• dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️
    36•7 months ago

    You want to know how old I am?

    When I was a kid my parents got me a plastic maze game from the grocery store. It was comprised of two halves, a red plastic lower shell and a clear plastic upper shell which had maze walls molded into it. The point of the game was obviously to tilt and tumble it around to get the ball from the start to the finish.

    Except.

    The ball was a goddamn blob of mercury.

    Many of the ends of the walls were deliberately V shaped so if your mercury blob hit one it’d get split, part of it going down one path and part of it going down the other. So then you’d have the added challenge of either bringing them back together or separately getting two or more progressively smaller segments of it to the finish. This was an interesting and highly amusing take on the usual kiddie maze-game concept if it weren’t for the fact that the ball was a goddamn blob of mercury.

    Can you imagine if such a thing were made today and handed to children? There would be a riot. 60 minutes would do a hard hitting prime time exposé. The Biden administration would take out the factory making them with a drone strike.

    • @[email protected]
      9•7 months ago

      Yeah I had a mercury maze, it was second hand but somehow ended up in my toy collection. It isn’t that dangerous, but you’re right that it wouldn’t get made nowadays.

      • Hello HotelEnglish
        7•7 months ago

        unless its thrown down a flight of stairs onto hard wood, Oopises! now you got a mess of mercury all over the floor! What a mess! you need asbestos mop! the only number one recommended mop 3 years in a row! /s

        • @[email protected]
          5•7 months ago

          I was scientifically-minded enough to know the mercury should probably stay in the maze, even if the point of a maze is to find your way out of it. That was the cruelest part actually. Even if the mercury made it out of the maze, it was still in a plastic prison. Brings a tear to my eye.

  • Dave
    25•7 months ago

    I am that old, but I am not this old:

    Atomic Energy Lab kids toy.

    • @ChillDude69
      12•7 months ago

      Which was pretty clever, really. It would make absolutely sure all the kids there for checkups would get strep throat from the sick kids, and the office would bring in more money.

      • Nate CoxEnglish
        5•7 months ago

        I thought my mom was so mean for not letting me play with any of the cool doctor office toys. Now my kids get to think I’m so mean for the same thing.

        • metaStatic
          6•7 months ago

          my 6yo cousin has a smartphone toy that is just one of these things and it’s amazing

          • Hello HotelEnglish
            2•7 months ago

            I always question why they make them look like tech, they could theme them any other way. I think a 3d light bulb one would look really cool!

            • metaStatic
              4•7 months ago

              they already want to play with the parents phones so you get them a fake one of their own.

  • @[email protected]
    13•7 months ago

    I’ve always wanted one of these toys as a PC waterloop reservoir. The playfull aesthetic would be amazing!

    • Hello HotelEnglish
      2•7 months ago

      confined to only a small reservoir or flowing into the coolant loop? the former is harder because you have to swirl the water without getting the rings stuck on or clogging the outlet valve.

      • @[email protected]
        2•7 months ago

        Initially just the reservoir. Maybe using a diagonal filter to push the rings aside to prevent the rings entering the loop?

        I have to be honest I’ve never acutly thought out the logistics as it seemed impossible to do. The reservoir needs to be custom made and as far as I know no one provides a service like this

  • @[email protected]
    6•7 months ago

    I remember seeing this around the cash registers at Burger King as a way to win a free sandwich.

    I never won.