, like the faithful servant I am, I present to the class of 2013 a box of Lego. I intend to get it back someday, because it was a Christmas present, and damned if I don't intend to construct some very important Lego structures in the near future. Phallic ones, mostly.

Did you have Lego as a kid? I hope so, because it's fantastic for imaginative play. No preconceived story lines or marketing demands, just creating tiny little people who suddenly have lives to go about, before you inevitably grow tired of them and just dismantle every single piece. Kind of like Satan in the Mysterious Stranger, only less traumatic to small children and aforementioned tiny little people.

Fucking terrifying. Though it makes me want to conjure up some grapes.

My first goal when playing with Lego was always to create a house. I don't know why I always stuck with that theme, but I dare not stray from it today. So away I went, constructing my house. To call it garish would frankly be an insult to garish things the world over, because this house is simply hideous. I blame it entirely on a lack of red Lego blocks, the only sensible colour with which to construct a Lego house.

Then, I attempt to furnish the abode. Due to a limited amount of options, and a shocking realisation that half of the materials I've used to build the house were actually meant to be used on some sort of flying device, I keep it simple. There is a table with a clock on it. It is the pièce de résistance.

I also add a tree, some flowers, and a lake, because I can never find an alternative use for those circular blue blocks. I'm using the same cheap tricks I used nineteen years ago, and for that I'm sorry. I swear, next time I'll make it be a gigantic blue Smartie.

Finally, I must populate the residence. There is only one appropriately sized man included in my set, so I go with him.

And Jesus Christ, he looks just like me.

So at long last, I have completed my house. The more pedantic version of me from the past would have also used up all of the remaining blocks until the walls were sky high, but I'll pass on that today. For one thing, I have to knock this all down before someone comes home and sees me playing with Lego. I do have a job, I swear I do.

Miniature Tony lives his life alone in this house. He has no friends, mostly due to his dreadful choice in architectural ambience, and he also has no arms. But that's okay, because underneath that Lego shirt he has thirteen legs, so he does just fine, thank you very much!

But one day, local thug Raoul Sepulveda comes rolling up on his discount segway, pounding upon Tony's door and demanding his presence.

"Open up!" Sepulveda snarls in a thick Montenegrin accent, "I know you're in there, for you have very short walls and I can see you perfectly!"

Well, shit, that photo looks much more indecent than I had intended.

Anyway, Tony answers the door (he does this by climbing atop it, because apparently the lovely black path I made blocks the door from opening), and meekly asks why Sepulveda is there. He knows that Sepulveda is a violent man, and his very presence has made a nearby tree collapse.

"My clock, you rapscallion!" Sepulveda replies, flailing one arm wildly in an effort to intimidate Tony, and also as a means of not falling over, "I demand you return it at once!"

"This clock?!" Tony says with a gasp, hovering over the clock because I just found an unused propellor piece and have now decided that Tony should be able to fly, "This was a present from my dear aunt Duplo! You cannot have it! Cannot, I say!!"

Things are getting pretty tense, when out of nowhere, an angel appears. Its soft, soothing voice puts the gentlemen at ease, and they stand in awe of its impressive structure. Jesus did not have wheels, but our angel certainly does. It comes offering a solution to end all of their strife and suffering.

"Dear, sweet angel!" Tony says graciously, tears welling in his eyes, "Please! We accept whatever help you may bestow upon us... But pray tell, what is your name, benevolent one?"

"Satan."

No one knows what was spared and what was destroyed during that time...

Face your fear

So I went into Galactic Circus today, Melbourne's big arcade venue. My day started innocuously enough, and the above photo right there is a shot of the prizes. Looks normal, yes?

...Tragically, looks can be deceiving. Potentially even deadly.

Do you see it yet? LOOK CLOSER, LENNY.

ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck!!!! Is this the end of the year? ...Or the end of the world?

In transit

T.K.: This is it, guys! The next step of our amazing adventure! First, we're going to climb into this great big yellow bag, then we'll be taken to a great new land... this amazing world known as 'opp shop!'

Tugs: I give this yellow bag a thumbs-up.

Skye: You gave that dead puppy we walked past a thumbs-up.

Tugs: It is my gift. It is my curse.

Dracula Don: Well, make yourselves comfy - you may be here for a while. The waiting list is pretty backed up as it is.

Festive White Bear: Fresh meat...

Hollywood Hulk Hogan: WHATCHA GONNA DO, KOOSH LINGS, WHATCHA GONNA DO?

Roaring Lizard: (is incapable of roaring. Strokes his nonexistent beard maliciously)

T.K.: ...This is the worst adventure since Terminator 3.

Tugs: I give this tragic turn of events a thum-

Skye: SHUT THE FUCK UP, TUGS.

#0065: Koosh Lings

I find my lack of progress disturbing...

