Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

You’re probably wondering why I’m writing about holiday lights when Christmas has already come and gone. Well that’s basically the whole point behind these particular holiday lights. Instead of going through the process of decorating and undecorating your house every year, the Lazyman Lights can actually be left up all year round.

Each strand includes about 50 feet of LED lights, so in theory you never even have to worry about changing a burnt-out bulb either. They’re all controlled by a central box which allows you to set up different flashing patterns, and more importantly, different colors. So in addition to Christmas, your home will also be predecorated for other holidays like Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day and even Hallowe’en. Functional and classy, I like it.

At $79.99 for a single strand with the controller box, the lights aren’t cheap, but when you consider it should be the last time you ever have to hang holiday lights, it’s really a small price to pay.

[ Lazyman Lights ] VIA [ Gizmos for Geeks ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Wow, it’s hard to believe it’s December 25 already… where does the time go? Since a lot of people hope for a white Christmas every year I was originally going to write about an artificial snow maker like they use for movies and TV, but I figured the real stuff is far more entertaining.

The Backyard Blizzard actually uses the same snow making technology that ski resorts rely on, but is compact enough to store in your shed all year round. And using it doesn’t require a degree from ‘Snow Making University’ either. All you need is a 20-amp electrical outlet, a garden house and an outside temperature of approximately 25 degrees F or below. The device uses an air compressor and a high pressure water pump to produce about 50 cubic feet of genuine snow per hour. While that’s not exactly a blizzard, using the included wand you can quickly cover a lot of surface area in real snow that’s perfect for snowmen, snowballs and snow angels.

The Blizzard Sport, which is the model pictured above, will set you back $2,400 plus another $289 for shipping. But I’m sure there are plenty of people who feel that’s a small price to pay if it means waking up to a white Christmas.

[ Backyard Blizzard ] VIA [ Uber-Review ]

And once again, from everyone here at OhGizmo! we wish you a Merry Christmas and hope you’ve had a Happy Holidays.

By Andrew Liszewski

Even though it’s somehow managed to become a holiday ‘classic’ I have to admit I’m just not a fan of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Sure it had a few chuckles the first time around, but it can’t stand up to some of the other holiday specials I watch year after year. Of course it does have one thing that no other special can boast, and that’s the appearance of these fancy Moose Mugs which various characters use to drink eggnog from throughout the film.

Unfortunately though, if you wanted your own set of Moose Mugs you were completely out of luck since the glasses seen in the film were made as one-off props and were never designed to be sold to the public. However a Canadian company has come to the rescue and is now making and selling exact replicas of the mugs, but with a small catch. Since the demand for the Moose Mugs doesn’t quite match the demand for the Wii, each one is actually made from mouth-blown molten glass and is hand-shaped into the snifter-style goblet. As a result the mugs run about $90 each, and they can only be bought in sets of 2. Thankfully shipping to Canada and the US (mainland) is free, but if you live elsewhere the shipping charges start at about $65.

So needless to say, unless you’re a die-hard fan of the film you’ll probably be spending yet another Christmas drinking eggnog from a boring, non-moose-inspired mug.

[ Moose Mugs ] VIA [ X-Entertainment ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Hopefully by now you’ve got all your gift shopping done, and since Christmas is just a few days away you’re probably now spending your time getting everything wrapped. So here’s a few suggestions that will make the process a bit easier, a bit more festive and most importantly, a bit more geeky.

First off, ThinkGeek sells a small selection of what they refer to as ‘Geeky Wrapping Paper’ and there’s really no better description for them. The designs include ChristmasBots, Binary, Equations, Emoticons, Non-Denominational and even a geeky Birthday paper for all those other gift-giving occasions throughout the year. Each design is just $5.99 from ThinkGeek and that includes 4, 20 inch x 30 inch sheets.

But once you’ve got the wrapping paper selected you need to get it cut down to match the size of today’s miniaturized electronics. And that’s where the Precision Wrapping Paper Slitter comes in. It uses a recessed blade and has an easy to push form factor that makes cutting long sections of wrapping paper safer and cleaner than with scissors. It’s available from X-Treme Geek for $8.97.

Finally, once you’ve got the present wrapped you need to tape all those seams down, so why settle for boring clear tape when you can get this awesome Tinsel Tape instead? Granted, it is just clear tape that’s been embedded with festive silver tinsel, but it should instantly take any gift from being somewhat tasteful, to fantastically tacky! It’s available from Atypyk for $12.60 a roll.

[ Geeky Wrapping Paper ]
[ Precision Wrapping Paper Slitter ] VIA [ Coolest Gadgets ]
[ Tinsel Tape ] VIA [ Product Dose ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Some day I hope to be one of those people who comes up with a clever way to repackage everyday items into a ‘kit’ that can be sold for incredible profits. The Pet Rock is a great example, but here’s another one for people obsessed with having a perfect Christmas.

