Japanese Engineering

Yesterday, Felix came over to visit us. I kept confusing his name with Phillip, another of Daddy's work friends who I've met. I told Felix that I was very excited to see him since he taught me the hard boiled egg tapping game. (This is the game where you tap two eggs together and the one that doesn't break wins.) I explained to him my strategy---I try to figure out which is the stronger egg. Then I insist that the other person keep her egg still while I do the tapping. Ususually this strategy wins. Felix was impressed.

Next, we had a paper airplane flying contest with three guys. We picked our airplane teams when Daddy was out of the room, so he got the dregs of the airplanes. In both contests, Felix managed to win thanks to a Japanese plane. The reason is that he picked a plane called a shiburu in Japanese. A shiburu is a Japanese origami version of the standard paper airplane, but, as you might imagine, it's got a lot more folds than the usual plane. It flies very far and straight, which is an advantage in this contest since distance determines victory. Felix kept saying it was the triumph of superior Japanese engineering---sort of like the Toyota.