Gotta be honest, clearing away a minuscule toy once every thirty days is simply not going to cut it - and now that I've moved out of home, progress will be slowed even more, because I'm literally having to take toys to my new place in order to get rid of them. So when I'm going to such effort, I want to create more space than that which was left by a tiny finger puppet. What kind of entertainment system can I fit into that vacated area? A comically small one?

So basically, I'm going to ramp up my efforts, and create more multi-toy entries, a la the Cocky's Circle books. Which, in actuality, turned out to be one of my favourite entries. Might have had something to do with the constant references to fapping.

Here for your consideration, lie the Koosh's best chance at returning to relevance in the mid 90s - the Koosh Lings! If in case you've forgotten who they are (my last Koosh Ling article was written more than a year ago), they're effectively a group of fun-loving Kooshes who go on zany adventures. They're a tight-knit group, and as such, you must buy all of them. Otherwise you run the risk of completely alienating their circle of friends.

If this commercial featuring the Mowry twins didn't get you excited about owning a Koosh Ling, then I don't know what would. After all, as they so creepily state, Koosh Lings can make you feel good. Physically? Emotionally? Fiscally? I don't know. I guess they made me feel okay.

They also make a rather audacious statement that the enigmatic 'Cool Scenes' Koosh Lings (which I had never even heard of before) do the same stuff that we do. How many young children were jamming on guitars? If they really wanted to make Koosh Lings we could associate with, they'd have been eating cereals in long johns and watching Garfield.

The first fun fella at top left, his name is T.K.

It's never established what T.K. is short for, it was just cool in the 90s to be called by your initials, but I like to think his name was something stupid like Todd Krautz.

He's the leader of the group, and as such, he's brave, adventurous, compassionate and vanilla as fuck. He has an intense wide-eyed stare that borders on menacing, and his favourite colour is probably purple.

To his right is Skye, and like most women, her hair is really, really fun to play with. Whether it was based on factuality, or just a notion I came up with for no apparent reason, she seems to be the sporty tomboy. She can kick around a football with the best of them, she won't back down from a fight, and she digs Caster Semenya's style.

Front and centre is Teeter, and as evidenced by his untamed mane, great big grin, and simply scandalous lack of footwear, he's the crazy party animal. He probably would have been my favourite based on personality and appearance alone, but took second place to the almighty fiery hue of...

Tugs. Tugs was the best, because he was red. I know, it's starting to become redundant, but when you're an idiot kid, you pick favourites for idiotic reasons. Tragically, my collection of the original quartet was slightly incomplete, because as you may have noticed, Tugs is randomly riding a skateboard. No, he wasn't just different in an effort to be an attention-seeking prick, this just happened to be one of the spin-off series: I never could find the original Tugs.

As you can see, he's borderline safety-conscious: he's adorned with flamboyant elbow and knee-pads, but is defiantly absent a helmet. It's funny, actually, how the helmet is the most important protection, and yet the part most commonly missing from children's toys. Look at that big ol' smile, he's pretty fucking ecstatic to be without a helmet.

Once I completed my little motley crew, I think that was pretty much it for me. Despite their advertising scheme, they were much more fun and practical to play with individually. I took Teeter to the beach one day, that was excellent. I pretended Skye got turned into a frog during one adventure, that was quite epic. You put them all together, and you've simply got too many Kooshes for your mortal hands to handle, and in the end, the only recurring storyline becomes how they keep relying on Tugs as the designated driver, since he was the only one with a mode of transportation. He'd love to decline, but unfortunately, his hand is permanently moulded into an affirmative thumbs-up.

Afterwards, they just kept adding more and more friends, and more and more variations of the same characters. Completionists no doubt scrambled to collect such exciting things as a Koosh Ling engaging in gymnastics, but my interest began to waver, until finally, the Lings were toy chest fodder like so many other fads.

They may be forgotten curios from a bygone era, but they're not without their charm, I think. They'll go down as one of the good points of 1996. Good like Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong Country 3 and No Diggity by Blackstreet. Maybe someday soon I'll explore the bad things that happened in 1996. ...in fact, here's a preview...

#0064: Universal Studios Monsters Mike & Don

Tread softly, me lads, for it be the season of ghouls and specters! Where creatures go bump in the night, witches whizz by with a cackle and an odour, and Khloe Kardashian could be lurking behind any corner!

…I mean, ideally, that’d be the case (except that last one). In actuality, nobody really gives much of a toss about Halloween down here in Aus, so you’d be excused for forgetting it even existed. No eerie decorations. No pumpkin spice latte. No Garfield Halloween special, and that is truly the biggest misgiving of them all.

Regardless, I shall do my best to press on and embrace the Halloween spirit as ably as I can. We watched Jumanji last night, and I guess that’s kind of creepy, isn’t it? I have also unleashed the beast(s), and I now present to you my dear friends, Universal Studios Monsters Mike & Don.

