Yo-tastic!

I was talking to one of my co-workers about a PC game, Guild Wars, and he really got me interested in it. It's a MMORPG, free to play online (i.e. no monthy subscription) and it looks pretty cool. So I went to the mall yesterday to check up on it and it sounds pretty good. EB only had one copy and I didn't like the version of the box it was in so I told the clerk I'd think about it.

While I was walking around pondering the meaning of MMORPG, I decided to look for a particular Yo-Yo I saw in a TV commerical. It's funny. Yo-Yo's are definitely a fad toy, but for some reason they just keep on coming back. . . strange eh? So, I find them hidden away at Walmart. Yotech is the new brand I saw on TV. Nothing special, $6 for a basic Yo-Yo, fixed metal axle, plastic sides, spare string and tricks on a CDROM. It's pretty stylish looking, but not quite what I was looking for. After all, the commerical was claiming it to be pretty revolutionary. Then I saw the "Level 1" marked on the package. *lightbulb* There must be other models! Searched the rest of the aisle, but no dice. Off to Toys R Us.

Found a whole bunch of Yo-Yo's there. Found the other model there too. $9 with a fancy transaxle clutch mechanism to make the Yo-Yo auto return. Not exactly what I call revolutionary, I have one with a simular system already in my collection (in fact, it looks exactly the same). I don't like it. It's cool at first, but once you start doing tricks and the thing kicks back when you don't want it to. . . not fun.

I did find this one:


This one's cool. It's got a sleeve bearing for an axle, adjustable response/spin settings, and it looks awesome. I got the yellow one. It works great. Advanced sleeper tricks are a breeze with this thing. You can take the thing apart and see the axle mechanism; it's pretty neat how it works. Only con, the plastic is really hard! After a few hard throws, it starts to really hurt your hand! Picture a solid piece of pastic and metal slamming into the palm of your hand at about 50 kph. . . .

Oh, and I did get Guild Wars. Futureshop had the collector's edition with an artbook, comm-headset, and other stuff included. More on that later.