I’m not sure I ever feel this much animosity towards unwanted solicitors banging on my front door, but according to this product shot, the elderly certainly do. This removable decal, created by a company called Monkey Business, makes every vacuum salesman, Jehovah’s witness or girl guide flogging cookies seem like your next target. But if you find the rifle a little harsh, more innocuous versions of the decal like a camera or a telescope are also available. ~$8 (5,90 €) from Design3000.de.
Do you grow tired of drinking coffee? I don’t mean the flavor, or even the hassle one has to go through to procure a good cup of Joe. No, I mean are you tired of having to lift a cup to your lips and drink every few minutes in order to get your caffeine boost? I’ll be the first to admit, it takes a lot of effort. You have to drop everything you’re doing with one of your hands for a few seconds, not to mention those cups can get pretty heavy. What you need is a better caffeine delivery method.
While an IV drip would seem like the most direct method, it’s not the most practical. Instead, might I suggest Le Whif Coffee? That’s right, someone has made a coffee inhaler. The tube contains powdered coffee with caffeine equivalent to a light espresso. Each “stick” has about 9 hits (all of which are needed to get the full caffeine effect of a single cup of espresso) depending on how hard you inhale. Sticks will run you $3 each, or you can buy a three-pack for $8. Now if only they had disguised these as asthma inhalers, you might have avoided looking like an idiot every time you took a hit.
When I was a kid, Tomy was known for its kid-friendly electronics and cutting-edge robots available at the local Radio Shack, but these days their offerings just leave me scratching my head. These ‘Bitosan Ke’ figures, for example, feature a few strands of static carbon fiber nose hairs sticking out of their nostrils, and when pulled or touched they cause the character to speak. Now since the toys will be released in Japan (6 different characters available for 892 Yen or about $10 each) they’ll obviously speak Japanese, but roughly translated the phrases seem to either encourage you or discourage you from touching their hairs. What could be more fun?!
If you’ve been looking for the absolute worst possible gift you can give someone, whether or not they’re trying to lose weight, I would highly recommend the mypetfat. Available in different sizes, the glob pictured above represents 1lb. of anatomically correct body fat, or the equivalent of about 3,500 calories, and besides serving as a loyal sidekick it’s also designed to visually motivate you to shed those extra pounds. The 1lb. version is on sale now for $49.95, while a more portable 1oz. version is just $14.95, but why stop there when you can go all out and order the 5lb. version for $149.95 and cross ‘Mother’s Day gift’ off your to-do list.
The only downside to owning a dog that I can see is having to deal with their unmentionables left in the backyard. Now there are contraptions of all shapes and sizes designed to make cleaning up after your pup a bit less unpleasant, but this is definitely the first vacuum I’ve come across designed specifically for the task.
The cordless Pooch Power Shovel sucks the waste directly into specially designed plastic bags making them easy to dispose of (up to 150 on a single charge) and at first glance you might think the clear plastic tube provides an unpleasant view of the business being dealt with, but when used properly the waste apparently never touches the machine or your hands. At $99.50 from Frontgate it’s easily the most expensive pet poo solution I’ve seen, short of hiring someone else to do it, and the refill bags will set you back an additional $19.50 for 50 or $35.50 for 100.
Believe it or not this inflatable contraption from Taylor Gifts is actually designed to eliminate neck pain. You wrap it around your neck and then go to town with the handheld pump until it’s inflated enough to relieve pressure caused by pinch nerves, tension headaches and osteoarthritis. On one hand $19.98 seems like a steal for a product that promises to reduce neck pain, but on the other hand the “If you have pre-existing conditions consult a medical professional before using this device” warning makes me pretty confident it isn’t exactly endorsed by any medical group not run by Dr. Nick Riviera.
“At 22 feet long and 11 feet tall, this Jurassic-sized replica is the largest sculpture we have ever offered! Realistically sculpted with rows of menacing teeth, a fearsome tail and scaly skin, our prehistoric artifact is cast in quality designer resin and hand-painted with powerfully convincing color and texture. This display-quality sculpture transforms any home, garden, restaurant or hotel into something truly magnificent!”
This description, and this sculpture, are so full of fail that I don’t even know where to begin. These people obviously didn’t do their homework on the Tyrannosaurus rex, and in fact didn’t even look at any illustration made in the last 40 years. First, it should be Cretaceous, not Jurassic. And not even early Cretaceous… We’re talking Maastrichtian stage (65 to 70 million years ago) as opposed to the Jurassic, which ended 145 million years ago. Second: “rows” of teeth? Sharks have rows of teeth, a t-rex has a row of teeth. Third, while “scales” may technically describe dinosaur skin, it’s really more of a pebbly texture, which you can clearly see in fossilized dinosaur skin imprints. It’s hard to really comment on “convincing color and texture,” but this poor guy looks awfully drab, especially considering recent discoveries of feathery, stripey little dinos.
The most egregious error, of course, is the posture. If a Tyrannosaurus rex stood upright like that, it would dislocate its hips and practically crush its own spine under the weight of its head. This has been known since the 70s. I mean, come on, who in their right mind would want such a terrible mockery of a dinosaur sitting out in their yard? The only, and I mean only, possible use for something like this is to place outside your neighbor’s bedroom window at 2am and then tap on the glass. Does that justify the $7500 you’d have to spend? Uh, not even close.
I don’t care if you were the star quarterback, there’s nothing ‘cool’ about wearing a Jostens ring to commemorate your years spent in high school. So you can imagine what I think of these ‘Geek Pride’ models designed for kids who spent their spare time in front of a gaming console instead of playing sports, or debating, or whatever else high school kids do these days.
This art installation seems to date back to 2006, but since it’s new to me, I’m going to assume it’s new to at least a few of you as well. In the same way a television uses colored pixels to produce images, the VSSTV plotter injects bubble wrap with cyan, magenta and yellow ink using a printhead featuring 3 long needles.
Created by Gebhard Sengmüller, in collaboration with Jakob Edlbacher, Johannes Obermayr, Gerhard Proksch-Weilguni, Ludwig Ertl and Andreas Konecky, the VSSTV is supposed to be a new television format built upon something called SSTV or ‘Slow Scan Television’ which is an image transmission system used by ham radio enthusiasts. Except that since the VSSTV system they developed can only produce a single frame of ‘video’ per day, I think they have a tough battle ahead of them when it comes to convincing the public, no matter how fun bubble wrap is!
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