One year removed from Universal Studios' 80th anniversary (so kind of an 81st anniversary celebration, if you’d like), these toys hit shelves in 1993, and were no doubt met with a degree of confusion. Modeled after classic monster movie stars, these Turtles figures featured Raphael with rotting flesh, Michaelangelo ironically brandishing the very torch that kills him, and GLOWING PARTS.

The first friend – or fiend? – we’ll take a look at is Mike as Frankenstein. Sort of. As kids, very few of us realized that Frankenstein was actually the man who made him, and it’s more or less become a cultural staple to dub the monster by the same name. I guess Frankenstein sounds more threatening than ‘Adam’ or ‘Bruce’ or ‘Mr. Bob Dobalina’.

Otherwise, Mike looks every bit the part: he’s got a vacant stare even in those little white lifeless eyes, he’s dotted with wee stitches and bolts, and my favourite aspect: You can outstretch his arms to look like he’s lumbering. That’s a nice little feature. I tried it with Don too, but it looks more like he wants to cuddle.

My main gripe with this series of figures is that they don’t particularly fit in, which I suppose is quite appropriate for Frankenstein’s monster. All of the other series of Turtles can be seen as interchangeable costume swaps of our four heroes: oh look, they’re going to the beach – they’re dressed for summer now. Oh shit, they’re in the army – so they’re all decked out in army fatigues. But where do these ones fit in? Oh my, they’ve traveled back to the 1930s – best to suddenly become various monsters. Rawwwwwwwwr motherufcker!

You could in theory substitute them as villains for other toys, but come on… who has the heart to bash the living shit out of the Turtles? Other than Shredder? I might be overthinking this. I don’t know if anyone has ever overthought the Ninja Turtles Universal monsters toys. Maybe I should be proud?

This here is Dracula Don. He’s probably my favourite, because he has sideburns, a ‘WTF’ expression on his face, and his spatterdashes remind me of Scrooge McDuck. Perhaps life is like a hurricane here in Donburg.

As should be expected in a toy representing Dracula, this one is quite dapper, and has a cape that I could almost swear is removable, because it really feels removable. I’ve learnt in the past though that removable sometimes translates to ‘broken off’, so I’ll refrain from undressing Don with anything other than my eyes.

My sister owns the Wolfman Leo figure, and I still have the Mummy Raphael, strangely making this one of the few series in which we own all four Turtles. If memory serves, the only other completed collections were the original set, and a few of the various iterations of the wee little miniature ones.

So what else is there to be said about these guys? Not much, I’m afraid. They’re really just minor oddities in a toy collection famously loaded with major oddities, the likes of which wouldn’t be reached again until Pokémon really hit its stride. Like I said, they look really nice, so that’s always a plus, but I don’t recall them ever getting much mileage. In fact, now that I think about it, not many of the various Turtles sets did get much playtime. Sure, I’d play with ‘em after we got them, but ultimately, I would just revert back to the classic set. It’s apparent just looking at those originals, with their missing accessories, chipped paint, and in some cases, a missing arm, that they certainly got around.

As for these fellas here, I lost their weapons (because that’s just what I do), but they’re otherwise in good nick. Be that as it may, I salute them for their efforts! It’s now reached 100 years of Universal Studios, and I sit back and wonder if we’ll ever again see a crossover of the two franchises?

Moneyball Leo? Blues Brothers Don? Bridesmaids Raph? Nanny McPhee Mike? I would totally buy any of those, for the record.

#0063: Tick Tock, You're Dead!

Now that winter has finally passed here in the southern hemisphere, the weather has begun to turn, and the chilly dismal days are becoming warmer. As such, it is now a requirement that I give myself goosebumps.

This is (obviously) the second book in the series. The kid in the dapper button-up shirt dangling in terror from the clock face is us. The sinister grimacing maw is the enemy. The title represents the precarious flow of time which is to be the epicentre of our story. It probably also severely crippled sales of Arnott's Tic Toc biscuits for a short period of time. It could also potentially be a dire foretelling of the incredibly shitty premier of Kesha fourteen years later. You might think this concept ludicrous, until you delve deeper into the time travelling nature of this tale...

The setting is the Museum of Natural History. I'm on vacation with my family in New York City (kids reading this who actually live in NYC are left to assume this vacation was on a remarkably tight travelling budget), and frankly, it's shithouse.

I figured I'd be checking out the Statue of Liberty, kicking it on Broadway, and getting stabbed in Hotel Carter, but unfortunately, I've been dragged around museums the whole time. If this were an accurate recreation of the Museum of Natural History, I'd find myself accidentally heading towards the exit on multiple occasions, because the layout is frankly infuriating.

This is experience talking.

And worst of all, I'm left in charge of looking after my stupid little red-head brother, Denny. I guess the emphasis on his having red hair may later become a plot point, but for now, let's just assume it's supposed to make us hate him more.