The Classic Snowman Kit comes with everything you’ll need to make your snowman look like it was plucked from a Norman Rockwell painting. This includes a 13 inch tall felt top hat, coal for eyes, a carrot for the nose, five buttons for the mouth and a colorful scarf. All the items are waterproof and reusable (it’s not a real carrot) which means when Frosty inevitably dies at the hands of the sun, you can collect his accessories and store them away until next year. Personally I prefer something more original when it comes to snow creations, like anything Bill Watterson came up with in the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip. But then again I also don’t have neighbors, or property values to worry about.

The Classic Snowman Kit is available from Plow & Hearth for $24.95.

[ Classic Snowman Kit ] VIA [ The Green Head ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Setting up elaborate Christmas lighting and decorations on your front lawn loses some of its appeal when you have to go outside every night to turn them on or off. So next year I suggest adding this INSTEON wireless remote system as part of your holiday decorating, even before you begin untangling the lights.

From what I can tell, the INSTEON ApplianceLinc power adapters (on the left) sit between the device being plugged in and the power outlet, and allow you to remotely turn it on and off. If the device happens to be a light of some sort, you can even use the remote to dim them from afar. The RemoteLinc controller (middle) actually supports up to 417 INSTEON devices at one time, and you can program groups of devices to make it easy to keep track of what’s plugged in where. Finally, there’s the INSTEON Access Points (on the right) which can take RF commands from the RemoteLinc controller, and transmit them through your homes power lines to devices like the ApplianceLinc which don’t have RF receivers.

The INSTEON Holiday Lighting Starter Kit is available from Smarthome for $89.99 and includes everything seen in the photo. Additional ApplianceLinc connectors are available for $34.99 while the Access Points are $39.99.

[ INSTEON Holiday Lighting Starter Kit ] VIA [ Popgadget ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Besides being solar powered and all that ‘environmental-friendly’ stuff, the real advantage to this Place Anywhere light set is just plain convenience. If you’ve ever strung up lights on a tree or lamp post that’s away from your house, you know you then have to run an extension cord out there so you can plug them in. These solar powered lights however are pretty much self-contained, allowing you to hang them anywhere without having to worry about finding a power source.

During the day the solar cell charges a set of 2 AA batteries which in turn power the 50 bright white LED lights at night for about 9 hours. You don’t even have to worry about going out to turn them on or off since the solar cell will automatically do that when it detects darkened or bright conditions.

At $29.95 from Hammacher Schlemmer they’re far more expensive than even a regular set of LED lights, but when you consider the bulbs have a life of 10,000 hours and won’t add anything to your electric bill, they could be worth it in the long run.

[ Place Anywhere Outdoor Solar Light Set ]

By Andrew Liszewski

How do you make an every day item like a knitted scarf appeal to the geeky masses? Well not only do you give it a Space Invaders theme complete with alien bad guys and a scoreboard, but you also include a couple of QR-Codes that are actually incorporated into the knit pattern.

For those who aren’t familiar with QR (or Quick Response) codes, they’re basically a two-dimensional bar code that can be added to any physical product and act like a website link. To access the link you just point a camera equipped phone (or PDA) that has QR reading software installed, and you’ll automatically be taken to a website that somehow corresponds to the product in question. I have no idea what website or data the QR-Codes on this scarf contain, but it seems they might actually differ from scarf to scarf.

The Invader Scarf is available from Lendorff Kaywa for about $66, but if you’re interested you better hurry since they’re limited to just 500 scarves.

[ The Invader Scarf ] VIA [ Kotaku ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I’m all for being lazy during the holidays, but half the satisfaction of knocking someone upside the head with a snowball is knowing that you made it with your very own hands. So I don’t know if I’m sold on the idea of this Sno-Baller. I’m sure it can produce a perfect sphere of snow, with great aerodynamic characteristics, but where’s the love?

On the other hand, if you’re in the middle of a heated snowball fight, quantity is definitely more important than quality. And if this thing can promise backyard snow fort supremacy by churning out snowballs faster than I can make them by hand, I guess it’s worth a shot.

They’re available from Plow & Hearth for just $8.95.

[ Sno-Baller ] VIA [ The Green Head ]

By Andrew Liszewski

This is exactly the type of crap holiday-themed novelty gadget that inspired me to start the Christmas Countdown in the first place. Because the only thing better than a keychain-sized digital photo frame with a miniscule display, is one that looks like Santa which you can only carry around for a couple months out of the year.

Of course the website actually refers to the 1.1 inch LCD screen as “good sized” but since most people wouldn’t even settle for a digital watch with a display that small, I can’t imagine they’d be happy looking at their photos on this thing. The 8MB of internal memory is pretty typical for these types of devices, but since your photos automatically get resized to 96×64 when uploaded, you can probably fit quite a few on. Other features include date and time display, brightness and contrast adjustments as well as a manual or auto slideshow option.

It’s available from Chinavasion for just $15.16, but the price actually gets cheaper the more you buy. So if you grab 200 you’ll save a few bucks and won’t have to worry about Christmas shopping for the next 10 years. (Depending on the size of your family.)

[ Christmas Digital Photo Frame ] VIA [ GeekAlerts ]