Gadgets, Gizmos, and Games for Geeks

A NASA rocket-themed lava lamp: like jumping off your roof with a fitted mattress sheet for a parachute convinced you’ll be able to walk away unscathed, it just makes sense. Available from Firebox, the out-of-this-world lamp costs $49 and contains blue liquid and red lava.

What do you get when you combine a Rubik’s Cube with mobile gaming capabilities? The WOWCube Entertainment System, a $250 gaming platform with 8 processors powering 24 individual screens that allows players to twist, tap, shake, and tilt the unit to play games and solve puzzles.

Do you know what my feet have been missing? A pedicure. My wife won’t even let me sleep without socks on because she’s worried I might make accidental contact. They’ve also been missing these Star Trek: The Next Generation house slippers, perfect for boldly going downstairs for breakfast on a Saturday morning.

As we learned from the movie Gremlins, if you’re going to bring a mogwai into your house, there are three simple care instructions you must follow: “First of all, keep him out of the light, he hates bright light, especially sunlight, it’ll kill him.

Jar Jar Binks: hands down everyone’s favorite Star Wars character, even beating out the space slug that almost eats the Millennium Falcon. And now thanks to the work of artist scadarts, he’s can also be everyone’s favorite fine art subject.

This officially-licensed backpack is inspired by the design of NASA astronauts’ classic orange flight suits, complete with mission patches. You’ll look like a member of the flight crew walking around with one of these – especially if you wear it with a helmet and some moon boots.

Do you know what makes everything better? Googly eyes, that’s what. Simply slap some of these puppies onto any item, and it gives them instant personality. While you could just buy a bunch of sticky googly eyes and start gluing them to things, I think these push pins are a better idea.

Every desktop could use a little help to keep organized. You could go with a traditional pencil caddy or you could go ahead and get yourself a case of crabs. Stationery Crustaceans are little plastic crabs that are designed to hold small objects in their mighty pincers.

Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig Dug are three of my all-time favorite 8-bit arcade games. There are lots of ways to play Namco’s classic game at home these days, but how many of them are shiny and gold?

Proving there are few things more satisfying to watch than a job well done, YouTuber Rescue & Restore documents the process by which he carefully returns an original 1978 Star Wars X-Wing toy to its former glory.

What do you get the LEGO loving lover in your life? How about LEGO set #10280, the 756-piece Creator Flower Bouquet? The $50 flower set makes the perfect gift to build with your special someone and is being released just in time for Valentine’s Day.

What you’re looking at is an artificial intelligence-driven furry electronic pet that can express its own emotions via movement and sound. The Moflin’s AI allows its emotions to constantly change based on its environment – much like a real pet’s, except you’ll save a small fortune on pet food.

Since “just because you can” is as good a reason as any to do something these days, the engineers at iSax Laboratories took it upon themselves to try building a MIDI-controlled robotic trombone. The result? Well, the result is what you’ll hear below, which is by no means the best trombone playing I’ve ever heard.

What has a Pikachu head, entirely too many body segments, and nobody asked for? If you answered a Pikachu centipede body pillow, then you’re correct. Available from Chinese online retailer AliExpress, falling asleep with one of these ‘Very Long Pikachu Insect Plushes’ can almost guarantee a poor night’s sleep filled entirely with nightmares.

Apparently, because we don’t already have enough problem with scooters weaving in and out of traffic, scientists are working on a way for rats to drive around in miniature cars. Yes, these rodents can now literally join the rat race.

Because who has room in their home for a beanbag chair AND a pile of stuffed animals, Creative QT designed the Stuff ‘n Sit stuffed animal storage beanbag chair. So it’s not really a beanbag chair, is it?