Dave’s Cool Toys Blog

Archive for the ‘General Coolness’ Category

The only known suviving original Monopoly board

Earlier this year (or possibly late December, 2010, I’m not really sure) the oldest known Monopoly board sold at a Sotheby’s auction for £90,000, which converts to about $146,000. The Strong National Museum of Play was the high bidder for the board and it will go on display at the museum in Rochester, New York.

This board is the only known surviving example of around 5,000 that were hand-crafted by the games "inventor", Charles Darrow. It is circular rather than the familiar square board and it’s hand-drawn on oilcloth. Darrow drew the properties and his wife and son colored in the spaces.

There is some controversy over the origins of the game. It is certainly known that the game is based on a game created by Elizabeth Magie in 1903 called The Landlord’s Game which was more of a political statement rather than a game. She wanted to draw attention to the way in which rents enriched property owners and impoverished tenants. At least one version of The Landlord’s game is known to exist, which would pre-date the Monopoly board that just sold.

After Lizzie Magie invented the game it was used by various professors for instructional purposes and became popular with Quakers (who eliminated the auction rule because they didn’t believe in it). The streets were mostly around the city of Chicago at that time.

	A closeup view of the original board

In the 1920’s the game was apparently popular in Reading Pennsylvania, mostly through fraternities at Williams College.

Ruth Hoskins became aware of the game in Indianapolis and took it back to Atlantic city, where it took on the Atlantic City street names. This version was taught to Charles Todd, who taught Esther Darrow, the wife of Charles Darrow who then began to distribute the game as "Monopoly" with the hand-drawn boards which were reportedly the exact size of his dining room table. (Whew!)

Sign at the real Marven Gardens

You may know that the streets on the Monopoly Board are all in Atlantic City, but did you know that one of them, Marvin Gardens, is both not actually in Atlantic City and is misspelled? The actual location, Marven Gardens, is a housing area in Margate City New Jersey and is said to be a combination of Margate City and Ventnor City due to it’s location between them. Charles Darrow made the original mistake of misspelling it on his circular boards and it has never been corrected.

The history of Monopoly is as complicated as the game itself. The issues surrounding the origination of the game led to various law suits which were not finally settled until 1985 a change in the trademark laws, lobbied by Parker Brothers, allowed them to again claim ownership of the trademark name "Monopoly".

Banana Twinkies from WalMart

I bought a box of Twinkies yesterday.

I know, "big deal". But I never buy or eat Twinkies. And these weren’t just any Twinkies. When I saw them I had to buy them.

They were Banana Twinkies.

A bit of Twinkie history for those who don’t know why Banana Twinkies are special: Twinkies were first created when a baker noticed that their baking pans for strawberry shortcake were going unused when strawberries were out of season (back when you couldn’t get fruit all year long). So he came up with a banana-filled shortcake to make in the off-season, and Twinkies were born. But during World War II bananas were rationed. So they had to switch to vanilla flavored filling. In the end, the vanilla Twinkies sold far better than the banana ones. So they never went back.

Until now.

Unlike the original Twinkies, these are artificially flavored, which is a shame. So they aren’t true throwback Twinkies. But they are pretty good.

It looks like they’ve done the banana version at least once before, for a promotion with the movie King Kong. And it seems like these have been around for a bit, although they aren’t mentioned on the Hostess website.

Banana isn’t your favorite flavor? You’re in luck. Hostess will let you vote for the next Twinkie flavor. So put in your vote now! If you can’t wait for Hostess to create your flavor, you can always make your own with the Hostess Twinkies Bake Set. It’s a bit expensive at $99.00, but there’s also a generic version from Norpro that I’m sure will work just as well for around $20.00.

	Twinkie Sushi. Yum.

For the true Twinkie fan, Hostess has a Twinkie cookbook. Some recipes include: Twinkie Sushi, Twinkie Burrito, Pigs in a Twinkie, and Pumpkin Twinkie Bread Pudding. I may need to try that last one.

I’ve got to squash some Twinkie urban legends:

Legend 1…Twinkies will last forever. They have a shelf life of 26 days. Twinkies only last that long because their recipe does not include milk or eggs.

Legend 2…Twinkies aren’t baked, they are "created" through chemical reactions that cause them to foam up and harden. Twinkies are baked like any other cake from standard ingredients, not a batch of chemicals. They are then injected with their filling through three holes. They do contain the usual chemicals that you’d find in most processed foods. To learn more about what’s in a Twinkie checkout Twinkie, Deconstructed, by Steve Etlinger. It will tell everything you ever wanted to know about how Twinkies are made.

Legend 3… Twinkies will survive Global Thermonuclear War. If Nuclear war occurs, don’t go searching for the Twinkie factory. Check out The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project and click on the Radiation Test to see how Twinkies fared when exposed to microwave radiation. We don’t suggest you try this at home. It didn’t go well.

