On a recent eBay search, I stumbled upon a seller named penptech. I first noticed that penptech had a slim metallic yo-yo with slight butterfly shape and rubber rims. This bizarre yo-yo was listed as a “Metallic Missile” and was further described as “This is the flagship in Yomega’s High Performance fleet”. Most striking was the yo-yo’s low price; $.99.

I’ve seen many scams on eBay, but this item seemed legit. Shipping was about $7 and there was good buyer feedback, so I went ahead and bought two of these “Metallic Missiles” and one of their “Power Brain” yo-yo.

A few weeks later, the yo-yos arrived. I couldn’t believe. Yeah, they are totally cheap POS’s, but it wasn’t a scam. One of the metallic missile knock offs was missing it’s bearing, which wasn’t a big deal since the first thing I did was but Buzzon SPR guts in it anyway. The Power Brain knock off was just a cheap ball bearing butterfly yo-yo. Not great, but worth 8 bucks. To be honest, the Metallic Missiles actually play really well with SPR kits in them. Do yourself a favor and pick up some of the remaining stock. You could also feel free to buy the size 44 Valentino Jacket for me while you are at it. It’s only $.99!

My friend Terry Trimble just sent me a link to Active People‘s (from Switzerland) new toy, the [YO]2 Delta.

The Delta is a yo-yo top hybrid. From the video, it appears to be a very well balanced yo-yo, but for some reason they did put a groove on the top tip, which would have provided for a better blend of yo-yoing and top tricks, but whatever.

Obviously the shape is a little similar to the old yo-yo tops I used to put together.

I should also mention that Active People have a complete yo-yo line. See if you can identify where each of there yo-yos got their shape from.

For anyone intersted, LetsHaveFun.biz has the full line of Active People toys (as well as carrying Vulto’s Yo-yos).

In my time spent yo-yoing, I’ve created a few tricks and a few mods. In my mind, if a trick catches on, it’s a success… but I guess if I create a trick that doesn’t catch on, but I love, it would also be a success.

In terms of mods, I guess I feel pretty much the same way. My mods are mostly created for me, but when they catch on, I’m doubly happy. A few years ago though, Spintastics and a few other companies started releasing “beefcaked” yo-yos.

Beefcaking was something I created for modding Vipers. Viper bearings are tiny, but if you put two side by side, you can get some great play out of it. Beefcaking was a total fad mod, but when companies started using me technique and the name I had given it too, well I felt a little cheated. I mean if someone would have simply called and asked, I would have said sure.

What I’m getting at, I suppose, is just a reminder that if you are basing something you manufacture on the works of someone else, it’s a good idea to at least let them know about it. Give them credit, maybe even offer them a prototype, or a discounted price or something.

It’s just sort of common sense, not just in yo-yoing, but through any other hobbies your life may come across.

If anyone would like to make a small run of beefcaked or shmooved yo-yos, feel free to contact me and at least say “Hi, do you mind if we do this?” Of course, if you are just doing a single mod or something you totally don’t need to let me know, but I’d love it if you feel like sharing the results with me.

Reach me at doc at doctorpopular.com

Oh, and Dave… where’s my Save Deth DVD? I’ve been getting emails and instant messages about my Moebius section, and I’m dying to see it for myself.

I accumulated a lot of new items at The Missouri State Yo-Yo Contest. This is some of it.

Clockwise from left;

Drown Radio signage from my show.

MOYO tag on my Blackspot sneaker.

Louisville Slugger clicker from Rick.

Dert by Russ Andert. Traded for a something something. I love it.

Baby Dert, bought from Chris. First yo-yo I’ve bought in a long long time.

Baby Dert, traded for a something something. I love the Baby Dert, it’s totally my favorite new yo-yo of the year.

MOYO cufflinks. Sterling silver with the date of the event stamped on the back.

Modded trucker hat. With a MOYO pin over the printed logo.

The event was a blast, I saw lots of old friends from my early days in the midwest and did tons of climbing in the City Museum.

Sphere of bonding.

Today is the last day of the 28 Days of Yo blogging project, but that obviously doesn’t mean it will be the last thing I ever post so if you’d like to keep up to date on my blogging, I suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed.

An RSS feed is a way to see whenever a site use has updated or not. In order to use the feed though you’ll need an RSS aggregator. I use Newsgator, it works similar to web based email but for keeping track of sites. To get started with a subscription, just sign in to your RSS aggregator, then go to add feeds and add this url:

http://doctorpopular.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

RSS really simplifies my web surfing and it’s becoming a standard tool on most sites. In fact many blog and web 2.0 sites have automatic RSS generators that the site owners might not even know about. Many sites feature RSS “subscribe now” buttons that you simply have to click to add to your aggregator. Here are a few more feed urls to add.

http://www.yoyonation.com/blog/feed/
http://www.yoyoing.com/blog/?feed=rss2
http://www.schalicto.com/feed
http://www.docpop.org/feed
http://www.drownradio.com/feed

You can even use RSS feeds to maintain a search on services like eBay, Craigslist, and Amazon. For example:

http://rss.api.ebay.com/ws/rssapi?FeedName=SearchResults&siteId=0&language=en-US&output=RSS20&catref=C6&sabfmts=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&ftrv=1&ftrt=1&fsop=1&fsoo=1&from=R10&satitle=super+sellout&sacat=-1&saobfmts=insif&_trksid=m37

Of course if you are using Firefox you can subscribe to a live bookmark feed too, but I don’t thing live bookmarks are nearly as usefull as a web based aggregator.

Blah blah blah, hey just think… if you subscribe to my feed… you’ll be notified every time I write on my blog… about getting you to subscribe to my feed… so that you can be notified… every time I write about subscribing to my blog. It keeps going on and on my friends.

If you know any other rss feed urls, post ’em below.