“Wake up your brain as well as your body,” goes the neurologically-challenged ad copy for the Puzzle Clock. The difficultly level seems contrary to the manufacturer’s guidelines — “Not suitable for children under the age of 3″ — but it takes all sorts.
Puzzle Alarm Clock [Latest Buy via Boing Boing Gadgets]
All the excitement of Guitar Hero in your pocket! For only $12, this handheld version of the popular console game lacks only (a) the escapist pleasure of pretending to play an instrument, (b) colorful visuals and (c) the music. What’s left? Five colorful buttons, a piezo buzzer and public ignominity.
Product Page [Wal-Mart]
The “Jesus: Tales Of Glory Talking Figure” from the What On Earth catalog recites glib excerpts from the gospels. They’re all quite short, thanks to its tinny, cheapest-in-China sound chip, but this powerfully spiritual item makes up for it by being fully poseable, with articulated hands. Batteries included!
Jesus: Tales Of Glory Talking Figure [What on Earth]
If the ocean of disposable electronic trash in your life threatens to drown your soul, try buying a USB Panic Button to make it all better. The really depressing part is that it actually does something, namely switch the computer to a fake productivity app should “the boss come along.”
You know, because a workplace that doesn’t tolerate computer misuse will tolerate you plugging in a giant panic button and installing its accompanying software.
Product Page [Firebox]
Stress Eraser is a “biofeedback training device,” that tells you your pulse rate, and displays a graph showing how it’s gone up and down in the last few moments. Why would one want to do this? To ride the Vagus! From the blurb:
“Many people assume their pulse rate stays very constant. This is not the case. Pulse rates continually move up and down. The StressEraser displays the up-and-down movement of the pulse rate as a wave. What causes your pulse rate to move up and down? … The up-and-down movement of your pulse rate is caused by the activity of one nerve in your body: the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the primary pacifying nerve of the body. Each time the vagus nerve activates, it pacifies the organs and glands that it touches.
The Stress Eraser will tell you when your Vagus nerve is aligned with your meridians, or whatever, so that you can chill out better. Which you will very much need to do, as this jumble of recycled electronics kit parts will set you back $300.
Product Page [Bio Medical]
As a child of the 1980s, few things were more amazing and futuristic to my school-age imagination than Pin Art. Its shafts of shining metal seemed to take the ephemeral pixelation of early computer game graphics and render them as physical monuments. Rumor has it that the day Margaret Thatcher dies, all Pin Art will spontanously form a likeness of her, just as they did for Ronald Reagan.
I must have pressed my face into one of these a hundred times before realizing that it was a piece of crap. Then again, do we not still worship plasma balls?
Product Page [Amazon]
Seattle spent $5m on five fancy portable toilets, which turned out to be not much good. It got an average of $2,510 for each on eBay.
Seattle relieved to lose its high-tech toilets [USA Today]
Add a touch of Olympic spirit to your desktop with the heat molded Birds Nest stadium speaker. Slathered in silver paint, it represents the very best of the host nation’s manufacturing output. And when it fails, you still have nothing less than a Beijing 2008 commemorative ashtray.
Product Page [USB Geek via Engadget]