Alex tries out lassoing at Toy Fair

I just shook Thing’s hand from the Adams Family movies. It was attached to Christopher Hart, the actor who played him!

Thomas Casey, an inventor has created an interesting amusement park ride which he calls the Rings of Saturn. It’s something of a mashup of a merry-go-round and Ferris wheel. He claims to have patented the ride, but I was unable to locate a patent in his name or one for anything similar and the document he displays in his video does not show any specifics.

His ride is insane. The mechanism would be huge and massive. It would have to be suspended very high in the air to clear the ground. I’m not sure how you would load the inner circle of riders. And the ride doesn’t seem all that much more exciting than simpler, current rides that are in actual operation. In addition, when you watch the ride run, some seats don’t really move much at all, while other are whipping around at ridiculous speeds. The folks at the axis of the outer ring barely move at all, just flipping over every half-turn. Hopefully the full-size version will run more smoothly than the model, which seems to get a little crazy every half-turn.

But, it certainly seems like he spent quite a bit of time and money on his model and idea. I think he has more of a future as a model builder than a ride inventor.

I’m a little surprised that he doesn’t seem to have a website and his listed email is fairly generic (I sent him an email, but received no reply).

It would certainly be fun to watch it run. I’m just not sure I’d ride it.

Would you ride this thing? Do you think we’ll see it an amusement park anytime soon?

	Snowman’s journey

Some guys at Panasonic who call themselves SPARKS got a message on their facebook page from a girl in Bahrain named Amna who’s brother, Saleh had never seen snow. They happened to have new super-insulating panels at their disposal called U-VACUA. So what did they do?

They started in Japan, made a snowman cast out of Styrofoam, filled the Styrofoam mold with snow, covered all 6 sides with U-VACUA, placed the box in a wooden crate and sent it from Japan to Bahrain.

But before the actual trip, they did a test of their idea in the closest thing they could find to the desert… A sauna. They used shaved ice, made a little snowman, packed it in the U-VACUA, and left him in the sauna for 24 hours. When they took him out, he was still frozen. Success! Now they’re ready for the real trip.

So they went out to the real snow, loaded up their form with about 67 L of snow, sealed up the snowman in the U-VACUA and sent him on his 40 hour journey to Bahrain.

What is U-VACUA?

U-VACUA is a glass fibrous core sealed inside a plastic-Metal foil which has then had all the air sucked out of it. This creates insulation that is 20 times more than polyurethane foam. They use it for refrigerators, thermal pots, cooler boxes and attic insulation.

Did the snowman survive his 5,314 mile journey? Did Saleh get to experience snow?

Yes, of course he survived. If not, I probably wouldn’t be writing this post about the adventure.

Check out the video below of the adventure and the excited Bahrainian kids when they arrived with their snowman.

Via Gizmodo

Santa won’t get past this Chimney undetected

It’s Christmas Eve and you’ve decided to catch Santa once-and-for-all. So you camp out on the sofa and wait for the jolly man. But, you doze off and when you wake up it’s Christmas morning and there are presents under the tree and your milk and cookies are nibbled and sipped. Now you have to wait another year to try again.

Well, Thomas Cane, of San Rafael California had enough of the routine and decided to do something about it.

So he invented "A children’s Christmas Stocking device useful for visually signaling the arrival of Santa Claus by illuminating an externally visible light source having a power source located within said device.

He was serious about it too. On August 19, 1994 he filed a Patent with the US Patent Office for the device. It’s patent number 5,523,741.

Here are a few tidbits from the patent:

"Modern folklore includes many mystical entities such as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Etc. The most widely recognized and embraced by young children is Santa Claus—a plump, white-bearded and red-suited gentleman who delivers presents to "good" children at Christmas time."

	Santa-detecting stocking

"…there are no such prior art arrangements known to applicant which includes a light transmissive three dimensional hollow recognizable character rendition which is capable of being illuminated to signal the arrival of Santa Claus."

"This is particularly important to young children, providing reassurance that the child’s good behavior has in fact been rewarded by Santa Claus."

This is a good one…

"…the presently preferred embodiment of the children’s device… comprises a Christmas stocking having an enclosure therein to accommodate small Christmas presents/treats. The stocking includes a top portion, a heel portion and a toe portion. The stocking is preferably constructed out of a conventional cloth or synthetic material. As will be recognized by one skilled in the art, the stocking may comprise various conventional pliable materials."

Bascially, the way it works is you string ribbon across the fireplace and attach it to the stocking. When Santa arrives, he inadvertently pulls on the ribbon as he attempts to gain access to your home through the fireplace opening, which pulls on a switch, activating lights on the stockings and electronic music, if you’ve turned on that feature. An alternate version would use Santa cutouts rather than stockings which would move his arms, legs and head, doing a little dance. He has covered other holidays as well in the patent such as a version for the Easter Bunny.

