Buckbyballs

I assume that because you are a chemical engineer that you are familiar with Buckyballs?  That may not be true. But I will assume you are.  These are Buckyballs:

So around last Christmas, this was "The Toy" to get.  Chris was really excited about them and thought they would be fun, but I wasn't about to pay $35 for them, which is what they normally go for.  Then when we were in Tucson, we went to the U of A bookstore because my Mom wanted to see it and they had these on sale for $18 so I bought some for Chris for a late Christmas present.

Fast forward to last month.  The government has decided that they want to ban this toy (surprised??) because they are dangerous when swallowed... Yeah, that's true, but a lot of things are dangerous when swallowed and you can't ban it all. Also, these are specifically not advertised as children's toys. *Sigh*.  ANYWAY. There are a couple of competitors to Buckyballs. One of them is "ZenMagnets".  Well, ZenMagnets had this essay contest on their website (http://zenmagnets.com/index.php?p=1_8_Contest) that if you wrote a 1000 word essay defending them that they could submit to elected officials, and if they accepted your essay, they would send you a free kit of ZenMagnets in the mail. So I wrote an essay.

Guess what came today???

My ZenMagnets!!!  I'm not sure why we really need two sets of these magnets. Or even one, really. But I am excited to have my own desk sometime soon so that I can have my own set as a "desk toy".  They are pretty amusing.. and I got them for free! Because I wrote an essay! Talking about how big, controlling government is stupid! My specialty!!