tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6404046680226635672012-01-19T10:24:12.825-05:00I'm Tim Walsh and this is my playlog. I plog on toys and the essential skill of squeezing more fun from life. I've written two books on the history of toys, Timeless Toys and the WHAM-O Super-Book. Games that I've designed or developed include TriBond, Blurt! and Mad Gab. Coming later this year is TOYLAND, a documentary film about toy designers on which I am a creative consultant. It's a big year. Join the fun, seize the play!Fearless Leader of The Playmakershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18025955088626052366noreply@blogger.comBlogger195125SeizeThePlayhttp://feedburner.google.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-640404668022663567.post-83958237067169806222012-01-18T05:43:00.029-05:002012-01-18T11:38:23.846-05:002012-01-18T11:38:23.846-05:00

Nearly 2,000 exhibitors from around the globe exhibited at the Hong Kong Toys & Games Fair last week and Tree Toys, my global manufacturing partner, was one of them. We met toy distributors from every corner of the toy world and showed them new game concepts, like Smell-o-rama, a line a scented card games I've developed. In Dr. Fizzy's Fabulous Floats, the cards smell like cola. In Nab Nana's Num

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I'm a big Iron Man fan. I was geeking when the following exchange happened in the first film:Tony Stark works on his repulsor technology in the form of an armature that shoots energy from his palms. His assistant, Pepper Potts interjects.Pepper: "I thought you said you were done making weapons?"Tony: "I did. This is a flight stabilizer. It's completely harmless."The "flight stabilizer" fires and

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Thanks to 2nd Cuz, Lindsay Hargis Post for the heads up!

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For nearly 60 years, Burt Meyer has had fun pegged. He invented Lite Brite and co-invented other fantastic pieces of plastic like Mr. Machine, Mouse Trap, Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, Toss Across and more. Meyer will be honored with the Toy and Game Inventors of the Year, Lifetime Achievement Award on November 18th in Chicago. I am thrilled to be the host of the TAGIE awards again this year and will

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For a few hours a day, over a period of 10 days, a group of gamers got together to play an online puzzle game called Foldit. A group of 12 to 15 of them conquered the game. Happens all the time, right? Not like this.In a paper published last month in Natural Structure and Molecular Biology crowdsourcing was used to predict the structure of a protein. From the paper:Following the failure of a wide

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In sports they call it being in The Zone. It's those extended moments of play when time seems to stand still and the task at hand is fluid and fun. The Zone is an easy place to be, but a hard place to find. Author Roy Palmer suggests that this state may influence a better integration of the conscious and subconscious reflex functions, which in turn, improves coordination. Many athletes reflect

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My comment within a story on the Huffington-Post website a few days ago put me back in touch with a fellow writer of fun, Kirk Demarias. Kirk wrote a great book on prank and joke novelties called Life of the Party.I highly recommend it. Come to find out, Kirk is at it again with his latest work of nostalgia and awesomeness simply called, Mail-Order Mysteries. It's all about those wonderfully

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Heard today that a food legend had left us. You can't get a cheese steak here in Florida like the ones Geno's and Pat's make.

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Look! It's Tim and Moby! A few weeks ago I attended the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference in Philadelphia. I am here to laud its praises. I guess that makes me an ISTE LAUDER. *Ahem*ISTE was eye-opening. As a game creator, I think there's a real opportunity to use games to take learning to a new level. I took in the fun at the BrainPOP booth (where I met Moby).

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Check out the fun we had at the Elmhurst Historical Museum's Toys in the Hood event. Thanks to Lance Tawzer and all the fun folks at the museum for putting on a world class event!

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Check out this Hot Wheels inspired world record jump which took place before the Indianapolis 500! I think I had 300 feet of that bright orange track in my boyhood house. "I believe I can fly!"

