Popular Toys Throughout the Ages

Ant writes "MSNBC has a story on the 'must-have' items from decades past. From the article: 'With so many new toys and games hitting store shelves every year, it may be a little surprising that many of the most popular playthings are actually quite old. But people have been playing for a very long time. In 4000 B.C., Babylonians played a board game that was probably the ancestor of chess and checkers. Stone yo-yos were first used in ancient Greece around 1000 B.C. Kites appeared in China around the same time, though historians speculate that they have probably been flown since before recorded history.'"

Comments

Implications for Toys for Tots

[javajosh]

Toys for Tots was hawking toys outside of the local supermarket yesterday. They had one pile of toys on a table, and a bin of toys about 5 feet away. One of the three young women implored, "You look like a high roller, so" (yes, she really said this) "how about buying a toy for Toys for Tots?" I replied, "I'm a high roller when it comes to food, not inundating kids with Chinese plastic garbage when they probably have much more fun with a cork, 2 plastic straws and a styrofoam cup." There was a marine standing nearby who chuckled. I continued, "Besides, you just take the toys back out of the bin and put them back on the table to be sold again, right?" She looked aghast. "We would never do that!" I pointed out that they might as well rather than incur the cost of shipping the toys out to the store to be moved 5 feet and then shipped back to the Toys for Tots distribution center. She looked a little miffed. The marine looked amused and said, "I hear what you're saying, but..." I took one glance at the pretty young girls' consternated faces and said, "I know man, we're just a couple of assholes." The moral of the story is that kids will make toys out of anything, and there is essentially no need for Toys for Tots. Most of our 4000 year history has been devoid of a T4T charity, and somehow we turned out just fine, and in fact had plenty of toys. Give to cancer research, not to Chinese factories.

Re:Implications for Toys for Tots

[HardCase]

Nice troll. Oh, and you're full of shit - you made the whole thing up. OK, maybe it's what you wanted to say. See, no cynical geek has the balls to actually say what he thinks because he knows that everybody around him will just laugh at him and call him an asshole. And that's terribly destructive to the fragile psyche of the self-centered cynical geek. So, they just go around telling their friends (and posting on /.) what they would have said if they would have had a solid brass pair. But instead of saying that they would have told that Marine off, they tell their buddies that they did tell the Marine off. Oh, and that they used their double black belt ju-jitsu/karate/kung-fu/anime martial arts move and left him bleeding on the floor.

Yeah, you want to be the cynical elite, but when you're pale, fat and unemployed and living in your mother's basement, it's tough for you to have a strong sense of a positive self image. We all know that posting your tripe on /. helps you out, so we understand. You're special in that way.

-h-

Re:The View-Master

[HardCase]

So it's still being used for training the U.S. military?

Yep, because everybody knows that all middle eastern countries look the same. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, what's the difference?

-h-