I remember first hearing about this whole, you know, cup stacking phenomenon about five or so years ago—although in reality it's been around at least 25 years. Apparently the sport revolves around conning kids into developing near superhuman abilities in stacking and unstacking plastic cups.
If you haven't heard of this before, you should probably watch this video (0:26, 1.5MB WMV) which shows a world-record demonstration of a kid who hasn't discovered that pretty much everything else imaginable is more interesting than cup stacking.
The thing is that when Layla and I were in Toys <backwards>R</backwards> Us the other day shopping for Giving Tree gifts, I spotted the photograph above. It's a Speed Stacks kit, surely aimed to lure well-meaning parents into finding a non-violent (and more importantly, non-gay) toy for what will assuredly be a very disappointed little boy or girl. And at $30, the Speed Stacks kit also appears to be a colossal ripoff, as it includes a mat, timer, video...and the cups. Although I can't suppose you can put a price on a child's joy—except to say that you probably can't buy any child's joy for the $30 you'll spend on Speed Stacks.
I think you're being a little harsh. That girl looks like she's having fun, and let's face it -- it is cool.
I'm sure the average kid doesn't find, for example, implementing Towers of Hanoi in C to be particularly fun, but it's the kind of thing we did as kids.
You've got it with the last statement—fun is in the eye of the beholder...not the eye of the beholder's parents. I heartily encourage kids to challenge themselves (which is exactly what the record-setter did, and good for her) but it's hardly commonplace and certainly isn't the thing that gets fostered by parents having a realization that their 12-year-olds are couch potatoes without any sort of drive of their own.
I'm quitting my job to become a Sport Stacking roadie.
I like the fact that at 94, your cup stacking days are over.