SICKA THAN AVERAGE

Plush Rush

Welcome to the jungle (or in this case, the desert). My favorite tokidoki cactus friend, SANDy, is finally available as a plush doll (which means I can finally act like a big kid and hug and squeeze SANDy instead of having to stare at my vinyl figure... Whoa, that sounds like some real 40-Year-Old Virgin isht, right? Dang!). SANDy isn't the only one making the jump from plastic to plush -- she's joined by Mozzarella (if you're not on a first-name basis with tokidoki's characters, that's the cow with the gold hoop earrings that totes a rifle around... yup, guess he got that mad cow disease! lol). The two are blazing the trail for their other pals who will hopefully be available in cuddly form, too. The plush dolls are 8-inches toll and are distributed by toy empire StrangeCo (special shout-out to Yosi and Jim for always supporting a sista!)

$19.99 each. Visit StrangeCo.com

MIST-y eyed

The Debils are in the building! The mini series, designed by French graffiti artist MIST, hit Kid Robot stores today and already people are sweatin' the evil, conniving little fudgers. Each 3-inch figure comes with some torture device -- whether it's a devil holding a pitchfork, a voracious plant (who bears a resemblance to the "feed me, Seymour" carnivorous plant from Little Shop of Horrors), a whip-wielding dominatrix or a flame-like figure with intimidatingly large claws and fangs. So, if you dig these little troublemakers, go collect all eleven of the sadistic little bastards.

$7.95 each. Visit KidRobot.com

Fat Cap Camp

Today, Kid Robot unveiled its Fat Cap 2 series, which features artwork from Bubble Fetishist, Argentine art troop DOMA, graff artist Sket One, and French graffiti artist Tilt (I actually saw him paint a mural in the Bronx with my dawg T-Kid a few years ago, and homeboy's got some serious skills). There are 17 characters in total, each standing at 3 inches tall. I'm of course partial to the butterfly-covered one, but the sinister part of me always loves some of the more grizzly, blood hungry suckers, like the Herman Munster lookalike with the bloody saw, and the Lucha Libre style dude, who is carrying something like the captive bolt pistol (that device that looked like an air pump) Javier Bardem's character used to murder folks in No Country For Old Men. Gotta love it.

$6.95 each; Visit KidRobot.com

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Now you can have a zoo in your house without scooping up monkey poop. Somewhere City, one of the coolest toy collections right now, features some of the funniest, most adorable animal-inspired characters.

If you're familiar with Croatian artist Goran Lelas' Somewhere City plush figures (distributed by toy mogul StrangeCo), then you're gonna go bonkers over the new plastic toy collection, the first-ever toy collaboration between StrangeCo and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). There are six figures in total, and they can be bought individually or in packs of three (two exclusive 3-packs are available). And of course, they feature the popular series characters -- from Memo Wee the elephant (who is the most badass elephant ever -- word to Babar, Dumbo, and all those other suckas) to Oink Le Rouge, the sassiest pig since, well, Miss Piggy, and Club Tarn the dog (who looks like a cross between a Fat Albert character and Shaggy from Scooby Doo).

Both the terry cloth 9" plush dolls and the plastic toys are available at the MOMA Design store.

Somewhere City plush dolls, $25.99 each; Somewhere City individual plastic toys, $9.99 each; Somewhere city MoMA 3-pack, $29.99. Visit http://www.momastore.org or go to http://www.strangeco.com for more information.

Friends With Benefits

Zip drives are so 2000. Nowadays, if you need to save your documents somewhere, you rock with a USB drive -- those genius gadgets can hold up to 4 GB worth of stuff, and you can just toss them in your pocket, loop them on your keychain or wallet and head out. But why have anything dull-looking on your key ring? Style is all about the details. So why not indulge in one of Mimoco's colorful, character-based mimobot USB flash drives? The forward-thinking company has already released a Star Wars series (Chewbacca and Darth Vader are particularly adorable), a Halo series and their very own in-house characters, which include the Fairybit Fairobot and Gigglebyte (both kind of '70s inspired).

Now, Mimoco has just released the FriendsWithYou artist series, designed by plush toy line FriendsWithYou masterminds Sam Borkson and Arturo Sandoval (no relation to the Latin jazz artist). Six unique characters are available: Malfi, Mr. TTT Rainbow, Buddy Chub, Mr. Phantom, Smiling Malfi and Super Malfi (pictured here). Prices range from $39.95 for the 1GB model to $99.95 for the 4GB model. Each mimobot USB drive comes equipped with exclusive content created by the artists themselves -- from icons and screen savers to rich media files.

The whole concept behind the original FriendsWithYou plush toy series (and the driving force behind its characters' creation) is that no man is an island, and he/she can gain gain power, energy, health and happiness from positive interactions with other humans -- which sounds really "I'm-a-Grateful-Dead-head-and-I-eat-a-lot-of-shrooms-and-wear-peasant-shirts-and-put-daisies-in-my-hair," but which I personally appreciate. Among the characters, there's Malfi, who brings you wealth (or double trouble, so be careful!), Smiling Malfi, who is billed as "master of all tricks," and more.

According to the FWY creators, Super Malfi's spots bring good luck so, if you rub them, you might just have some blessings coming your way (like rubbing Buddha's head/tummy, I guess! lol)

Take his little head off and plug it into your computer for storage purposes or lock it away in your glass display case along with your other limited edition toys. Hopefully, this sassy colorful USB drive will be both convenient and fortuitous for you!

$39.95-$99.95; Visit http://www.mimobot.com

Straight Thuggery

On March 27th, Kid Robot will unveil Frank Kozik's latest line of limited-edition miniature vinyl toys, The Chumps. The tag line for the series is "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime," which sums it up pretty nicely. This series is all about animal (yes, pigs, worms, rabbits, etc) low-lifes who are ready to carjack, shoplift, start a melee, and partake in all sorts of recklessness -- and, when they do, you can lock 'em up (meaning you can buy the imprisoned versions of them).

Me, I'm not about to celebrate prison (no po-po loving up in here), so I'll just enjoy collecting the 13-real world thieves and have my own little band of robbers. There's a pudgy bear with a safe loaded with cash (clearly not his), a stubbly cat with a pirate-like getup who walks around with a lead pipe (don't think he's a plumber), and more. And, those of you who support our penal system can get the 12 inmate varieties, which all come with a striped uniform and ball-and-chain.

And hey, you ain't gotta spend bail-type money to get these dudes home. It's just $7.95 each. So start getting your money right!

$7.95 each; Visit http://www.kidrobot.com