Oldschool tubes

ACME products are grossly over-rated. I once ordered the Acme Wildcat and the damned thing mauled me instead of the person I directly aimed it at.

Falling on snow is pretty benign and often fun. Snow is soft and the coefficient of friction is low. Falling onto dirt and rocks and pavement might not be as fun.

Did you specify the victim, when you ordered it? If not, it goes for the fool who opens the package. :)

Skikes are a much better option for most people. Many rollerskis don't have brakes, or only have brakes on one ski. Skikes are like roller skis but they have larger pneumatic tyres, brakes on both, and they work with normal shoes. That makes it easier to keep your skin attached.

Clifford Heath.

I have an 11-year-old grandson who is, for all intents and purposes, _pro_ level at ice _and_ roller-blade hockey (*) He takes some might nasty falls (he is, as you might expect, somewhat combative ;-), but he's padded every which way from Sunday.

(*) He is the go-to-guy for the _whole_ league when a substitute player is needed.

He's the first "jock" that I know of in the family history. ...Jim Thompson

Not an entirely useless function; probably not all metal tubes get warm under normal operation. Certainly not all glass tubes do; there are a fair number of glass tubes whose filaments don't even get hot enough to glow visibly. Probably in the 1960s not everyone could afford a VTVM or a bench supply that also had a current meter, and the filament resistance might be too high to trigger some simple basic continuity testers

Here is yours truly attempting 360's in the features park at Sugar Bowl:

Well, it's hard to hold a camera and spin at the same time.

I'm about as close to a jock that my family had created up to then (not very close) but The Brat is a real athelete. I can still out-ski her just because I'm crazier than she is.

Sanity is over-rated.

That coyotes actually eat roadrunners?

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Certainly a waste of $3 though. Before my first multimeter I had a torch bu lb in calipers that made testing batteries, switches etc easy.

NT

Would you want to eat a stringy, almost meatless bird?

If I were a coyote, very probably I would. De gustibus non est disputandum.

Coyotes are one of the few members of the canis family that eat carrion, as well as fruits, berries and some vegetables. Roadrunners fit right in.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Keyword: almost

There are Jackrabbits and other animals that are a lot slower, and provide more food than a Roadrunner. Not only that, but the Coyote is a self described 'Genius'. :)

Not all of them Michael, but the ones that are carry a business card that identifies them as such...

Nor does being a genius automatically confer common sense or rationality. A rational genius with common sense would not make a very good cartoon chara cter.

A good illustration of this point was in the first Indiana Jones movie - In di is in the Souk chasing after the girl - and a very large individual with a very large scimitar appears. Indi calmly pulls out his gun and shoots hi m. That is common sense - and entirely unexpected.

Goldfinger - Why the laser - just shoot James Bond.

Were the villains to have common sense, there would be no story. Warner Bro thers (mostly Chuck Jones) understood this completely.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

rothers (mostly Chuck Jones) understood this completely.

Same with TV's campy Batman TV series. The villains didn't just kill the C aped Crusader (and his "ward"), they set up a Rube Goldberg contraption to off them, giving them enough time to use their batbrains to figure out what in Batman's unlimited utility belt would be useful to effect an escape.

But it's not just cartoons, most TV and movie bad guys miss the opportunity to simply kill the hero immediately and instead engage in some useless con versation or something allowing time for our hero to escape.

"Super Genius", in fact.

Coyote is at one end of the curve: ranks high on clever, inventive, and cunning, but barely moves the needle on the wise-meter.