Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Republicans in disarray!

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

This blog will pay for itself.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

No one could have predicted…

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

We still have time to mess this up!

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread: Toys for Grown-Ups

Late Night Open Thread: Toys for Grown-Ups

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Back in the day, sf/f con huckster rooms used to be full of guys in t-shirts saying Some people have kids so they can play with their toys — I prefer to cut out the middleman and just buy my own toys…

Ahem: Grown-ups…

Reader Interactions

96Comments

  1. 1.

    lollipopguild

    Legos have always been designed and sold with the idea of adults as a large part of the customer base.

  2. 2.

    Roger Moore

    Anyone who thinks diversity is a new thing in the Star Wars universe needs to go back and watch the OG movies again. The last time I checked, the voice of Darth Vader was a black man, Princess Leia was a woman, and Chewie wasn’t even human. Why is it only now that it’s a big deal to have prominent characters who aren’t White dudes?

  3. 3.

    HarlequinGnoll

    I’d want to yell at that poster the empire was about human supremacy, not white supremacy.

  6. 6.

    Roger Moore

    @Jay:

    I was specifically thinking of the first movie.  Heck, the first important recurring characters we’re introduced to are Vader, Leia, and the droids.  The White dudes didn’t come until later.

  7. 7.

    HumboldtBlue

    Is there room for kids and adults who don’t do Lego?

    I mean, Lincoln Logs were my go-to, they adapted to scenarios from the subjugation of native tribes to breastworks in the Civil War to serving as missiles as your older brothers threw stuff at you.

    Yeah. That.

  10. 10.

    gene108

    IIRC, the traditional color of Lego people was yellow. A skin color not known among humans.

    I’m not sure why the guys mad they went from traditional yellow to brown.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    @HumboldtBlue

    Lincoln Logs, yes. The real ones made of redwood. Dim fragments of memory of Silly Putty and Colorforms, also too. My childhood was Lego-free.

  14. 14.

    gene108

    @Jay:

    all the Imperial Fleet officers in the opening scenes, were old white dudes, and evil, spineless and amoral.

    The crew on the Tantive IV were also white. Hollywood, in 1976, really didn’t think about inclusiveness at all.

    It’s a surprise Princess Leia was such a strong female character.

  17. 17.

    Jay

    @HumboldtBlue:

    we ( me and my brother) each got a Meccano set for Xmas one year, it was a hit.

    That summer, my Dad’s parents shipped out a small trunk of all the Meccano parts my Dad had when he was a kid. Some of the rubber tires were degraded, but other than that, all the parts fit.

  21. 21.

    Ruckus

    My childhood included helping to make molds for Hanna Barbara cartoon character kiddie liquid soap bottles. And Mattel toy molds. I remember working on one toy in particular, Barbie doll molds and trying to figure out why certain physical features were rather out of proportion. It took a while to understand the concept of perverts. Some where I have pictures. Of the toys, not the perverts.

    Legos and I are the same age. But I do not remember seeing them as a kid.

    It was a lot cooler to make kiddie toys than to play with them…..

  28. 28.

    Jay

    @NotMax:

    yup,

    also Lawn Darts.

    when we played “war”, we quickly switched out from plastic guns, some which made noise and had a light to flash at the end of the barrel,

    to pellet guns and bb guns because “ow, fu€k, but you missed me”, rang hollow.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    @Jay

    Know a guy who still holds onto an original Pluto Platter, which was a gigantic floppola in the toy market until it was re-introduced under the name Frisbee.

  41. 41.

    Jay

    @NotMax:

    BTW, “Pluto Platter” sounds like a Kid’s Special at a marginal chain restaurant sued out of existence by the Evil Mouse Corp,

    branding people, branding.

  44. 44.

    Origuy

    There’s a Dutch artist who calls himself Ego Leonard, probably a pseudonym like Banksy (L, Ego, get it?), who makes giant Lego minifigs and leaves them on beaches around the world. From Wikipedia:

    The sculptures are in the form of “minifigures”, but are constructed from fibreglass enlarged to two and a half metres in height, and have the message “Shut up man” in capital letters written on their torsos. The appearance of an “Ego Leonard” giant figure on Siesta Beach, Florida, became number two on the Time list of the “Top 10 Oddball-News Stories of 2011.”

    Google Images

  46. 46.

    opiejeanne

    @NotMax: There was a Lego set in the Sunday School nursery when I was about 10, so 1960? It was a house, white with a red roof, and it wasn’t put together quite right, and I tried to fix it but pieces had gotten lost. I noticed it when the adults were having a meeting and someone had brought a tv so we could watch Godzilla, and we all got herded into the nursery

    For our birthdays last year (we’re 4 days apart) our middle child sent us two Harry Potter kits that were fairly challenging. 3-D puzzles, basically, and I had acquired some form of dyslexia so that when I was assembling them, parts of them were mirror images of what the instructions showed.

