Slotcars

Q: What do model railroads and womens' breasts have in common?
A: They're supposed to be for kids, but dad's the one who plays with them.

For Christmas, my wife and I got 7-year-old Samuel a cheap slotcar set made in Hong Kong. He thinks it's great, his friends like it, his kid sister likes it. And, of course, I love it.

I keep re-designing the track in weird ways. A simple favourite is to turn the power connection bit around after racing for a while, which means that the track changes directions. The other day, I joined up most of the 45º curves into a 150 cm sinus curve where the cars would judder through and nearly, but only nearly, skid off at every single curve. Saturday I built the Tower-of-Babylon spiral track shown in the pic.

The tiny drivers of the slot cars probably think of me as the Great Satan.

[More blog entries about slotcars, toys; bilbana, leksaker.]