Gilahi's Gift Guide 2008 - Part 4

Hi folks, and welcome to the fourth and final installment of Gilahi's Gift Guide for 2008, featuring gifts you may remember from your youth.

Those of you who follow this blog via a Google Reader or some other method may have seen part 4 show up on Sunday. This is because we at the Gilahi Blog are technical dimwits who don't know the difference between a day and a year when setting "Post Options", and ended up telling Blogger to post this on 11/01/2006. Sorry if we ruined the surprise, but I do believe that the first three are probably better than this one. Gimme a little break here.

You think your kids want video games, cell phones, DVDs, iPods and other electronic paraphernalia? Well you're right, but imagine how envious all the friends of little Sally and Joey will be when they see that your kids have these:




Yes, little green plastic military men that... well... they don't really do anything. It's not like you can even pose them. I mean, once you lay out a battlefield, you can pretty much just sit there and look at it. Get them a magnifying glass as well and they can amuse themselves for hours by playing "Destructo the Giant Lizard" by slowly melting individual army men in the summer sun.

As long as we're teaching our kids to have fun with war, we may as well go all the way:



Tear off one of the little paper caps, insert it into the "bomb", throw it high in the air, and when it lands the cap will POP... approximately 2% of the time. After trying six or seven more times, peel of the old cap, insert a new one, and start over. Even if they don't explode, it's always fun to throw die-cast metal way up into the air. Who knows? You might hit your kid sister right in the top of the head.

I certainly remember having these as a child:



This is a prime example of taking an existing phrase ("more fun than a...") and producing some hack "game" just for the ease of marketing it. The most fun you can have with these mutant monkeys also involves the above-mentioned magnifying glass.

As long as we're talking about toys that don't do anything:



For $40, you can get a box of colorful little pieces of plastic cut into geometric shapes, suitable for pressing onto an even larger piece of plastic. Your kid's imagination will stimulated beyond your wildest dreams when they put a little red triangle on top of a little blue square and realize that it looks like a house. Sort of. Three circles can make a snowman. Except with no features.

Actually this toy sucks.

Is your kid too young for war? It's still not too early to teach them violence.



Got a problem? Mad at your parents? Hate preschool? Didn't get that Red Ryder Air Rifle? It's OK to punch something. Notice that whoever put that picture in the catalog managed to reverse it so that the target says OZOB? Smack it in the face.

Go to school the next day, say "Wowee, Kazowee" just one time, and you may get hit in the face yourself.

We now come to the last toy in this year's gift guide, a favorite for generations.



OK, I'm done. If you're willing to shell out $50.00 for a cardboard barrel with 102 little pieces of wood in it, then just send the money to me. I promise to send something back and tell you it's worth that much, and you'll believe me. Don't forget the shipping and handling.

We hope you've enjoyed Gilahi's Gift Guide 2008. We wish you a happy and safe holiday season.

Don't eat the fruitcake.