LEGOs
Fuck LEGOs. They're overrated. Kids would be better suited playing with buckets of real liquid cement and mortar than these multicolored rectangular monstrosities. First off, LEGOs were outdated from the moment they were conceived. They’re stiff, boring, and wholly uninspiring. You can only do so much with rectangles. And by so much we mean so little. And by so little we mean nothing, because rectangles suck. Solid geometry is so passé. Second, they’re totally shallow and commercialized. Toy building materials of whatever variety should be about one thing and one thing alone—the construction of useless but awesome structures for their own sakes. LEGOs, however, are the shameless sell-outs of the building block world. There are LEGO Star Wars video games. There are LEGO movies. There are even LEGO hard candies that look exactly like the real candy. Third, Keanu Reeves was made into a LEGO character, and this is patently unacceptable.

Score: 3.7 (If not for Fidel, it would have been a 3)

Salient Statistic: 40% of babies that encounter LEGOs in their playpens confuse them with the aforementioned LEGOs candy, try to eat them, and subsequently choke and die. Candy cigarettes don’t hold a candle to candy LEGOs when it comes to employing personal injury lawyers.

Lincoln Logs
Lincoln Logs - With enough splinter-inducing fun to bring out the rugged individualist in even the most frail hipster to be, Lincoln Logs are the building blocks of a genuinely manly upbringing. Although the question of the origin and first conception of Lincoln Logs often sparks heated debate and discussion, the answer of their origin has never been accurately determined. Wikipedia says that “Lincoln Logs were invented in 1916 by John Lloyd Wright, a son of the notable architect Frank Lloyd Wright”, but Wiki is clearly wrong. Some people think that they were secretly crafted, marketed, and distributed by President Lincoln himself. Others believe that they were delivered to the earth by aliens. But the most plausible hypothesis (in my opinion) is this-- that when something becomes obsolete and outdated, it gets shrunk down and turned into a toy to brainwash the next generation with sentimental feelings about it, and that this is exactly what happened with Lincoln Logs. Think about it. Log cabins suck. They’re drafty, wet, and prone to catching on fire. They’re clearly an inferior and primitive form of housing. Why the hell would we want to build little versions of them if not to idealize a past way of life in a miniature and seemingly innocent way? It’s exactly what happened with things like dolls (they became Barbies) and Hess oil tankers (they became..toy Hess oil tankers sold at Christmas), after all. Regardless of its origin, it’s always fun playing with real wood and hearing the satisfying *plonk* of laying down each miniature log.

Score: 7.5

Salient Statistic: 33% of all males that were exposed to Lincoln Logs during puberty grew beards, donned suspenders, and developed an irrational fear of the ghost of John Wilkes Booth.

K’nex
K’nex are the undisputed king of little interlocking bits of plastic. In terms of complexity, expandability, and sheer sophistication of engineering, K’nex make LEGOs look like they’re missing a chromosome. K’nex have flexible, bendable pieces to help you think outside the box. LEGOs have shitty little rectangles. K’nex have wheels, joints, and battery powered motors for maximum creative potential. LEGOs have a little plastic version of Fidel Castro. K’nex allow you to make everything from Ferris wheels and controllable robots to fighter jets and prototype Turing Machines (among other ridiculous things). LEGOs will make you lose all your friends, and at best allow you to make simple variations on a square. Bottom Line: K’nex are the shit.

Score: 9.5

Salient Statistic: 75% of all chimpanzees that were exposed to K’nex during their afternoon recreational time developed the ability to sculpt statues of themselves out of clay, learned to do basic Euclidian geometry, and started reading Voltaire. (This is in contrast to the LEGO-tested group of chimps, which universally developed a severe and debilitating form of monkey retardation that caused them to attempt to eat unpeeled bananas and prefer to mate with coconuts over each other.)

By the way, this guy gets a perfect 10.


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