Slinkies to Soviet Russia

Good evening, party people.
I would like to tell you that the lack of updates had something to do with my being trapped for weeks in a cave surrounded by zombie raptors (not all of them became fossils. Learn the truth the paleontologists don't want you to know) and fighting my way out with nothing but a Jeep, a chainsaw and my sheer, unadulterated awesomeness, but it had a lot more to do with writing a series of 15-20 page papers and college a'cappella.
Pretend it was the raptors. It's so much more fun with raptors.
Anyway, Slinkies to Soviet Russia. Wikipedia, reality's attempt at the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, tells us that a Slinky is: "...a toy consisting of a helical spring that stretches and can bounce up and down. It can perform a number of tricks, including traveling down a flight of steps end-over-end and reforms itself with the aid of gravity and its own momentum." In layman's terms, "it rolls downstairs alone or in pairs."
It would seem to most people that this is really all the Slinky needs to do. Walking down stairs is a pretty neat trick for what would normally be an inanimate object. However, if you are a small child, a Slinky absolutely must be a belt or a bracelet. There is no way around this. The fact that they are specifically designed to collapse in on themselves will not stop you from joyously wrapping a Slinky around your waist and wailing with despair when in becomes entangled in a brightly colored plastic (or worse, steel) Gordian knot from which you will never properly disentangle it. Even if it comes apart, it will never slink again. It will be permanently deformed, with one tragically herniated segment of spring protruding sadly from its side. You will try to get it to roll happily downstairs and it will halfheartedly lope down two or three before sitting there, staring at you, blaming you for trying to force it into a life it never wanted. Under its baleful, plastic eye, you will vow to never attempt to turn a Slinky into a fashion accessory ever again.
Until you get another one, at which point you will be instantly possessed with the need to turn it into a belt.
It's a vicious cycle.
Aside from persistent, fashion-concious children, there is another group of people who want to do weird things with Slinkies. These people are 1980's era astronauts.
I was disappointed to learn "1980's astronauts" does not mean a lot of people in futuristic helmets and glittery jumpsuits gliding majestically through space in a day-glo shuttle to the strains of David Bowie. However, on the plus side, though they may be low on glitter, they did bring toys into space to see how they worked in zero gravity. Turns out that in space, no one can see you slink. This is because you can't. Or rather, Slinkies can't. One scientist is reported (by Wikipedia. Don't hold me to this, but:) to have said "It won't slink at all... it sort of droops."
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. A toy that relies on the aid of gravity won't move without gravity. A revelation about Slinkies brought to you by the era that decided to combine them with eyeballs to produce "crazy eyes." Now THOSE I would like to see in space.
You know who else was very into doing things in space? Why, the former Soviet Union of course! True, the whole space race thing wound down about ten years or so before they started blasting Slinkies into the great, black beyond, but I'm sure the Soviet Union did all sorts of funky space stuff as well. Maybe they tested the Etch-a-sketch?

If you'd like to irrevocably link your adolescence as well as your childhood with the former Soviet Union, go ahead and watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8

And now to turn my Slinky into a belt.

Buoys to Bangladesh.