Kids today have the coolest toys...

[Nightfall]

How come Nerf wasn't this cool when I was a kid? Detachable mag, scope, bipod...

Looks like a gateway to real guns to me. I'll be getting two for my nephews this Xmas, in the hope of planting the seeds of gun lust that will grow and bloom come adulthood.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Bah!  Who says you hafta be a kid to want one of those?

[Mabs2]

Yea, you forgot one for yourself.

[Marnoot]

Bah!  Who says you hafta be a kid to want one of those?

Exactly. It became necessary to obtain a nerf dart gun for self-defense soon after getting hired on at my current employer. I chose the air-powered gatling-style one. Unfortunately an attempt at increasing its range and power has rendered it impotent and worthless. This reminds me I need to be procuring a new one. Those trolls from Quality Assurance won't dispatch themselves!

[Art Eatman]

I'm not sure those are anywhere near as neat as the ray gun I made from various pieces of galvanized pipe and fittings my grandfather thought he needed for a plumbing project.  Or the Tommy Guns common to our group, using a saw-toothed piece of wood, some rubber bands from various old inner tubes and a piece of string to act as a "trigger".  Stuff you make yourself, you appreciate more.

Call us WW II kids the "imagination era".  We imagined what those radio characters looked like; much better than TV.  There are no limits to one's imagination.  

, Art

[Guest]

Role Reversal:


Elmo TMX
http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/602-9677300-2975842?%5Fencoding=UTF8&asin=B000ETRE0Q

Mom's sister (my aunt) called -  just going on about seeing this Elmo on a morning show.

You don't understand, My mom is 76, her sis is 78.  I am not only listening to mom carrying on about this Elmo, she is hooting, hollering, laughing, and snapping fingers at me to get her pen and paper.

This is not good enough, mom does the "Hand wave, snap finger and throws the "Prevention" magazine at me" routine .
Translated : "fire that laptop up sonny and get on the Internet."

I am still trying to figure out when the roles reversed. I never heard a earth shattering "boom", and never got a memo, I never got anything but all of a sudden I am checking to make sure her seatbelt is on, and telling her to not walk out in front of traffic.

Mom's sis has had some medical problems, just out of the horse-pistol. Mom, is better, after scareing the bee-jeebers out of me , and I - again found a ADR (adverse medical reaction) with her meds. Goofy as a road-tick and if you make it real clear, you have no qualms straddling your mom and doing chest compressions...mom's will pay attention.
"You wouldn't?'
< my arms folded, eyes intense, assertive voice>
"To hell I won't"

I have "been trying" to get my mom to use humor, positive attitude and all to stay healthy. Of course she tells her sis this, never thinking it was her (mom) that the message was for originally.

Did I mention I can be assertive?  One guess what Mom and her Sister are going to have to humor themselves.

--

Me, I go find some appliance boxs and take them out to some kids I assist with - along with moms, and other adults.

I'm 51 y/o playing in  this "Tank" and having a ball!  I had one of the smaller kids in this "tank" with me, and we were just going to town.

I brought some BIG rubber bands.  Right off the bat, I got some tied together, tied this to two chairs and am shooting this 'big slingshot" using stale hard candy, and the dawgs are going bonkers.  
"Mom, need that chair now,"

Hey, we needed her chair to make another big slingshot, it is good for a mom to stand...

Marshmellows are kinda hard to shoot very well - or far, unless you ball them up.  Idea was to "tank" by and not get hit by marshmellows...which is really easy to do when the durn dawg jumps up and catches it in mid air...

Dawgs eating marshmellows - side splitting funny.

If you want a dawg to go nuts, tie a rubber band onto a marshmellow, and then shoot into a tree. Now stuck in the tree, barking don't work, running around the tree don't work, sitting on haunches don't work...

*woof* *WOOF* * woof?* *whine*   translated : it that thing ever gonna fall out of that tree?


Two seventy + year old ladies want a $39.95 Elmo.
I am passing forward the free and homemade toys to kids [ granted some bigger than others...]

Yep, role reversal for sure.

[CAnnoneer]

Art ir right. The best toys are the ones that you make for yourself. The reason is simple - they would match your desires closer than anything commercial.

[mtnbkr]

Art ir right. The best toys are the ones that you make for yourself. The reason is simple - they would match your desires closer than anything commercial.

When the Nerf thing started getting popular where I worked in the mid to late 90s, I took it one step further by crafting a nerf gun from an old CO2 bb pistol, some PVC pipe, and some 1/2" foam intended for sealing cracks.  I cut 2" long pieces of said foam, gave it a wrap of duct tape so it would have some weight, and proceeded to punish my cow-orkers.

It would also launch peanut M&Ms to velocities high enough to embed into the drywall of a standard office.  I wonder if the bits of that peanut M&M are still there seven years later...

Chris

[lupinus]

I know right?  

The first "Why didn't I have cool stuff liek that...."

moment came when I was 18 and I stopped and almost wanted to hit myself but relized it was true lol