Gadgets, Gizmos, and Games for Geeks

Mashing potatoes has pretty much remained unchanged for my entire life, as we continue to pulverize our potatoes with the same basic metal kitchen tool we’ve used for years. What did that potato ever do to you to deserve such a beating?

Do you love the Toy Story series? Starting with Pixar’s 1995 classic, through last year’s Toy Story 4, the franchise been consistently packed with great characters, emotional story lines, and whimsical visuals. One of my favorite characters is the three-eyeballed alien species that Buzz Lightyear first encountered in the claw machine.

Despite his many personality flaws, Wolverine is still one of my favorite Marvel characters. Having his entire skeleton replaced with Adamantium certainly didn’t help his attitude, I’m sure. On the plus side, it gave him some epic claws.

I was a big fan of the original Hellboy movies with Ron Perlman as our cigar-chomping red hero. But as much as I enjoyed that series, I’ve never delved deep into the comics, so I’m not too familiar with Hellgirl.

The Nintendo Switch is a fantastic little gaming system, with a great library of exclusive games, and the ability to switch between a portable and home console in one. The standard Joy-Con gaming controllers that come with it are pretty good already – if a little small for those of us with bigger hands.

What is the deadliest statue ever? All of them, because they can fall and crush you. But one is even deadlier than the rest. This Knife Angel statue was built from over 100,000 knives which were confiscated by UK police.

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.

The Consumer Electronics Show is the place to go for the latest in televisions, computers, cameras, automotive technology, and all kinds of gadgets. Each year, the show also introduces us to its share of robots. Though the 2020 CES show brought along something a little different – robots that deliver toilet paper.

As are many of you, I’m a huge fan of The Mandalorian. The Disney+ series is packed with great characters, tons of action and surprises, while still paying respects to the classic tropes of the Star Wars universe.

Not too long ago, I visited with Toyota in Tokyo to learn about their plans to transform from an automotive company into a mobility company – concerning themselves with all of the different ways that people need to get around, and not just cars and trucks anymore.

I have a very soft spot in my heart for pixel art, having grown up in the 1980s with rudimentary 8-bit and 16-bit video games dominating my formative years. So I really love anything that encourages the creation of pixel-based designs.

With their big brains, eight tentacles, and lots of suckers, octopi are pretty amazing animals. But like most things with more than four legs, they can also look quite weird. If you think it would be cool to hang out with an octopus all the time, check out this crazy looking bag.

If Elon Musk and Tesla live up to their promises, it shouldn’t be more than a couple of years before we start seeing Cybertrucks on the street. But if you don’t have the money or the patience for the real deal, you can at least have a miniature Cybertruck for your desktop.

Did you ever see the Black Mirror episode called “Arkangel?” Basically, it tells the story of an overly-cautious mother who has a chip implanted in her daughter’s brain so she can track her every movement. But she also upgrades it with a couple of features, like the ability to see everything she sees, and to block out images of anything that might be deemed “shocking.”

Are you ready to jump to hyperspace without leaving your neighborhood block party? Well, now you can, thanks to the release of this new bouncy house that looks just like the Millennium Falcon. Created by bouncy house experts Magic Jump, the Millennium Falcon Hyperspace Jump Experience is a 35 foot-wide inflatable that’s sure to be a hit at any Star Wars-themed party.

LEGO models can represent all kinds of different things, both imaginary and real. But this particular LEGO design takes on one of the more unpleasant sides of the real world – the seamy underbelly of society that is prison life.