Read My Lips - the blog

Blogger toys

While perusing the virtual toy store in search of a suitable jack-in-the-box, I ran across some interesting action figures. I was thinking about buying one for Tig.

• Isaac Newton: "Pelt your genius action figure with apples until he figures out the gravity of the situation. Equal-and-opposite reaction figure sold separately."
• Archimedes: "‘Hey, Mom, I found him!' Whether taking a bath, looking for that elusive lever long enough to move the earth or just plain screwing around, Archy metes out good times. Keep the Syracuse smarty away from Roman soldiers, and he might come up with the calculus two millennia early!"
• Edward Teller: "Ed goes fission--and fusion!--through political minefields for five decades pitching nukes. From mass destruction to nudging away incoming comets and asteroids, Edward tells ya, ‘No nukes is bad nukes.' "
• Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro: "What a mouthful! But you've got his number now--you'll have 6.02x1023 hours of fun with the man who figured out that equal volumes of all gases at the same temperature and pressure contain the same number of molecules. No, really, you will."
• The Big Box o' Steves: "What's more fun than a scientist-writer? A scientist-writer named Steve! You'll get Steven Weinberg, Stephen Jay Gould, Stephen Wolfram, Steven Pinker and Stephen Hawking. Hi-ho, Steverino! (Keep Pinker and Gould figures separate to avoid spontaneous combustion.)"
• Antoine Lavoisier: "Out with the bad phlogiston, in with the good oxygen. You'll lose your head (he did, in that scary Reign of Terror!) over the man behind the law of conservation of mass. Thirteen-year-old wife not sold in the U.S."
• Franz de Waal: "I see primates, I see Franz! Stare at de Waal as he observes chimps and picks up clues about why we humans do the wacky things we do. You'll have a Goodall time!"
• Werner Heisenberg: "Uncertain where you left your Heisenberg action figure? So is he! Check the desk drawers. But don't be surprised if you find Schrödinger's cat. Which may be dead. Or alive!"
• Charles Darwin: "This action figure loves coming along for boat rides and bird-watching but can get down at the Down house in Downe for 40 years at a time. Comes complete with his faithful bulldog, Huxley. Warning: some school boards may try to stick pins in him, but he'll survive those pricks."

I was going to suggest B. F. Skinner, but what good is an action figure that you don't take out of the box?