Some ideas are just bad

Look closely ... it's an actual product that was really made and really sold and really used ... see what it is? Oh, c'mon. Look again. It's an arm-wrestling machine!!!

Now, have you seen the movie Philadelphia Story? There's a line - an answer to "it doesn't take much imagination to figure out what happened." The answer is, "not much, perhaps, but of a certain kind."

Well, how much of a certain kind of imagination does it take to anticipate the possibility that an arm-wrestling machine might not be a good idea? I figure the answer is somewhere between knowing the probabilities of success for a kid who says, "if I hold the sheet out just right, I will fly off this barn roof," and ... say ... being able to anticipate that one might burn food left too long on the stove. Not much, perhaps, but of a certain kind.

So what happened? They released this innovation into the marketplace, and lo and behold, people got their arms broken! Go figure! They're recalling it - and the manufacturer is quite certain that it must've been the fault of the players themselves that they got injured. I must say, I agree with the manufacturers. Players would not have needed much imagination ... but only of a certain kind.