Axman -- Disturbia Wonderland

Tucked amid muffler repair and pawn shops and fast food restaurants on University Ave in St. Paul you will find one of the Twin Cities' treasure troves of weirdness-- Axman Surplus. Not Axeman, Axman. It squats un-apologetically on its corner, clad in a dingy nondescript glass storefront, but you get some indication you're in for some high octane distrubia when you see this in the front window-- (as always, click pics for bigger wierdage)

And then this greets you right inside the entrance...

You are far more likely to run into owners of the complete boxed set of "The Lone Gunmen -- The Only Season" here than latte clutching designery types. Their employees are either furtive hard core geeks or students at Subversity University, and when not plotting world domination, yes, nerds are often hilarious. They appear to spend untold hours creating handmade signs for the weird stuff they sell there. These alone are worth the trip.
Linda, also a disturbia observer and fan, often accompanies me on these missions. She's quite enthusiastic as you can see, and a willing model. Thanks Linda! This was the "hat" the sign above referred to. It was posted above a stack of dog dishes... (Yes- that's a hazmat suit in the background)

Be armageddon ready for only twenty bucks...

These kind of go with the "Sparkle Vision" post....

As bizarre as this place is, it's kind of comfortingly "St. Paul" too-- nothing fancy,
actually kind of in your face not fancy.

You can spend hours looking around. This is an ancient T.V. camera.
They also have an old iron lung.

Who knows what this thing is/ was, but they've dubbed it the "widow maker".
Works for me.

If you're serious about your evil-genius-ing, you probably already know about this place.
In the back half of the store palid nerds of every flavor (black dickie wearing hipsters and slightly crazy looking polyester-clad twitchy dudes) avoid eye contact and dart between aisles of technical --er-- whatevers.

I'm pretty sure if you knew how, you could build an army of robots with just what they have in stock. As you can read, "resistance is futile".

They do low tech too, and do it with enthusiasm.

Calamari anyone?

When I saw these I was frightened and almost refused to walk down this aisle, but Linda calmed me. The only thing scarier than math is crazy-ass giganto math!

This doesn't even begin to cover the disturbia unveiled at this location. Look for another post soon featuring an old favorite -- dolls (shudder!) Remember I accept submissions from you guys too. Keep those eyes disturbingly peeled!

On an unrelated note, apparently being sick for a week-- not running and subsisting mainly on dry cheerios and chicken soup had the same effect on my ass that pulling the cord has on an inflatable raft. Not fair! Somehow I gained 4 lbs! Mark my words fat cells-- (insert threatening trademark finger twist here) you won't get away with this. Wipe that smirk off your faces!