Last night I spent four and half hours building and rebuilding the Smithsonian Institute's Build Your Own Engine kit for my nephew Boo. Guess what doesn't work? Well, it does work and it doesn't. The lights and gears and shafts all work. But when you plug the electric motor in that turns everything, it'll turn almost one time and then locks up. I took the thing apart and put it back together several times. I have no idea how or where it's locking up, but it is.

The toy does teach you about engines. I know more about them now then I did before. But there's also something cheap about the thing. Plastic always has inherent problems. Parts can be different due to temperature and/or bending and stretching. This makes things not fit well together, and that leads to things locking up. The screws are also cheap, stripping easy. It was not meant to be taken apart and put back together. Hey, wait a minute. That's exactly what it's like with modern cars. I change my mind. This is an ingenious toy.

So far I have survived Christmas. There's been plenty of ups and downs, mostly downs. But I'm still here. And that's really all I wanted out of the holiday was to get through it. There's got to be a less stressful and less fattening holiday out there.


  ¶ 1:10 PM