It's a well established fact that I never grew up. I still play with toy guns and collect scantily clad anime models; I play a lot of video games, and I still laugh at fart jokes.

But, like it or not, I'm getting old and I'm really beginning to fear turning 30...so, it was on my 27th birthday ( just the other day there, on May 8th ) that my wonderful girlfriend knew exactly how to make me feel young again....

A customised Munny in the form of Grim Fandango's Manny Calavera!



First of all, being a Munny, it's a toy for grown ups! When you have company over, you can discuss the artisitic merits of bespoke customisations and the thriving dominance urban street culture plays in the modern role of our perception of what art is, and how that will evolve as our it becomes more mainstream....and then, When no one is around, you can still play with it and pretend to make him speak!

I've got a few Munnys, but they all just sit there, blank. I've too many ideas, and not enough skill to execute any solid plan, so they just sit there. But this is the first one to have anything on him, the first one to have a purpose!

Secondly, I've always had a soft spot for Grim Fandango ( or indeed anything Tim Schafer ). When we first bought our blank Munny figures, we printed out LOADS of the templates and doodled for days, just chucking together ideas. While many of my girlfriends ideas were varied and original, I stuck to the tried and tested "what gaming character would look good as a Munny?" theme.

Early plans showed that Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell would be a good one, but in recent times, with the disapponting games and the new one taking forever to come out, I've waned on that idea a slight.

Manny Calavera, however, is a persistent and unshakable figure...there are no sequels to sully the memory, no spin-offs to tarnish the reputation, just pure liquid awesome. In a cup.

Funnily enough, I never even thought of Manny when I was thinking of characters to make, which made unwrapping this a MASSIVE surprise.


There is a third, deeply more sinister reason that I'm making such a big deal posting this Munny all over every site that will take it. Y'see, my girlfriend and one of my closest best friends don't really get along. At all. It may or not be helped by the fact that my friend is a girl, and girlfriends always seem to frown upon relationship such as that. Well, last year, for my birthday, my friend painted me a picture that means a lot to me...and I made something of a big deal about how awesome a gift it was...

Which put my girlfriends nose out of joint, as they say. And I've had to listen to it for a year. So this year, she made me a Manny. And I'm making a point of showing her that I love it. It's all bloody politics, I tell you. :(


I will likely get some more photos of Manny at some point, maybe even with a more relevant backdrop ( give me a break..it was my birthday and I was getting ready for a night on the town....the leathery beanbag was the first thing to hand! ), which I will put up on my Flickr page as and when they happen. But for now, there are a few pictures attached ( including one of the box, modded to say Manny ^_^ )