“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
This geek likes to travel. Road trips, long flights, or short jaunts just down the road – I take what I can get. When I can, I try to combine travel with activities and sights that make my inner fangirl squeal. Those trips are my favorites. Film and TV locations, museums, old cemeteries, and sites with urban and rural decay top my list of “places I will detour to see.” The small stuff is just as enjoyable, too. It may not be possible for me to visit the actual castle used for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films, but I can usually fit in a drive to see the oldest surviving American robot in Mansfield, Ohio. If you’d like to mix some geek stops into your next trip or even into your weekend, I have plenty of suggestions.
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It’s common knowledge that the Internet is fueled by two things — pornography and cat videos. Needless to say, if a pet video goes viral it can be extremely lucrative. Maybe it’s time you and your pet got a piece of the action. The following gadgets make it easy to get your cat or dog to do something cute and stupid on camera.
Think about what it must have been like to live 100 years ago. Compared to our high-tech lifestyles today, it must have been like banging rocks together in a cave. In that time we have developed cellphones, computers, the Internet, space travel and more. On the flip side, we’ve also developed virtual kissing machines and portable watermelon coolers. Truly, we are living in a gilded age.
I did what any red-blooded American did over our holiday weekend. That’s right, I went to see a movie. This was after consuming roughly my own body weight in hamburgers and hot dogs while hanging out with friends all afternoon. I almost didn’t go to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon because it was getting a love it/hate it response from people and I was desperately afraid I’d fall into the hate it camp. There’s nothing as disappointing as walking in to a movie thinking it will be fantastic, but wandering out a few hours later wishing you could get a refund. [Minor spoilers ahead]
What do you get for the man that has everything? Usually I get him a gift certificate to the local golf store. Seriously, my father is the hardest person on Earth to buy for. However, if money was no object I might buy something from the list below. Though, I have to admit that, in my case, the Mobile Beer Bar and the VirtualGT racing simulator are more like gifts that you get someone that are really for yourself. My father doesn’t drink beer, he couldn’t make a bowl of cereal to save his life and he drives conservatively. Meanwhile, I would cook meat and drink beer while virtual racing.
It’s been far too long since I’ve played a tabletop roleplaying game. I miss Saturday nights spent with friends around a crowded table overflowing with caffeinated drinks, Chipotle burritos, and some noxious smelling but delicious chips. The food and drinks were stuffed in between dice, character sheets, pencils, graph paper, and the single calculator that everyone shared. Games would last until the early hours of the next morning, and occasionally I’d let my character suffer an injury so I could crawl into the corner and go to sleep. It was a singular yet familiar environment.
Our friends at Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab have developed a RPG series devoted to gaming night. They are known for blending perfume oils with exacting precision. They take their time and experiment. The end result is bigger than perfume oil—it’s experiences. It’s places. It’s RPG characters. Each person who rubs a BPAL oil into his or her skin will smell something different. That’s partially because of body chemistry and mostly because perfume oils shouldn’t be like a McDonald’s hamburger. They shouldn’t be the same to everyone, and the team at BPAL utilize their skills to customize the experience.
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The Woodsman’s Axe coffee table is the kind of furniture I would picture Ron Swanson using. For the rest of us, it would make a great conversation piece, and/or a lifesaving tool in the event of a zombie attack.
Product Page (£495 or $803 via Cool Material)
If I was wealthy enough, I would set things up in such a way that I never had to perform a mundane, everyday task ever again. I would also probably never wear pants, but that’s another story. I’m talking about the kinds of tasks that take time away from important pursuits like writing about crazy gadgets that make people lazier and more impatient. It’s just my way of giving back to society.
At this point I would hope that all of the shopping has been done for Christmas and you are feeling pretty good about your gift-giving choices. However confident you might be, I suggest taking a look at the following gifts just to make sure that nothing even remotely similar turned up on your list this year. Seriously, these gifts are so horrible that it has the power to bring down holidays, friendships and relationships. Even a box full of coal would be an upgrade.
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From That’s Nerdalicious! Screw you George Foreman—Breville’s got a machine that makes mini pies!
Of course, you could put this in your closet with a George Foreman grill and hope that they hook up and deliver a device that makes hamburger/pie hybrids.
Product Page ($80 via Uncrate)
