Lady, I'm not even interested in that junk.

[Dreamstalker]

I ventured in to a "We R Toys" store yesterday in the (admittedly faint) hope that they had decided to restock the Ghostbusters minimates toys. Go figure, the one set of wave two that I passed on grabbing right away is now the hardest to find at a reasonable price. Anyways...

In this store, the movie/video game action figure section is next to the Bakugan stuff (Bakugan takes up almost a whole aisle on its own). I was browsing the videogame figs and overheard two moms behind/next to me talking about Bakugan.

One suddenly starts whispering: "I don't want everyone to overhear, but this is the last one of [whatever]. I don't want to put it in my cart because she [gestures to me, not noticing that I'm now paying some attention to them] might steal it."

[EvilEmpryss]

Did I read that right: She was suggesting that you would steal it out of her cart?

[Dreamstalker]

That's what it sounded like. In hindsight I could have given her both barrels (I wasn't in too great a mood to begin with, voluntarily fighting holiday traffic will do that), but I didn't want to start a major incident.

[Twin2]

She's purchasing Bakugan stuff. That's vengeance enough for anyone.

[Dreamstalker]

That's supposed to be a game of some sort, right? Does anyone actually play it?

If I had stolen it out of her cart, it wouldn't be for myself. I would have hidden the silly thing just to watch her go nuts.

[EvilEmpryss]

My husband and I play it with our son (our daughter isn't interested in it). It's actually a nifty game, with emphasis on strategy and reading and math skills. My son's reading and math skills have improved tremendously since I told him I wouldn't read the information on the cards for him anymore. He also went from struggling to perform two-digit addition and subtraction on paper to being able to do three and four three-digit number calculations in his head on the fly. I swear the boy can add the numbers up faster than I can, now. He's also developed the ability to think ahead and plan a strategy, as the game has some similarities to chess, where you see what your opponent is doing and try to counter it.

Of course, we don't go in for the "collectible" part of the game. We pick out the figures we like the look of, and have a nice variety of types (ventus, darkus, haos, etc) to be able to keep things interesting and to prevent my son (who has the power scores of all the bakugan we own memorized) from guessing my strategy. When it comes to buying them, though, I wait until they're on sale or at the local dollar store. The only one we've gone crazy about buying is this hard-to-find multiple bakugan set called Maxus Helios that joins together to form a figure... and that was only because it's a Christmas present for the boy.

[Dreamstalker]

It does sound kinda cool; I actually have a few of the figures with an eye on kit-bashing them for RPG use (what I'm trying to do now is figure out how to get them to open up without the launcher thingy). It does seem more interesting than a lot of the other collectible games out there.

What I don't get is how some people (like the mom in my OP) can be so nuts about it.

[EvilEmpryss]

The nutsy part I can't help you with: I've never understood that kind of craze myself.

Getting the bakugan to open is easy. All you need is a piece of ferrous metal to trigger the magnet inside the figure. A key, the top of a soda can, one of the gate cards (the heavy card has a thin sheet of metal inside it), or the rings on a three ring binder all work very well. I play RPGs, too, and yeah, some of these things would be awesome for miniatures. Too bad I'm only playing in fantasy and supers games right now -- a sci-fi setting would be perfect.

[Teskeria]

See what you should have done was look directly at her, then look at the item, and then say something along the lines of "STEAL THAT?? THAT?? That is one of the most common ones I've seen. Last store I was in had around 50 of them."

Would have really driven her crazy since she feels it is hard to get. Then if she asked which store, just look at her and say 'I'm not telling someone who thinks I'M a thief!' and ignore anything else she say.

fun

[EvilEmpryss]

Teskeria!

Or that you got that one from the dollar store. You wouldn't believe the number of people who've gotten ticked at me because I told them I only paid a dollar for a particular bakugan. Like I had anything to do with it being in a dollar store's inventory.

The mean thing is that by the time most people find out that the toys are at a discount store like that, they're sold out... Usually because I bought them for my son to trade with the kids of parents who aren't smart enough to stop Little Johnny from trading away an $8-$12 toy.

[PepperElf]

my younger nephew loves bakugan
he also likes finding odd places to put them

his older brother found that they stick to the ceiling too where there's some hidden metal or something (maybe a pipe or a strut?)

[bainsidhe]

Pepperelf....

[Dreamstalker]

I'm going to have to try that one of these days I was wondering why some of the cards had metal in them.

[BethB]

Aaah...so that's what you do with the bakugan. My son and nephew just throw them against walls and the floor to get them to open. And the softball sized one he likes to stick to the fridge.