  47. 47.

    opiejeanne

    @Geoduck: I had a knock-off of Tinker Toys. Can’t remember what they were called but they came in the same sort of cardboard tube as Lincoln Logs and oatmeal.

  48. 48.

    HumboldtBlue

    @opiejeanne:

    I noticed it when the adults were having a meeting and someone had brought a tv so we could watch Godzilla, and we all got herded into the nursery.

    If that doesn’t sum up an experience, nothing will.

    I bet there was a high-ball involved.

  49. 49.

    JWR

    Does anyone remember these?

    Vntge 1940’s HALSAM American Bricks 500+ Red/White Wood Pre-Lego Building Blocks

    I’d looked for them once before, but only back to the 1950’s. Our large, extended family had a bunch of them, and we’d build little red brick houses and school buildings and whatever. We also had the real Lincoln Logs. I think all that stuff ended up with my older sisters kids.

    Oh, and we also had a bunch of Lionel model trains, along with a sh*tload of track. They were built of cast metal, and I think they were S Gauge American Flyers. Fun setting up track throughout the living and dining rooms, turning off the lights, and watching the trains headlight going round and round.

  51. 51.

    opiejeanne

    @Danielx: The little kid that died in the Lawn Darts incident lived in my town. I think my in-laws gave our son a set right about then, and our first reaction was, “Oh, HELL no!”

  52. 52.

    Jay

    @JWR:

    Lionel’s are cool, and collector’s items, even if not historically accurate and detailed.

    Dad was a serious HO Scale hobbiest.

  53. 53.

    opiejeanne

    @HumboldtBlue: Puh-leeze! We were Methodists.

    That summer was all kinds of fun. Potluck in the church basement every Saturday, and there were some awesome cooks who brought fried chicken and wonderful cakes, and then the kids played hide-and-seek on the park-like church grounds until dusk when they got tired of us running around and making noise, and herded us into the nursery. I think we saw six horror films in that room, things my parents wouldn’t let us watch but I don’t think they knew

  54. 54.

    divF

    53 comments, and still no love for Erector Sets ?

    (now there is).

    ETA: Yes, I remember Lincoln Logs as well. I also got a set about 20 years ago to have around for the kids I babysat.

  57. 57.

    opiejeanne

    @divF: I got to play with my dad’s Erector set, until my mom decided that we were too old for it and gave it to my cousins in San Diego.

  59. 59.

    JWR

    @divF:

    53 comments, and still no love for Erector Sets ?

    Ooo, you just reminded me that I still have my uncle’s Erector set! Not in the original box or packaging. They’re in a nice wooden case. So here’s some Erector set love! ;)

  61. 61.

    Jay

    @divF:

    Marklin and Lionel were considered “kids toys”,  by the hobbiests. Tracks wern’t accurate, detail wasn’t often there.

    My Dad had 14 different brass models of CPR Class “Pacific” class engines, ( 38 in total) because the fine details on each model covered the evolution of the Pacific Class in  CPR service. He had no CN versions.

    And of course, some were in freight livery, some passenger, and the engine serials/markers, had to match an actual historic engine in West Coast service. Couldn’t have an Ontario engine on the track.

    Dad modeled the CPR from the Spiral Tunnels down to Vancouver only.

  65. 65.

    Jay

    @NotMax:

    you couldn’t mix erector set pieces with meccano,

    early kinda exposure to metric vs imperial.

    my Cousins got my Uncle’s Meccano set. It was bigger than My Dads . Being a young A-hole, I bought an Erector set and scattered the parts into their Meccano set.

  67. 67.

    NotMax

    Told the story several years ago of the basement of a kid with whom I attended high school.

    His father was employed by Parker Brothers (looking back, probably in the legal department) and his job consisted of ferreting out any board games being brought to market which too closely resembled Monopoly, and serve cease and desist orders or take other action.

    Anyway, in that basement must have been dozens, if not over a hundred, boxes of such games which either never made it to the toy shelves or were pulled from them, which we were permitted to play.

    Different story – was at one time given a prototype of a board game involving U.S. elections which had been developed by the business of the father of another friend solely to demonstrate the dad’s factory’s innovative ability to laminate the game boards, such that they still folded in half for storage in the box. Far as I know the process never caught on.

  70. 70.

    JWR

    @opiejeanne: “Krazy Ikes”

    I know I’ve heard of Krazy Ikes, but don’t think we ever had any of those. Do you know if they were interchangeable with Lincoln Logs? Eh, probably not. (But gimme a vertical mill and I’ll make ’em interchangeable! ;) )

    I’m still waiting to hear if anyone had any HALSAM American Bricks and whether or not they were as fun for others as they were for me.

  71. 71.

    Ruckus

    @Jay:

    It wasn’t child labor. I mean I was a kid but it was my father’s business that I was learning and getting paid. I went to school, A average, later on I owned and ran the business for longer than my dad did.

