Toys for 5yr. old, Letdown!

[Kai]

I thought I would pass this along:

Our 5 yr. old has been wanting a "Rock Polisher/tumbler" for a while. We finally brokedown and bought him one. I must say it was a complete letdown for him.

To polish rocks you must go through 3 stages to get a final result. Stage one lasts 48 hours, stage two last 14 days , and stage three lasts 7 days or more, depending upon how "polished" you want your rocks.

Now imagine trying to explain to a 5 year old who is so excited about seeing rocks go from jagged to shiny, that he has to wait for the better part of a month for the results. He actually cried when we told him he would have to wait that long.

We went back and read the outside of the box and nowhere does it say that you must wait 4 weeks for the end result. All this while the machine is pugged into a wall outlet and making a racket! What a joke.

Overall: Two thumbs down, do not buy it!

Feel free to post about other crappy toys.

 

[rovercanus]

You should spank him for crying. That helps .
I had one when I was a kid too. Long time to wait for shiny pebbles he's just gonna put in his mouth!

 

[syoung]

My advice- go buy some shiny rocks and swap 'em into the polisher while he's asleep. Then the polisher mysteriously breaks after using it a couple times. To console him, order a 1:18 Discovery die cast model or maybe a Defender off eBay.

 

[draaronr]

Damn Steve is evil, what a great ideal, I guess if you are going to lie about Santa, then the rock polisher won't be a stretch.

 

[syoung]

It's merely called 'redirection'
My kid has had some disappointing toys before and it bums me out too- so I usually find an easy way to get his attention on something else. Of course, you can't shield them from all disappointment or they'll be a wuss or even worse, a liberal when they grow up.

 

[AndyThoma]

It's merely called 'redirection'
My kid has had some disappointing toys before and it bums me out too- so I usually find an easy way to get his attention on something else. Of course, you can't shield them from all disappointment or they'll be a wuss or even worse, a liberal when they grow up.

'that's funny right there, I don't care who you are ..."

 

[Krawler]

'that's funny right there, I don't care who you are ..."

you forgot "git-r-done"

 

[marc olivares]

Of course, you can't shield them from all disappointment or they'll be a wuss or even worse, a liberal when they grow up.

Hmmm, my childhood is now becoming unsettlingly clear...

 

[Matt Taylor]

I don't know much about rock polishers -- in fact, this is the first I've heard of them.

But on the kid's toys topic, it's amazing to me how cool toys are nowadays. When I was was a kid, anything electronic or remote control was really expensive. Today, you can get stuff for under five bucks that would have made me crap myself had I had them when I was little.

For example, have you guys seen those super minitature remote control cars? They're like Hot Wheels size. I may have to go get me a couple of those. Drastically different than the cheapo ones when we were kids, with wires connecting the cars to the remote so you had to chase behind the fargin thing.

I remeber this thing I had called Big Trak -- you might remember the commercial. The kid programmed to go a certain distance then drop off an apple to his dad who was sitting in the living room. It must have been an expensive toy back then. Today, it would probably cost less than five bucks.

I kinda like toys too much. I was trying to find an Evil Kenivel Stunt Cycle recently on ebay, but they want to much for them.

 

[syoung]

I remember that Big Trak- I wanted one SO bad. The RC cars we had sucked. Remember the ones that only could turn in reverse- and one direction at that? I had a green corvette with yellow headlights zooom forward, the back up and turn left. Rechargable batteries? Not!
I never gave up toys- I just spent 45 minutes flying a little RC helicopter through my living room.

 

[rover4x4]

well seeing as it takes thousands to millions of years in geologic time for that to happen, a little more speedily if you are under a glacier but saltating along the river bottom yeah...

that thing seems like a pretty good deal to me, smooth rocks in weeks.

 

[Matt Taylor]

A friend of mine bought a remote control helicopter about 2 months ago. I told him those things were really hard to fly, but this other friend of his convinced him that he knew all about them, that he could handle it, etc etc.

So this jackass lets his buddy try to fly it in the street. It went straight up like 30 feet or so and dropped like brick, splintering into like a thousand little bitty pieces. Hysterically funny.

A week later, after the guy had bought him a new one, the same original jackass was in his kitchen trying to make the thing hover, bouncing it off of the refigerator and oven. Some people never learn, I guess.

BTW, the Big Track wasn't really that great once you got it. I could never make it do all the cool shit it did on the commercial. You programmed in how many feet you want it to go before it turns, etc. How's a 7 year old supposed to calculate how many feet this thing has to go before turning left into the hallway, then right into the living room, then left...

Good commercial, though.

 

[antichrist]

It's merely called 'redirection'
My kid has had some disappointing toys before and it bums me out too- so I usually find an easy way to get his attention on something else. Of course, you can't shield them from all disappointment or they'll be a wuss or even worse, a liberal when they grow up.

I was dissapointed all the time when I was a kid. I guess that's why I grew up to be a libertarian, knowing that, no matter who's in power, we're screwed.

 

[Greg French]

The Big Trak ROCKED!
My friend, Dave, had one when we were kids. He even had the little trailer that plugged into it and you could control to make it dump at a certain place.

It helped me to learn how mant feet away things were. We used to have contests to see who could get it closest to something in another room.

He also had the 2XL robot. Basically just an 8-Track player that played trivia games.

 

[Matt Taylor]

I think I still have the Big Trak trailer around somewhere...No idea what happened to the Big Trak, though.