I ended up buying replacement parts for my Fireball and Hyper Raider, as well as a Pro Speed on sale. Everything arrived today, so I get to have fun learning loops and two-handed play on the old pieces, and binds and string tricks on the new one.
My wife put one of these into my Christmas stocking. I guess I’m that guy now.
Remember to practice in a room alone, unless you want your family to use it as humor fodder forevermore.
I just read this whole thread (I should really visit Everything else more often). I’m both sad and old that I just read a whole YoYo thread, and there was not one mention of the Smothers Brothers. Tommy Smothers was what got me into Yoyo’s way way back (in the time before all this crazy un-reponsive stuff, of which I’d never heard of).
There is a reason people don’t bring that up first
Don’t taunt my childhood!
I do have this… picture taken, just for you, @Daagar
Here’s a somewhat more modern tricks video for you as well from 1999.
Also @telefrog I would stay away from beeboo they are not a well regarded value brand. Magicyoyo is though! If you start getting a few yo-yos, try to strongly vary the shape of the various ones you own, to better determine what you like:
There are many possible mixtures of these shapes; I find I personally tend to prefer an H with an O flavor to the wings, myself. The shutter you have is close to the platonic ideal of the basic modern competition yoyo, but there are other shapes that people prefer.
I completely misunderstood when you posted that pic, that it was a picture you actually took. Didn’t click until I saw your insane collection.
Always assume insanity.
Very cool. That’s a lot of yo-yo’s.
Oh, and I approve of your movie posters as well.
I bought yoyos for everyone at the Stack Overflow offices. The writeup Jay delivered for it was absolutely perfect, and captures precisely what is so fascinating about yo-yos to me.
tl;dr: Our co-founder, Jeff Atwood, has bought a non-responsive yo-yo for every employee in the New York Office. Grab yours in the Dino Cafe on 28.
Why? Because he loves you, and wants you to be happy. But only after you are very, very frustrated. You see, these are not the typical yo-yos you had as a tot. You know, the kind that come back when you throw them, thereby fulfilling the central promise of a yo-yo. These are known as “unresponsive yo-yos”, because they don’t respond - or “come back” when you tug the string. It’s literally a yo-yo that doesn’t naturally do the one thing yo-yos are supposed to do.
The advantage of this is that since the yo-you keeps spinning at the end of the sting, you can do much more complex tricks without it accidentally coming back to you. Like this:
But first you have to learn a whole special trick called a “bind" just to make the damn thing come back.
Which brings me to why Jeff has bought you a yo-yo. He’s recently realized that “giving people unresponsive yo-yos” is a metaphor for his work to date. He builds systems that… don’t quite work how you expect, can be a little frustrating and surprising at first, but ultimately can bring the deep satisfaction that can only come from helping a stranger learn something, or making a stupid toy finally behave the way you want it to.
Enjoy your yo-yo.
Jay
The GIF referenced is from the short Coffin Nachtmahr documentary which is excellent and quite inspirational:
TL;DR. I love you, and I want you to be happy. But only after you are very, very frustrated.
That is awesome. Very cool analogy for life in general too.
Yes, this is why when @tomchick wrote
Oh my god, I would love a yo-yo! Just hearing you mention it has my wrist wanting to do a little involuntary flick, and I haven’t yo-yo’ed a yo-yo in, gosh, ten years or more. I could never do anything too fancy, but there’s nothing quite like the satisfying slap into your palm when it comes back!
I was like… yeahhh… you won’t be getting that feeling. That’s kind of what I do. I will frustrate you, but it’s for your own good, damn it!
(I’ve actually softened my stance on this somewhat, and I tend to send people both kinds of yoyos now, both responsive and unresponsive.)
Your story inspires me - I’m going to practice binds with the Pro Speed and loops with the Hyper Raider tonight.
Also, I ordered a metal yo-yo on Wish a while back that should be here any day now. I don’t expect it to be any good for serious play, but I want to see how a metal body feels in my hand compared to the plastic bodies of the various Yomega pieces I’ve always used.
Wait a minute! You didn’t tell us the make and model of the official Stack Overflow yoyo! What is it?
It is the magic yoyo n12 which is widely considered the best value for a decent modern metal responsive yoyo. I ordered direct from Ali Express in bulk to NYC, 108 in total.
Ah ha! I know this one! I read about it back when I was shopping around. I’m a yo-yo nerd now!
That was amazingly cool of you Wumpus! I always think its awesome when someone shares what they love like that.
@wumpus I was previously unaware of who you are, so I’ve got to admit that I’ve had fun today telling people at my office (who have seen me playing with the yo-yo you sent me) that I got it from Jeff Atwood. We’re a tech company, so people are familiar. :)