…this would have to be it!

Lately, I’ve found it difficult to enjoy a nice cold “decent” beer upstairs in my “Man Cave”. The main difficulty comes from not having a bottle opener upstairs. Sure, I could spend $0.99 to buy a cheesy metal one, but why do that when I could have a nice baseball hat with my favorite beer logo and a built in bottle opener on the bill? Man, what more could I ask for?

Product Info -Home Wet Bar-

and I’ll leave it up to you to decide if it is an illuminated bowl of chips, a nice mood lamp or or a Himalayan Ionic Crystal Bowl Lamp.

I have to say that when I first read the article about this lamp on Nerd Approved that they weren’t kidding, that it was an artificial bowl of chips with a light bulb placed inside to make it have a “warm” glow. With as much weird stuff as I look at in a day, I didn’t think twice about it. Then I read the article and noticed that it was a bowl of salts that when heated release ions in the air to clean and refreshen, which is something they have used in the Himalayas for over 200 years. Personally, I think it would have been funnier to have a bowl of chips, but, I have to report all odd things I see, whether they have some base in science or an hilarity!

Product Info -Ionic Crystal Bowl Lamp-

…if you actually invite people to attend parties!

A lot of people have those modular block retaining walls around their house, and with our new house, we are no exception. I saw these posted on Nerd Approved and thought they would make a great addition to people who are actually sociable. There are two types of blocks that they offer. One, called the RisiLight, provides ambient lighting along the wall. As great as that sounds, I prefer the second one called the RisiSound which is a built in speaker that can be hooked up to a stereo of your choice. I’ve always found those garden speakers to be rather cheesy, so this would be a slightly more palatable option for having music playing in your socializing venue. Granted at $140 and $175, it might be out of most people’s price range (like my own!).

Product Info -RisiSounds and RisiLights-

…because amateur inventor Johnny Henry from Mississippi has developed just what you need if you do!

Johnny Henry, a native of Mississippi, invented his own toilet seat which vibrates to help stimulate you while going to the bathroom. His quote…he invented it to “make you feel good while you are there” on the toilet. I have to say, I’ve been in a lot of those massaging chairs and have had those huge thumping massagers on my back, and they always tend to make my skin red and itchy from stimulating the blood in the skin too much. Last thing I would want on the toilet is to have my posterior turn red and itchy from vibrating while using the toilet. Just doesn’t sound very…stimulating, more annoying.

He was able to attend a convention for inventors however, so undoubtedly someone thought highly of his product. I am also amazed that it took him 11 years to make a prototype. How hard can it be to make a vibrating seat?

Retrieved from -Leader Call-

…from Japanese designer Mac Funamizu.

How comfortable would you feel walking around town, seeing something you want to take a picture of, framing it up in your hands like a movie director and then winking to capture the picture? If you said comfortable, then you need to follow this designer’s idea and promote him. What I described above is exactly what this concept is…sunglasses that can take pictures based on what you framed up on your fingers. All you have to do is wink with you left eye to snap a picture. Personally, I would be to embarassed, so it isn’t for me. But I bet some people would really be interested…

Retrieved from -Coolest Gadgets-.

…and Target and Best Buy are really trying to play them up even more!

So, a lot of people have turned to gift cards as an “easy out” for getting a gift. Me personally? I love to get them, but that is probably because I’m the odd man that is a shopaholic. It seems that some of our big retailers are trying to remove one of the stigmas associated with giving gift cards…you aren’t giving something physical to the person, so it feels less like a gift. Therefore, let me introduce the proposed solution starting with Best Buy first.

The speaker gift card from Best Buy includes a speaker and a mini headphone jack so that you can plug it in to almost any MP3 player you may own. I guess if you don’t have an MP3 player, you can just use the gift card to purchase a new iPod (even though rumors are that they will stop making them soon) and then plug it in.

Now, the cooler of the two that I will be talking about is the Target Camera gift card. Now this one comes completely loaded…40 free prints, a self timer and averages over 50 pictures with the built in 8MB of space. I’m sure it isn’t the highest quality, but a nice free benefit for a gift card if you ask me. I’ll take either!

Product Info -Best Buy Speaker Gift Card-
Product Info -Target Camera Gift Card-
Retrieved from -Coolest Gadgets- and -Coolest Gadgets-

…but I think one could argue this could be used to cure claustrophobia.

There are some people in this world (namely my mother) who have an extreme fear of enclosed spaces…so much so that they will never be able to fly in an airplane. No traveling overseas, no cross country travels, you name it, they can’t do it. Could placing an airplane window like this beside their bed make them get used to the sight so that being in the actual plane wouldn’t be so bad? Probably not, and for $1500, I think they would be much better off buying tons of valium to make it through a flight.

So, if that’s the case, who would want to pay that for an airplane window?

Product Info -Airplane Window-
Retrieved from -Nerd Approved-

…being that he loves Star Wars and all.

I could just imagine him waking up to a nice piece of toast that my sister fixes for him and having Darth Vader’s helmet burned into the toast. How cool would that be? Oh wait, my sister doesn’t cook…hmmm, maybe she can at least attempt toast! But, if he wants to grow big and strong, he needs to at least ingest the dark side of the force!

Product Info -Darth Vader Toaster-
Retrieved from -OhGizmo!-

…at least for construction professionals.

Over at “I Want One of Those“, they have an eating untensil set for chidren 3+ years old. And being that I deal with construction workers (I am a designer people, not a constructer), these have to be some of the most awesome ones around. The set has three pieces…a crane fork, a front end loader spoon and then my absolute favorite, a bulldozer utensil to push food around (like getting that last bit off the plate).

Not the easiest price to digest at about $25, but still cool.

Product Info -I Want One of Those-
Retrieved from -Coolest Gadgets-

…at least, that should be the name of the gallery that would show such “art”.

Do you ever get tired of the same old lamps beside the bed to provide light in your bedroom? Ever think you might need a different type of “mood lighting”? Well, designer Marie Thurnauer has the solution for you! Her 53 inch long light can satisfy almost any morose need you may have, with her light that is shaped like a noose. Granted, I actually kind of like it, but I could just imagine the lyrics from “you light up my life” coming from that artwork. I think the thought of Halloween is still stuck in my head…

Product Info -Petites Productions-
Retrieved from -OhGizmo-