Friday, November 5, 2010

Cybiko


In 2002 a movie came out with Frankie Muniz and Amanda Bynes called "Big Fat Liar". I honestly do not remember much about the plot, all I remember is that they had these cool gadgets called Cybikos that they would use to communicate with each other. It was like text messaging before there was text messaging. All I knew was that I had to have one. I pictured myself sitting in my room, or on the bus, or at school chatting with all my friends all the time. It was going to be magical. So on our next trip to Best Buy I went to check them out. Cybikos came in so many bright cool colors. Of course I wanted a yellow one, I always wanted yellow things. I also learned that not only did it let you communicate with your friends, but you could also download like a million games online onto your Cybiko and even raise a little Cybee. Which was basically a giga pet, just a little more involved and high tech. I really needed one of these Cybikos.
That December for my birthday all I asked for was a Cybiko. I thought it would change my life. I thought about it all day on my birthday until finally it was time to open presents. I ripped into the first box and screeched with delight at the beautiful new yellow Cybiko in my hands. It was finally mine. Then things took a turn for the worse.
Upon further inspection I learned that you actually had to be within a 2 mile radius of the person you wanted to communicate with. I was a little disappointed with this news, but I figured that would be fine because Corie and Sally were my neighbors. I quickly realized that even though they were closer than 2 miles, they did not have a Cybiko. I was so sure that after they saw mine they would get one for Christmas which was just a few weeks away. I could definitely wait that long. Christmas came and went and I was still the only person I knew with a Cybiko. Actually I was the only person I knew with two Cybikos. My original yellow one would not download the games or the little Cybee that I wanted so badly so Dad got me a new purple one.
I spent hours at the computer trying to get my data loaded and games working on the Cybiko. It never worked. By February I was pretty disgusted with my useless toy. Of course in February they came out with the Cybiko Extreme and Dad bought me one. He felt bad that I had wanted this gadget so badly and it didn't work, so he kept trying to fix it.
Now I had three Cybikos that basically only told me the time and had a calendar on them. None of them would communicate with anyone and none of them would play games.
I blame Amanda Bynes and Frankie Muniz for leading me to believe that this would be the coolest toy ever. They were very wrong. Dennis and Sarah Margaret made fun of me a lot for that one. Cybikos were the biggest disappointment of the new millennium for me. They did look really cool though.

1 comment:

Kristi said...

don't you remember friend.link!?

"Friend.link is a beeper-sized toy you can use send messages to your friends who also have friend.links. It works as long as you are within 25 feet of each other. You can send a message to a lot of people or just one friend. It comes with a keychain link on it, so you can attach it to your backpack. It shows the time and date and a list of hobbies, so you can put a check next to your favorite hobbies. You can enter passwords for up to 6 friends so that you can send them messages. It also comes with a fortune-telling game."