While traipsing through the shops at Caesar’s Palace, looking at $600 t-shirts, $900 jeans, and all sorts of other ridiculously priced items, I ran across these two robots on display at FAO Schwartz. I especially dig the one on the left with its exposed gears, pinchy hands, and ring top.

Remember, if you’re out and about and you see a robot, snap a picture and send it to us to share. PanicBot 5000 loves seeing his brothers out in the wild.

Our fixation with robots means we must continue to share any sightings with you, our dear readers.

So here are a couple robots I discovered on my travels this weekend. The first one I stumbled upon in one of the big box retailers I frequent. The other is from a set of flash cards my daughter was playing with. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that 1+1=kick ass robots shaking hands. I’m pretty sure they just decided the most efficient way to vaporize their human captors. Or all of the human race.

Don’t forget: if you have any robot sightings in the “wild”, snap a pic and send it to PanicBot5000!

Tyler Durden writes in to tell us about Marvel Trading Cards!

Article By: Tyler Durden 84

I’m not exactly sure when Marvel, or really any comics publisher, decided to start making comic trading cards, but I do know that when I was a kid in school in the 90s they were the shit. I remember spending recess and even class-time secretly wheeling and dealing these cards. My friends and I would make deals multiple times a day and would slowly build up a collection of cards that we could toss in a binder to show off.

These were the days when X-Men the animated show was at its fervent height. I remember X-men the animated series playing on Saturday mornings, back when Saturday mornings would actually show new episodes of cartoons, and awesome ones to boot. I remember that my dad and I would both watch the show. That was some of the best times of my life, just sitting there with my dad and watching X-Men and Spider-man. Not to get all sentimental, but I really miss those days. Ok, sorry for the SOB story, but back to the cards.

Every Saturday, my stock in characters would go up or down based on the cartoons they were in and what they did in them. Wolverine was obviously highly ranked, along with cool villains like Magneto and the Brood. Heroes that saved the day in the end of the show or even had developing stories, all fluctuated during the week at school. This was how we created deals. One week, an average Cyclops card could be worth two minor character cards or one week a Gambit card could be worth three or four. You had to watch the show and read the comics to play the game. You play to win the game. All throughout the school years, trading and buying packs of cards became a hobby for many kids.
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“Made from 100% recycled awesome.”

Thus reads the tag-line for Hasbro’s entry into the vinyl toy arena and, dare I say it, they’re 100% correct. I first got wind of this vinyl toy trend in one my local Japanese toy import shops at my hometown mall. They had a whole stack of these crazy “design-it-yourself” vinyl dolls from a company called Kidrobot (love the name), under the name MUNNY. I guess it’s a bit of a phenomenon, especially among artists who use MUNNY dolls as blank canvases for their own character creations. Check out the MUNNY website for good examples of some of the amazing things people have done with these toys.

While being cool, you can’t find them at your local Wal-Mart or big box retailer of choice. So, enter the toy giant Hasbro. In an attempt to make this new vinyl toy both affordable and mass market, they’ve brought out a new line of figures based on Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Marvel Comics characters. You know me by now. Anything having to do with comics, movies and general geekery has me right away. But you throw in some cool design and a nod to Japanese toy culture and my wallet is immediately open and on its way to empty.
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Saw this at work today, did a double take, then laughed unreasonably loud and long. Please enjoy!

Okay, I know we gave a bunch of reasons why we started Robot Panic, but screw all that. THIS is why this website exists! So that I can justify buying cool shit like Nerf Assault Rifles! That’s right, I’m twelve years old at heart and this stuff makes me giddy with joy. But what started as some innocent fun, ended up being simply crazy. But…that cool crazy. The kind of crazy that makes you happy to be alive. Alive with a gun that shoots whistling Nerf darts like automatic tracer fire over your back yard!

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