Is Thomas Cane trying to catch Santa Clause? Maybe. But his invention is really meant as a product that "Santa" would purposely activate once the kids have gone to bed and the presents have "arrived", so they can check it when they get up in the morning to be sure Santa was there.

I checked online and found other similar items that are available now such as the Santa Evidence Kit. This kit has items that Santa has "left behind" as evidence to children that he was there such as a torn piece of his suit, a sleigh bell, a stencil and magic snow to create a snowy boot print, and more.

When you were a kid (or NOW, if you are a kid), what would you have given to have 1,200 Hot Wheels
Cars racing around a track all at the same time? I know!

Well, Chris Burden, an artist in California has done just that. He’s currently working on Metropolis II, an installation that will appear at the Low Angeles County Museum of Art.

Metropolis I was created in 2004 and was composed of 80 cars. Obviously he upgraded a bit for this new version.

Once completed, the cars will race past a Rube Goldberg "city" made form Erector Sets, Legos, and Lincoln Logs.

I’m sure there’s a serious message behind this artwork, but for our purposes, it’s just way-cool. Hope it comes to the East Coast at some point in the future so I can see it in person.

Via Gizmodo

OK Go has once again created a great creative music video. This one also includes creative animation, which is something I love, which you might know from the flipbooks and other items we carry at Dave’s Cool Toys.

Their new video uses 2,430 pieces of toast with animation burned onto each one. I’m not sure, but I think they re-used some.

Anyway, it’s wonderful and I hope they keep it up! Enjoy

Via Gizmodo

Sesame Street has pulled a segment from the show featuring Katy Perry after it appeared on YouTube and received comments from parents that were angry about the amount of cleavage she was showing.

Here is Sesame Street’s official statement on the video:

"Sesame Street has a long history of working with celebrities across all genres, including athletes, actors, musicians and artists. Sesame Street has always been written on two levels, for the child and adult. We use parodies and celebrity segments to interest adults in the show because we know that a child learns best when co-viewing with a parent or care-giver. We also value our viewer’s opinions and particularly those of parents. In light of the feedback we’ve received on the Katy Perry music video which was released on You Tube only, we have decided we will not air the segment on the television broadcast of Sesame Street, which is aimed at preschoolers. Katy Perry fans will still be able to view the video on You Tube."

Was it that bad? Decide for yourself. Below is the video (at least until they remove it from YouTube as well).

I love OK Go. Their videos are wonderful. They are somewhat of a throw-back to the time when MTV actually played music videos and artist made an effort with them. Here’s a new one for White Knuckes.

Dogs rule!

An excellent video of soap bubbles by Sterling Johnson on Stinson Beach. That’s all.

Haven’t you ever wondered what The Chimpmunks really sound like? Here’s the The Chipmunk Song, Christmas Don’t Be Late, slowed down to hear their actual voices.

The song isn’t really slowed down, rather pitch shifted. Althought when they made the original, they recorded the voices at half speed, and, when played back at full speed, their voices would be higher. I would guess they needed to also speak and sing more slowly when they recorded it. But by electronically shifting the pitch in this video, the song stays the same length.

Jedi toy painting

Artist Robert Burden has created a wonderful work of art entitled "The Birth of a Jedi". It’s oil on canvas, and stands 10 feet x 7feet.

If you’re wondering how this fits in to a blog about toys you will understand towards the end of the video for the closeups

Of course if you’re wondering that, you probably haven’t visited my blog before (I go off-topic a lot).

The painting covers events in Return of the Jedi when Luke is rescued by Han and must be kept warm in the belly of the TaunTaun. Although I remember them being white, or gray.

Scroll down for a time-lapse of the 7 months it took to paint.

via Gizmodo

Lego version of Escher’s Ascending and Descending

I seem to be stuck on Lego lately. Oh well.

Today’s post combines two of my favorite things, Lego and M.C. Escher.

Who would have thought that you could create the wonderful visual illusions of M.C. Escher in three dimensions with Lego? Apparently Andrew Lipson did. He has created some amazing lego versions of Escher’s artwork along with his friend Daniel Shiu. He has used some photographic cheating in a couple of instances, but mostly they are pure models that depend more on the photographic angle for their illusions.

He makes other great things from Lego, but his Escher works are truly masterpieces and I can’t even imagine the amount of time, space, and clutter it must take to plan and construct them. Apparently he has too much spare time.

Scroll down to see some examples of his work and be sure to visit his website to see how they were done and information about construction.

	Lego Balcony

	Lego Belvidere

	Lego Relativity

	Lego Waterfall