Dan Looks at Office Toys

Daniel Rutter writes "In a move that's made me wonder afresh whether I'm actually living this life or just dreaming it, I've just put up a review of a bunch of office toys. Two rubber band guns, a pneumatic ping-pong ball launcher, a bubble gun, some iridescent bouncing putty, a frickin' CROSSBOW that shoots sucker darts, and a couple of high-flying ring-ins that aren't really suitable for indoor play at all."

Comments

The Bandit Crossbow!

[Mzilikazi]

I had one of those when I was a kid. Or rather, my little gun nut brother did, but I used it frequently. Back in the 80s, toy guns didn't have to be bright fluorescent colors, so it was a sleek matte black. The little suction cup darts were fun and all, but this toy definitely lent itself to some modification.

First, you could get more power out of each shot by looping the string around the ends of the bow. This slight modification meant that the suction cup darts would go way to fast to stick to anything, but would hurt like a muthafucka. The next step, naturally, was to replace the safe and cushy ammunition with sharpened pencils, which worked great. They would stick in the wall if aimed properly. (Of course, eye protection was important here, because occasionally shots would get flipped straight up instead of horizontally.)

Steel ball bearings didn't work as well, but that's what the slingshot was for. :)

God that thing was fun.

Cheers,
Mziliazki