But what about the rest of your face? Well, the Japan Trend Shop has a solution for that, too: the Face Slimmer Exercise Mouthpiece. It’s basically a mouthpiece that looks like a huge pair of puffed-up, gigantic lips. To exercise your face, just pop it into your mouth and say loud vowel sounds again and again for three minutes every day.

The movements will produce “regular and methodical muscle exercises” that will strengthen your facial muscles. The retailer claims that this product can fight wrinkles and improve the overall tone and look of your face – although I’m sure the latter isn’t applicable while you’re using the mouthpiece.

These Face Slimmer Mouthpieces are available online for $83 (USD). That’s pretty pricey for a piece of rubber, but still cheaper than a face lift, I suppose. But then again, there’s also no guarantee if it will deliver what it promises to, and you’ll look insane while you use it.

You can buy a few really nice cars, put your kids through college, buy steaks to last you a the rest of your life – or you could blow over two hundred grand for a single meal in a gold lunch box. While about $168k of the value of the meal lies in the 3.3kg gold lunch box, that still makes for over $60k for lunch.

For that amount, you can expect to sample some of the world’s most rare and exotic food, but you get quite a typical selection for your palate in this lunch box: root vegetables, sushi rolls, sashimi, and other rice and meat dishes.

These insanely expensive lunches are being served up at the Takashimaya Restaurant in New York and are part of a promotion by the restaurant for the New Year.

[WSJ via Born Rich]

But one reason I disliked donning them was that it seemed to scare people who saw me sporting it.

Maybe it’s because they can’t tell I’m smiling as they approach. Maybe it’s because some people assume the worst if they see someone wearing a face mask. Or maybe it might be because I have creepy/scary/freaky eyes (who knows?)

Well, the Masclear Face Mask (JP) clears all that up because it’s literally a clear mask. Instead of a fibrous or cloth mask, Masclear is actually a transparent plastic mask that can serve the same purpose (ie. it keeps a person’s saliva and breath from spreading by serving as a barrier.) It’s also available in two sizes, small and large, to make sure that it’ll fit the wearer just right.

[via InventorSpot via Oh Gizmo!]

And that’s what the Ninjapins are looking to eliminate.

Inheriting the stealth and careful ways of the actual ninjas where the pins got their name from, they won’t leave those huge pinpricks that normal pins will. Instead, you’ll get something like the greater-than symbol once you remove them from you walls, which is a whole lot better looking and totally less noticeable.

The Ninjapins are available from Assiston, an online Japanese retailer, for around $5 (¥420) for a box of 5, and $10 (¥840) for 15.

[via Matomeno via Oh Gizmo!]

Because of such impending phenomenon, scientists all over the world have worked long and hard to develop hybrid corn and crops that grow bigger and faster. Researchers are also working double-time to come up with innovations in recycling and finding further uses for our waste so that we don’t run out of natural resources too soon.

One Japanese scientist with probably good intentions took all this to heart and presented his suggestion to a disgusted audience: burger patties made with meat synthesized from human feces. (And yes, we mean human crap, poop, excrement, or deposit, whatever you want to call it.)

That’s right. Mitsuyuki Ikeda, a researcher from Okayama’s Environmental Assessment Center, wants to help alleviate the world’s food crisis with human poop burgers.

This really isn’t “meat” per se. It’s sort of an artificial meat that’s derived from human waste. The patties are composed of 63% proteins, 25% carbohydrates, 3% lipids, and 9% minerals.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

He calls his meat “sewage mud” which I think is pretty appropriate. Ikeda maintains that his sewage mud will one day become a sellable commodity as opposed to the more costly process that is needed to produce and process real meat.

Like I said, his intentions and thoughts are noble and good. The final product? Not so much.

[via Dvice]

These remind me a bit of those ADEL inflatable earbuds that are (literally) bloated up with air to provide a softer cushion to your ears while you plug those babies in. Maybe because they appeared translucent and slightly jelly-like, too.

