What Is THE Toy You Would Get If You Could Travel Back In Time?

I have a bit of an issue with Thursday's epsiode of HEROES (Season 3 / Episode 12 / "Our Father"), where Present-Hiro and Present-Claire travels back in time (16 years) - particularly when they stood next to their younger-counterparts (present-Claire with baby-Claire-bear, and Hiro with Kid-Hiro) = Doesn't that affect the space-time-continuum? Shouldn't their existence cancel each other out? Or implode into an endless void, or sum such spacetime catastrophe?

What I wanna see is Kid-Hiro yakking to Present-Hiro, while Future-Hiro comes back to slap him in the head for letting Arthur Petrelli suck his powers that easily. Make it two slaps, the cretin. But next week will be the last episode of the season, so I shed a silent tear instead ...

And while I actually wrote a pretty long post with regards to my personal theories on time travel (drink late-night coffee somemore lah! ... and I don't think anyone wants to read this here anyways) ~ I shall instead ask my TRE-readers this: "If YOU could go back in time right now ~ which TOY would you have gotten, that you didn't way back when you had the chance to?"

Mine would probably have to be a close tie between (1) KAWS Companion 1999 and (2) Michael Lau's Lazy Tatto Gardener ... CLICK THRU TO READ WHY

It was the late-90's teetering past the new millennium, when the notion of "Designer Vinyl Toys" was still a fresh but murky-notion on the fringes of my 1/6th-scale hobby-cum-obsession, coupled with a liberal and adventurous spending ability (aah, foolish youth with monthly paychecks and no mortgage to feed). Singapore did not have an abundance of plastic-crack toyshops brick'n'mortar toy retail establishments (*shakes fists at the sky*) ~ but there was always evilbay (*evil*) which was my prime source of toy-education, and I had my excel-sheets and lists of toys I'd desired to own and have (I liked doing "lists", still do somehow).

Hunting down and buying toys was such an adventure back when. The mission was simple, the aim and dedication was true. Sometimes the defeat tasted bitter, but most times the triumphs tasted like a little sweet slice of heaven. I wish I could feel the same now as I did back then ... anyways ...


My focus back then was more of the plastic-persuasion from my Eastern-brethren ~ zeroing in on Asian / HongKong-creators like Eric So, Michael Lau and a myriad of "designer names" attached to stylish-plastic moulded figures with minimal articulation had clashed with the multi-jointed action figure in 1/6th-scale. Brothersfree gripped my hobbyist-heart, while the designer-vinyl-set had enthralled my imagination.


I still remember the small hole-in-the-wall -shop in Beach Road market, the first incarnation of Yellowbox (who now resides in Goldenmile Tower, just opposite the road) - where I found Michael Lau's Grey Lamdog (sealed fresh with comicbook x ), as well as both the Colored and Black / "Lazy" OG 6 inch Gardener Tattos, with their OG brown carton-boxes. The Lamdog was a quicker-sell as it was within my price range (which I sold off via ebay not too long afters :p). The OG Color Tatto took a much longer time to decide but finally fell into my grasps - and remains one of my prized pieces still.

Alas the Lazy Tatto was out of my financial reach. Thinking back now, I probably still would not have plonked down the dough for it ~ hovering at SGD$300+ even back then ~ so perhaps this item may not be the one I'd grab if I could go back in time, as compared to the next item ...

I remember vaguely being absolutely captivated with the All-Black KAWS Companion 1999 (altho my penchant for all-black toys hadn't kicked in yet - or maybe this was the catalyst...hhhmm), standing underneath the display-shelve spotlights in The Falcon's Hangar in Far East Plaza, right next to his Grey Companion.

KAWS Companion 1999, originally uploaded by Drew from the Point.

I think the price was around SGD$120 per back then (early 2000) and while I could afford it then, somehow my brain got in the way - for it had convinced me somehow that it was too expensive for a piece of plastic from an unknown dude (to me) - like, "who was this KAWS-dude, innit? Why is he ripping off Mickey Mouse? Boy that is just plain slack!" ... but with alla these complaints, I'd still liked what I saw. And in the end I did not get either of them, and the worse part of it all? I have since forgotten what I'd bought instead, back then. heh.

Sometimes I'd still come across images of the Companions online, and a tinge of regret stings still, ever so subtly ... the notion that lingers is more of a *missed opportunities to get it at a ridiculously cheap price compared to now* - as opposed to a desire to own them, but I do suspect I would've really enjoyed them in my collection ...

No, no... tis just the smell of vinyl that got into my eyes ... really, tis nothing ... sniffle...
Years after, I have since given up the expectation that they will one day find themselves in my humble little collection, not least my current financial status, but moreso the stubbornness of not wanting to pay too much more over what I had missed back then ... yes foolish and naive indeed ... but perhaps in this age of uncertainty, a little bit of imagination may yet go a longer way, IMHO. heh.