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Last month I had the pleasure of moderating a panel at PlayCon, the Toy Industry Association’s International Conference of Play Professionals. Featuring the likes of (L to R above) Nancy Zwiers of Funosophy, Dr. Scott Eberle of the Strong National Museum of Play and Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute of Play, PlayCon was a wealth of useful and intriguing information. As you might

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Here on the west edge of paradise, we have an Emmy award-winning TV series from WEDU in Tampa called A Gulf Coast Journal. Produced by Jen Noble and hosted by TV veteran Jack Perkins, the show brings the fun, odd, inspirational and quirky people of Western Florida to light. This past week, producer Jen and host Jack turned their lens on Toy Inventors!

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Sports Illustrated is reporting that the New York state health department lists Capture the flag, freeze tag, kickball and Wiffle Ball as activities that pose a "significant risk of injury" to children.Thank you to the fine state of New York and our uber-litigious nation for helping to make our kids the fattest in history.Have you been injured at recess!? Call your parents right away and tell

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Over the past few months, I've been working with Lance Tawzer, curator at the Elmhurst Historical Museum in Elmhurst, Illinois on an exhibit called Toys in the Hood. It will run from April 28th through September 18th and unveils Chicago as the epicenter of toy creation. Many toy companies and toy invention studios call or called the Windy City their home. If you've got plans to visit Chicago this

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My Mom died on January 22, 2011, at the young age of 79. She fought Leukemia bravely and left an example of steadfast faith and strength. It's been a tough couple of months. At her funeral I told a story of her faith and her playful spirit coming together one Sunday morning.My mom was walking home from church in her new Sunday School dress when she was 14-years old. Being a middle class kid, a

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When I was a kid growing up in New Jersey, my sister and I would take our Flexible Flyer sleds and pull them a few blocks to a local golf course and spend the day flying down a fairway slick with ice and snow. Snow Days off from school were especially awesome. There was the time I slipped while pushing my little sister on our snowy street and knocked myself out. There were igloos in the side yard

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Had a great time taking toys with Rick Bergman on KDKA tonight. Here are some links I mentioned on air!Everything Robots!Little Orphan Annie Skipping Rope!Info on the Landlord's Game (Predecessor to Monopoly)

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Some old problems can be solved with some new toys and games!PROBLEM: The American epidemic of childhood obesity. Kids just don’t get out and move as much as they did a generation ago and today's kids are on course to to be very unhealthy adults. We've got to get them off the couch!SOLUTION: Seige Caster Scooter from Razor. It features adjustable handle bars and it folds up for easy take-along

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Perhaps it was the full-sized airplanes suspended above like mobiles in a playful giant's bedroom. Or maybe it was the full-sized train that was tucked behind the stage that looked like a Lionel. If not that, then certainly the 45-foot Christmas tree with 30,000 lights and 1,000 ornaments got your attention. Everyone who came to the 2010 Toy and Game Inventor Awards last Friday night knew they

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Join me next week! I'll be shooting some videos of fans playing Blurt in some of the coolest toy stores around. Play on camera for a chance to win a Playmakers Play Pack which includes over $150 dollars worth of fun, including autographed copies of Blurt!, TriBond, Timeless Toys, WHAM-O Super-Book, Toyland, and more! OCT 25Bennett's Educational Store 3 - 6pm5130 Hollister AvenueSanta Barbara,

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The Naperville Independent Film Festival brought me to Chicagoland last week and it wasn't just winning "Best Documentary Feature" for Toyland that made it so memorable. On the 22nd I had wonderful dinner with John and Madeline Spinello. He is the inventor of Operation and she is the most fantastic cook in the world. What a fun night filled with good conversation, good wine, and great food. We

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Dave Clark contracted polio shortly after he was born. As a boy he discovered that play put him on equal terms with his able-bodied classmates. He may have worn leg braces, but he could still hit a baseball or stop a hockey puck. Play helped him become one of the kids, instead of the kid that stood out because of the crutches which were his constant companions. In his new book Diamond in the

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David Moye writes about the weird for AOL NEWS. The world of toys certainly qualifies. In Toyland, we tell the story of how Richard James, the inventor of Slinky left his wife and six kids, with the Slinky company in debt, and joined a religious cult in Bolvia. It was 1960, 15 years after he'd invented the iconic toy. He never returned to his family and died there in South America in 1974,

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