The Elecom otokurage earbuds are a delight to look at, and hopefully, they will be equally delightful to use, too. They come in six different colors that are extremely appealing, from basic black and white, to the more bright colors like pink, purple, blue, and green.

The earbuds don’t just come in the usual boxes or cases either; in fact, they’re housed in plastic water bottles (without the water, of course) that just adds to the whole appeal of these darn things. They will most likely be sold only to the Japanese market though, but you might be able to get your hands on them if you’re resourceful enough (*cough* eBay or Rinkya *cough*).

[via designboom via Oh Gizmo!]

A Japanese outfit called Niyari has decided to embrace the lovely brown and orange color scheme of the original Atari 400 keyboard and update it for today’s computers. Why? Why the heck not. At least the version made by Niyari has actual low-profile keys instead of those pressure sensitive things on the original Atari 400.

Still, from the appalling industrial design to the completely impractical keyboard, to its anemic system memory, the Atari 400 is definitely not a computer milestone worth repeating in my opinion. I suppose if you’re feeling really nostalgic, you might want to grab one of these over at Geek Stuff 4U, where it sells for about $149 (USD). Or, for that price, you could just buy yourself a couple of Atari 400s over on eBay.

In addition to the bento box, she also made a gomuku-sushi bowl, which isn’t officially a bento, but demonstrates some similarly intricate food-play skills.

I’ll leave all the careful descriptions of the foods Anna used to make these scenes to her blog article, but I will tell you that Chibiterasu is made from hanpen, which is made from a ground white fish, and detailed with seaweed, broccoli stem and red pepper. I can assure you that no actual wolves were harmed in the making of these meals.

Now I have no doubt that these were delicious meals, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat them. I’d just have to stare at them and leave them alone until they got good and moldy and I had to throw them out. The idea of eating little Chibiterasu is just too much for me to take.

[AnnaTheRed via Tiny Cartridge]

This little guy may look all cute and cuddly, but he’ll still bug you to the point that you’ll want to throw him across the room after about 10 seconds. That’s because the little bugger listens to exactly what you say, and then insists on parroting it back – not in your own voice, of course, but in hamster-speak. Watch and listen…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Oh my god. Kill it now. I can only imagine what might happen if there were a whole roomful of these. Please do not buy me one of these unless you want to see me smash a Mimicry Pet hamster on camera – or maybe I’d send it to the “will it blend?” guys. If you absolutely must drive everyone in the house crazy with one of these, you can grab a Mimicry Pet hamster over at Strapya World for about $35 (USD).

Like a regular theremin, the Matryomin creates sounds when you adjust your hand position on the outside of it. When used properly, it can crank out tones that make this rendition of Love Me Tender sound like Elvis’ cat in heat.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

According to the guys who make this thing, it can crank out more than 5 octaves of sounds, but they still sound like strangled cats to me. If a single Matryomin wasn’t enough for you, here’s an entire Matryomin orchestra for your listening pleasure:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Frankly, I think they should be playing the Star Trek theme. Apparently, about 3000 of these oddities were made in Japan a few years back, and this one over on eBay can be yours for the low, low price of $499 (USD).

I guess this makes sense, since in sign language, American English is pretty different from British English. This means that all of those teenage Japanese girls who are obsessed with texting are using a whole different set of emoticons. I wonder what the Japanese equivalent of “OMGWTF” is?

[via Wired]

The blue lines indicate hours, orange is five-minute blocks, and green traffic is single minutes. It’s interesting, but kind of nutty at the same time. I prefer to glance at a watch and know exactly what time it is.

The battery in the Kisai Traffic is recharged via a USB port. One charge takes up 3.5 hours and each charge will last a month. After about 300 charges, you’ll have to replace the battery. I like the USB charging idea a lot, as I’m always annoyed when it comes time to change the battery on my watches. In fact, I currently don’t wear a watch because of this whole issue. That and the fact that my Seiko Final Fantasy watch is in storage in Canada.

