Bootleg Toys on the way to California

This year for Designer Con KiLL! and I drove to California. Instead of rushing around like mad on Friday trying to get everything done by noon so that we could set up in Pasadena around 6pm, we decided to rush around like crazy until about midnight so that we could set up first thing in the morning after driving throughout the night. Around 2 or 3am we needed to stop to for gas and found ourselves in a Chevron in Chiriaco, CA.

The inside of the Chevron was really awesome because of the bounty of bootleg toys we found on a spinning rack:

"Deformation Warriors Motorcycle"

"Super Heroes: Collect Them All!"

"Super Heroes: Collect Them All!"

"Latest Fashion Style ROBOT"

"COMbatant Cosmic Hero - Latest Technology"

"Special Design | Latest Picture | A lot of Funs"

Sky Airplane: "A Welcome Gift For the Children"

Honestly, what is there not to love about those bootlegs? Who wouldn't want the latest Fashion Style Robot? 

On an uncomfortable note, Chevron's pro-Romney campaign was shoved down our throats while we waited for the car to fill. Each pump was equipped with a small monitor that played a pro-Romney ad, which looped until we were done pumping gas. It's mantra focused on Obama being responsible for high gas prices and how keeping him in office will only continue to raise prices.

For those curious, Consumerenergyreport.com has a good article about this issue. Regardless of your personal political standing, isn't it bad for business to blast your political agenda at an ear-splitting decibel to people who just want to fill their car with gas? 

Political nonsense completely aside, Designer Con was really fun. KiLL! and I spent much time wandering around and enjoying what everyone else had been working on and displayed. Sadly, I have no brains after more than 24 hours of sleep deprivation and didn't take more than a snapshot here and there. At one point I banished myself to the parking garage to take a nap and told KiLL! that if anyone asked about my whereabouts to tell them that I was eaten by a shark.

Both of us ended up being far too tired to drive home safely by the the end of the night (approaching 48 hours of being awake via caffeine uptake), so we spent the night hunkered down in the car in some random parking lot. Our journey continued in the morning, which was far nicer as we could actually see the passing scenery:

Plus there's always the joy of some early morning bathroom graffiti (taken at an undisclosed McDonald's):

That's all for now! The next entry will hopefully have the few DCon photos I took, plus pictures of the goodies that will be available for sale shortly.

- xoxo Peikko

Space Alien Invasions and Happy First Entry!

Hello! This is the blog of artists KiLL! and Virva Peikko, a cute and mildly sociopathic couple that live in Phoenix, Arizona. Instead of starting off our blog properly with an entry about toys or projects, I am going to kick it off with a tale of space invasion that took place eleven years ago.

Wandering out and about with KiLL! yesterday, I bumped into a book that I thought I would purchase for a friend. As we waited in the checkout line, the woman at the register stared intently at the cover. She was already ringing everything up incredibly slowly and nearly ripping packaging open in an attempt to get some UPCs to scan, so I was pretty curious what had her frozen in place. Did she not see the huge barcode on the back cover? Suddenly, she gasps. Her eyes widen and she whispers, "Oh my god… Is this book about the 9/11?"

The 9/11? KiLL! and I exchange meaningful glances. The words "Sci Fi" are printed on the left margin of the cover, just below the author's name. There's a helicopter shooting lasers and some guy in a Halo-esque suit half crouching in the corner. The woman continues, "You know, I was watchin' a documentary on the 9/11 the other day…" Still wide-eyed, half-horrified, unable to put my new book into my shopping bag. I calmly explain to her that, no, the book is not about the 9/11.

It's better that most people never know about the massive alien invasion that took place on that most awful day, nor the intergalactic circumstances that began it all.

- Virva Peikko