Archive for October 2019

Between the endless candy, the artful pumpkin carving, the creepy music, the decorations, and the costumes, Halloween is the best of the holidays. There’s just so much more creativity in Halloween than most other holidays, especially when it comes to the costumes.

Look at this crazy thing. Some super Nintendo fan has gone and turned this 65 inch TV into a giant Nintendo Switch. He goes by the name Suprman9. This Nintendo fanatic has created what he calls “Nerdvana”.

With Halloween just a couple of days away, I wish I had come across these a little earlier. But should a rave be in your future, you still might want to pick up a pair of these glow-in-the-dark eyeglasses from Zenni Optical. The glowing glasses are perfect for those times when you want to stand out from the crowd in a dark room, and can easily be charged back up to their brightest if you keep a UV flashlight in your pocket.

Back to the Future is a classic. It’s packed with humor, adventure, great characters (Great Scott!), and has a fun time-twisting plot. But beyond the questionable time travel, there are other things in the movie which might be just as implausible. For instance, there’s that scene at the beginning where Marty gets blown away by that giant speaker.

While wandering the expansive show floor at the 2019 Tokyo Motor Show, I came across a pretty interesting technology which could someday find its way into vehicles. Basically, it’s a projection system that would allow vehicles to cast moving images onto the ground in front of them. High tech headlight maker Koito Manufacturing was showing off their Road Projection Lighting system, which is designed to communicate with people in front of your vehicle, as well as to improve safety for the driver.

I’m here in Tokyo this week for the 2019 Tokyo Motor Show, and while here, I stopped by the new headquarters for the Toyota Research Institute – Advanced Development (TRI-AD) to check out some of the technologies the company and their partners are working on.

If you grew up any time in the latter half of the 20th century or later, you’ve been promised that flying cars (and personal jetpacks) would someday take to the skies on a regular basis. While there certainly have been a number of concepts and prototypes over the years, living like the Jetsons has yet to materialize.

Do you love retro arcade games? I certainly do. While the pixel art character sprites get a whole lot of love, the fonts used to display your score and life status deserve much more appreciation. Typeface designer Toshi Omagari’s book catalogs dozens of the chunky pixelated fonts used in arcade games from the 1970s through the 1990s.

I don’t smoke, nor do I advocate filling your lungs with tar and nicotine. But if you must reach for a cigarette, let it be this one. This whimsical lighter is designed to look just like a cigarette, but you can use it to do healthier things like lighting candles, or starting a campfire. It’s refillable with butane, and designed to fit into most cigarette packs too.

If you’ve ever encountered a sasquatch, you know how rancid and rank all that damp fur can get. What you need to do next time you see one is hang one of these Bigfoot air fresheners around his neck to try and cover up his odiferous ways. 

While I prefer to walk my dogs, there have been times when the weather has been bad, or I’m just too tired at the end of the day, and they end up pooping in the yard.

When you have a newborn, it’s all about safety. You have to go over the house with a fine-tooth comb and make sure that all of the dangers are gone. That means stuff like covering electrical sockets, padding sharp table corners or getting rid of them, removing small choking hazards from their reach and of course, for the love of God people, covering up any Sarlacc pits.

Out of all of the fast food french fries out there, McDonald’s still makes some of the best. They’re skinny, crispy, salty, and delicious. If you like Mickey D’s fries and know how to play guitar, you might want to pick up this rare instrument that looks just like a box of yummy french fries. Built by master luthier (and expert fry guy) John Bolin, this rare electric guitar recently turned up for sale from the band Doublewide Kings over on Reverb.

Ladies, do you have a ton of junk you carry around in your purse? Well, why not just admit it, and buy a bag that suits its contents? This Recycle Bin Bag should do the trick.

Artist Takanori Aiba has elevated the art of miniature sculptures to a new level. His intricate structures replicate dreamlike architecture, complete with tiny vehicles, umbrellas, street lamps, flags, and other details. Takanori crafts his models from paper, plastic, acrylic resin, paint and rocks.

Do you want to travel to strange and exotic places across the universe? Then you need something more than your mom’s old station wagon to get you around. What you need is some kind of transportation portal.