[via Tokyoflash]

And my personal favorite:

I know that fansubs are labors of love, done for free and for the good of millions of non-Japanese speaking anime fans, but come on. Seriously. Let’s have some standards here. Here are some more fails:

More at Sankaku Complex. Fansubbers, feel free to share your side of the story. How hard is it to sub? How long does it take? Have any of you been sued? And where’s the car?

This simplistic 4-bit microcomputer kit from Gakken is really designed as a retro educational plaything, and not any sort of computer you’d ever want to be stuck using. Ever. The GMC-4 computer features a 20-key keyboard with hexadecimal characters, a single red 7-segment LED display, and 7 additional LEDs. That’s it. No big-screen, no Blu-ray drive (same as that iMac), and it doesn’t run any operating system.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Still, it somehow manages to play simplistic games like “whac-a-mole” and tennis, and also offers a basic sound generator for playing monotonous music. Keep in mind that this kit does require assembly, and the instructions are entirely in Japanese – and they show pictures of components that don’t come with the GMC-4, So that should increase the challenge a little bit.

You can get your hands on the GMC-4 microcomputer kit over at the MakerSHED for $39.95 (USD).

[photo via HobbyMedia]

But on closer inspection, the miniature foodstuffs in this minuscule USB storage device don’t look all that appealing. For starters, I can’t imagine trying to pick up these portions with my human-sized fingers. Even if I could, I’m not really sure what the heck that blob of stuff is in the main compartment. I think I all I figured out is that there’s some tiny corn, an egg, some broccoli and edamame, a couple of other unidentifiable veggies, and a teensy, tiny shrimp. Damn, I’m allergic to shrimp. I’d probably go into anaphylactic shock even eating a piece that small.

All kidding aside, these mini Bento USB drives store 2GB of your data, and sell for $17 (USD) over at USBGeek. I still think Chinese BBQ USB looks tastier.

When the game starts, a series of numbers flash on the screen for maybe half a second. Circles will then pop up in place of these numbers. The goal is to click the circles based on the value of the numbers that they replaced, lowest to highest.

In this case you should click the lower right circle first, then the one on the upper left, then the one in the middle. If you get it right the countdown restarts and more numbers flash on the screen. I only got up to 7 numbers on my first try.

After 10 flashing and clicking iterations of foolishness, the game will then tell you it’s estimation of your brain’s age. The image above shows you my brain’s score for the first run. I think. Because if that’s my IQ, then, you know, the game’s wrong. Really. I r ashemd now.

[Flash Fabrica via neatorama]

I wish so badly that I could explain the rationale behind this or tell you whether or not it’s concept art or a commercial product, but I still haven’t learned how to read Japanese characters. (Note to self: learn how to read Japanese characters.) I can tell you that it comes from Pantograph, whose website has lots of other odd an unexplainable objects on display.

You’d need a pretty big living room to pull this off, since they really look their best when they’re all together in their “official” arrangement. But if you did pull this off, I mean, shoot. I’d totally come to your party.

[via misterstarfish]

Japanese gadget importer Audiocubes is selling this device which, when connected to your USB port, and placed under your rear end, cools off your seat.

The Thanko USB Cool Cushion uses a USB powered fan to suck cool air in and pushes it out through small holes in the cushion and cool off your derriere.

I can’t wait to see the whoopee cushion hack for this one.

Well now you can have a myriad of musically derived fragrances in your home thanks to this wacky new device. TokyoFM’s new USB powered system mixes six perfumes to automatically change fragance based on the music and artist currently playing on their radio station. In addition to the aromas, the built-in LEDs provide a soothing lightshow.

Think that’s scary? The device will cost a whopping 49,900 Yen (appx. $430 USD), so I don’t think they’ll be flying off the shelves.

[via NewLaunches]