The little fucker runs off, and bolts into a room with a sign that warns of dangerous experiments being conducted inside. The scientist, Dr. Peebles, assumes I'm the volunteer for his time travelling experiment. He doesn't ask why a prepubescent child is the guinea pig, he just wants results, dammit.

He gives me a magical stopwatch, and is about to make the final settings on the time travelling machine, but before he can finish, Denny charges into the device. I try and stop him, but he snarls that 'You're not the boss of me!', and in he goes. In all honesty, I didn't try very hard to stop him. I don't really care if he gets lost in time, hopefully he'll end up in the time when he's not a dick.

Maybe in the future he'll be somebody?

I've got two hours to save him. Two hours to travel through all time and space. Excellent. I like those odds.

I decide to head to the past, mostly so that if I find him, I can tell him that we have to go 'back to the future'. That'd be great. I step into the Chronoport, and then must choose whether to go into the time of knights and castles, or dinosaurs. In the end, I figure, I've already been to England, it's probably going to be pretty much the same, so let's check out some dinosaurs and shit.

No sooner do I arrive, when I'm confronted by a tyrannosaurus rex. Needless to say, that's horribly unlucky. After it decapitates a nearby dinosaur like Johnny Cage (it even puts on the sunglasses and crosses its arms defiantly), it begins to head my way. I run as fast as my little legs will carry me, when, in a swamp, I encounter an even more horrific monster - Denny.

Apparently he's stuck in quicksand. In the process of yanking him from the muck, the stopwatch that holds the key to returning to the present and not dying several million years before my birth, falls into the scuz.

We do a little bit of evasive manoeuvring (accompanied by Yakety Sax) and lose the t-rex, before heading back to search for the crucial timepiece. A volcano goes off, which is no biggie, because we're able to find it and jump in time.

Unfortunately, we're still in the era of dinosaurs. Crikey, weren't they only around for like, 30 years? Tops? Denny thinks 'no more o' this shit', snatches the stopwatch and skips ahead in time, meaning that I can't stick around and watch some eggs hatch. Which sucks, because I really wanted to pretend I was Richard Attenborough, and coo words of encouragement.

It seems that we've arrived in a futuristic city. Winged cars whiz through the sky, the buildings are made of shiny metal, and all around town, they're doing this new dance called the Charleston.

I'm keen to explore further, but I'm immediately arrested by an angry robot, which seems eerily reminiscent of encounters with customs at JFK. I guess I only travelled as far into the future as 2012?

The robot judge (in association with the robot devil) sentences me to either school or the zoo. I consider my options closely... what will my role in the zoo be, exactly? Will I be an exhibit, left before the leering eyes of all robot kind? Or will I be relegated to the role of zookeeper? Will the animals talk to me, like in the Kevin James movie of the same name? Will they show me the light? Will they advise I throw poop at them, because that always works?

Too many questions, too little time. I opt for school, because school is COOL.

In the classroom, the robotic teacher quizzes the human children with impossibly hard questions.

What is the capital of Ulan Bator?
What is 43,000,000 divided by 7.645328?
What is your favourite colour?

One by one, the students fail to correctly answer, and they're put into a metallic box called the frammilizer that seems to make them disappear. 'Frammilized', as the book so aptly puts.

When it's my turn, the teacher asks a question that fills me with bemusement. It's about an ancient wizard Morgred, who used three magical objects to travel in time. My heart sinks, just like it had when I was standing atop the Doom Slide. Another Goosebumps question? What the fuck, man! Has literature diminished so much in the future that R.L. Stine books are considered historically significant?

I stand there, tapping my foot and tilting my head slightly. Were they three white stones? Or a pin, a pipe, and a potato? The stones sounds less ludicrous, but shit, that'd be fun, wouldn't it? Travelling through time with the power of a potato? I guess, if I'm going to die anyway, it may as well be the result of having given the stupidest answer possible.

"A pin, a pipe, and a potato!" I blurt, puffing my chest proudly and shooting a fist to the air. There's a hushed whisper among the students around me, and the teacher considers my answer for a moment, whirring quietly. Either I was right, or I had said something so unorthodox that it took time to process. Or maybe the teacher was having a network error. That would be a winning scenario, too.

...Tragically, Morgred the wizard did not use three random objects that happened to be lying around the house to travel through time. I go down in history as having given, in technical terms, the worst fucking answer of all time. I shrug, strutting towards the lethal box and offering my hand for a high five with the other students as I pass by them. None of them take me up on it.

I climb into the frammilizer, and mysteriously tap my head a few times, as if to say 'I know something'. In the end, the gesture meant nothing, I was just trying to look clever. I die a horrible death of frammilization. On the plus side, my final words are both pensive and meaningful.

"OH SHIT!!"

Final result: 21 pages.