A Great Advancement In Toy Technology

(For sis, who is on a trip: Bombshock, Optimus Prime, and Bumblebee. [Also, on an unrelated note, space slug and interocitor.] She knows what I'm talking about. For the rest of you... Sorry, you'll just have to wonder.)

For more than a decade now, the majority of American toys (at least, the majority of my American toys) have suffered through a brutal requirement in the name of safety: Twist-ties.

These plastic-coated wires have been the bane of many a child's (and toy collector's) efforts to extract their toys from packaging. (As Dave Barry once noted, it seems that the safety regulations are updated because now and again the regulators receive word that a child managed to get a toy out of a package.)

I am happy to report, however, that for the first time in history that trend seems to have reversed.

I recently purchased several Transformers, and upon opening one discovered a significant, incredible change:

They've replaced the nigh-indestructible metal/plastic composite twist-ties with tough yet easily cut-with-scissors paper/string ties.

As someone who has opened multiple Supreme and Leader class Transformers, who tend to have a twist-tie spaced every three quarters of an inch across their massive frames, secured tightly by any means possible, and generally collapsed in exhaustion afterward, being able to easily cut the [expletive deleted] things with scissors without worrying about dulling the blades is wonderful. I could cut the new strings with my tiny, poorly designed toenail scissors.

On the other hand, the new strings probably will keep me from building a five foot tall model of the Liege Maximo out of the old twist-ties, but I guess you can't have everything.

Here's hoping they're a permanent change.

-Signing off.