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Aug. 12th, 2008
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Aug. 12th, 2008 11:54 amI have noticed an inverse correlation between the price of a toy and how much fun it is.
Really fun: boxes of all kinds. Tiny foam animals in little capsules that dissolve and expand in water-- truly beloved, for probably about $2 for a dozen. Return address labels that we get for free in the junk mail. A scary costume made out of a paper grocery bag. An old broken phone, disconnected.
Slightly more expensive, but excellent value for the play milage we've gotten out of them: The $10 Woody and Jesse set. Cardboard puzzles. The $10 huge haul of assorted Duplo blocks from a yard sale. Things I had bought for my own use long ago: office supplies, exercise tubing.
Not worth the money at all: The $80 American Girl Bitty Baby doll, abandoned, face-down, in some corner. The robotic dog-- "scary". Buzz Lightyear: more expensive than Woody, also less cuddly. The Build-A-Bear dinosaur: more expensive than other stuffed animals, but not any more popular once the excitement of getting it is done.
Also, I'm tempted to get rid of nearly all the toys that require batteries.
Really fun: boxes of all kinds. Tiny foam animals in little capsules that dissolve and expand in water-- truly beloved, for probably about $2 for a dozen. Return address labels that we get for free in the junk mail. A scary costume made out of a paper grocery bag. An old broken phone, disconnected.
Slightly more expensive, but excellent value for the play milage we've gotten out of them: The $10 Woody and Jesse set. Cardboard puzzles. The $10 huge haul of assorted Duplo blocks from a yard sale. Things I had bought for my own use long ago: office supplies, exercise tubing.
Not worth the money at all: The $80 American Girl Bitty Baby doll, abandoned, face-down, in some corner. The robotic dog-- "scary". Buzz Lightyear: more expensive than Woody, also less cuddly. The Build-A-Bear dinosaur: more expensive than other stuffed animals, but not any more popular once the excitement of getting it is done.
Also, I'm tempted to get rid of nearly all the toys that require batteries.
(no subject)
Aug. 12th, 2008 03:34 pmI’ve been reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Maybe I’ll rant at length about the economics of food production, industrial organic, nutrition, and the merits vs. demerits of vegetarianism, later.
Mom is planning a trip to Virginia, to show a friend around, do the tourist thing. When I heard that she’s planning to include Charlottesville in the itinerary, I said Great, you must take your friend to a nice restaurant there, one that has a real chef, and get some Polyface Farm chicken, and report back to me how it is. Someday I’ll loan her the book to read (she introduced me to Michael Pollan first, so I’m sure she’ll read this one) but not until after her Virginia trip, just in case the bit about the chickens eating the bugs out of the cow poop squicks her. I mean, really, the crap they feed livestock in industrial agriculture is much more disgusting, but at least in that case we are kept quite blissfully ignorant of it.
Mom is planning a trip to Virginia, to show a friend around, do the tourist thing. When I heard that she’s planning to include Charlottesville in the itinerary, I said Great, you must take your friend to a nice restaurant there, one that has a real chef, and get some Polyface Farm chicken, and report back to me how it is. Someday I’ll loan her the book to read (she introduced me to Michael Pollan first, so I’m sure she’ll read this one) but not until after her Virginia trip, just in case the bit about the chickens eating the bugs out of the cow poop squicks her. I mean, really, the crap they feed livestock in industrial agriculture is much more disgusting, but at least in that case we are kept quite blissfully ignorant of it.