  74. 74.

    JWR

    @NotMax: Oh, you’re talking about the Halsam American Bricks, right? Well, at least you know they existed, even if you never owned any, which is close enough for me.

  76. 76.

    Evap

    I’m having flashbacks to Shrinky Dinks, cooked in the oven and they turned 3d.  My brother had the set where you make plastic soldiers with a mini oven and I had the version which made plastic flowers.  Hard to believe they made toys for kids that involved mini ovens, what could possibly go wrong….

  77. 77.

    JWR

    @Evap: Sounds like a version of Incredible Edibles. My sister had one. You’d pour goop into the little oven monster, which was like squeezing toothpaste into a mold, like a waffle iron, and you’d close the little oven monsters face, which began to heat itself until it was time to cool.

    Tasty, monsters, too!   ;)

  78. 78.

    different-church-lady

    Want some endless amusement? Read the comments on that baseball hall of fame vote over at LGM.

  79. 79.

    Matt McIrvin

    @JWR: Krazy Ikes were completely different–they snapped together to make toys with hinged joints. Pretty cool; I think I encountered them when I was a kid though I never had any.

  80. 80.

    Matt McIrvin

    @HumboldtBlue: I had an Erector set but the problem I had with it was that, as a dutiful follower of rules, I insisted on using the ridiculous sheet-metal tools that came with the set, instead of real tools. That combined with the questionable tolerances on the nuts and bolts made it pretty difficult to handle.

  83. 83.

    JR

    My kid is super into Legos. We put that Millennium Falcon together. It was a gift, and while it costs a lot, it’s more like $200.

  86. 86.

    Argiope

    @Evap: I’ll see your Shrinky Dinks and raise you an Easy Bake oven.  Those light bulbs were hot as hell. Good for melting off-brand Barbie sidekicks.

  88. 88.

    Kay

    @JR:

    My kid is super into Legos. We put that Millennium Falcon together.

    I had one who loved them too. It was fun putting them together with him – he got better at it so much faster than I did. He’s 31 and he still buys the sets and puts them together.

  89. 89.

    sab

    @sab: Next grandchild is getting a plush tardigrade.

    If meantime anyone wants a practice tardigrade I will try. Might not be plush. Might only be knitware.

    Will have all eight tiny feet.

  91. 91.

    Anne Laurie

    @Evap: I’m having flashbacks to Shrinky Dinks…

    They’re a ‘grown up’ craft form, now!

    I remember a revival back in the late 90s, when rubber stamp artists discovered they were perfect for turning fragile paper cut-outs into (relatively) durable jewelry pieces.

    In those days, most papercrafters had cheap ‘heat guns’ that got warm enough to shrink the plastic, so we didn’t have to worry about ‘toxins’ in our home ovens.  (Unlike the polyclay beaders, who were advised to buy a separate toaster oven to avoid contaminating future dinners.)

  92. 92.

    Jerzy Russian

     

    @JWR:   I think I had a set of those as a kid, 45+ years ago.  I built lots of houses and bridges with them.

  93. 93.

    TerryC

    @NotMax: “Know a guy who still holds onto an original Pluto Platter, which was a gigantic floppola in the toy market until it was re-introduced under the name Frisbee.”

    Golf discs (and early other kinds of discs) are now collectibles with some selling for thousands of dollars. To be expected, given that disc golf now has millionaire professional athletes and a thousand new courses being built annually worldwide.

  94. 94.

    J R in WV

    @Ruckus: ​
     

    I had a little plug-in furnace to melt and cast little metal toy soldiers. Probably mostly lead and tin, like typecasting metal. Wouldn’t have been strange to my family, we all worked at the family newspaper with giant furnaces full of molten lead for the hot type printing process.

    It took the tiny furnace forever to get hot enough to cast the little soldiers. I have no idea where the tools and toy men went, probably to the town dump after I left for college. Was buried in the back of my closet for quite a while.

    Perhaps a childhood spent in a hot type printing plant awash in lead ingots, shavings, and fumes… hmmm — that could explain things!

  95. 95.

    J R in WV

    @NotMax: ​
     

    “Deploy the pump-up water rockets to take ’em out!”

    Those were so cool, we loved ours!! Can’t believe there was no pressure relief valve…

  96. 96.

    J R in WV

    @Jay:

    Lionel’s are cool, and collector’s items, even if not historically accurate and detailed.

    Dad was a serious HO Scale hobbiest.

    My Uncle Everett was great at building stuff  back before you could buy kits. He built an airplane with a gas motor, but best of all was the huge train set in their basement.

    He could have 6 or 8 trains running at once, switches, individual controls in a big bank of levers, tiny trees, farms, bridges and tunnels. This was in the late ’50s. He helped build the WV Turnpike, then moved to Ohio and worked in insurance. Died young…  Played stand up jazz bass, also too.

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