Gadgets, Gizmos, and Games for Geeks

If there’s one thing the pandemic taught me, it’s that webcams are a scam, right up there with printers. Even a mid-range smartphone can beat $200 webcams. All you need is a mount, like this upcoming one from the folks at Rolling Square.

Presumably inspired by the Titanic (which also had four smokestacks and sank), this is the Sinking Ship cocktail glass available from FireBox. The $19 drinking vessel has a handblown glass ship inside, so you can pretend you’re Poseidon releasing his wrath upon humanity by swirling the glass to create a whirlpool and making a mess all over the living room carpet.

The Float ‘N’ Grill is a portable propane grill that attaches to a flip-resistant buoyant plastic raft so you can grill out on the water and not set your deck or raft on fire. The unit is available in patriotic red or blue and can be found on Amazon (affiliate link).

Tropical tiki drinks: I daydream about them often, usually when I’m stuck at work under horrible fluorescent lighting watching the time pass at a snail’s pace. Enter this $70 X-34 Landspeeder tiki mug set crafted by Geeki Tikis and available from Tonyk.

Looking for the perfect bookend to display alongside your Stephen King horror novel collection? Well, look no further than this Jack Torrance ‘Here’s Johnny!’ bookend handcrafted by Etsy seller KomenzaSculpture. I’ll be honest though, I wouldn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night and see ol’ Jack here staring back at me with that unhinged look of his.

Reading: it’s fundamental. And for those of you who can’t get enough and feel the need to read multiple books at once, there’s the Wisdom Tree, an illuminated plywood tree that can hold up to five books, keeping the page you’re on for quick and easy access to all those delicious words to fill your brain up with.

Keyboard accessory maker Omnitype’s latest keycap set features the dull gray base color of the original PlayStation, along with the colors of the OG PS logo. You can almost hear the startup sound when you look at it.

Mario: he could never commit a crime and get away with it because absolutely everybody would be able to pick him out of a police lineup. I mean unless he took his hat off and shaved his mustache, then nobody would have any clue who he was.

Candy: it maintains my sugar high at a suitable level, so I don’t have to take a nap at my desk midday. And you know what’s better than regular candy? Candy, you’ve won. Enter the $44 Rocket Candy Grabber available from Firebox, a desktop claw machine you fill with candy, then empty with skill.

Satire site The Hard Times and its sister site Hard Drive have a merchant who tirelessly hawks their wares to everyone, anywhere, and anytime using its arcane web powers. One of the vendor’s latest offerings is the Basic Cotton Armor tee.

Because nothing says ‘Honey, I’m home!’ like the delicious smell of sizzling bulgogi wafting from the living room, this is the Korean BBQ coffee table sold by woojuCorporation on Etsy. The table costs $650, has a removable grill and collapsable legs for slimline storage, and is quickly going to become my new favorite piece of home furniture.

Mechanical keyboards have exploded in popularity in recent years, including swappable keycaps. You can easily find mass-produced keycap sets online, but if you truly want to stand out or have trendy or niche designs, your best bets are limited run or artisan keycaps.

The Tail Company is running a successful Kickstarter campaign for its latest animatronic accessory, the miTail. This is their third animatronic tail, and as such comes with several major improvements, such as USB-C charging, a clip that makes the tail equally easy to attach and detach, and a no-phone mode, which lets the tail resort to random movements if you don’t have its companion app.

Because who plays video games without sneakers to match their console, Sony has teamed up with Nike and basketball player/lifelong Playstation fan Paul George to create a Playstation 5 inspired colorway for George’s PG5 basketball shoes.

Retro toy maker Super7 has released the first wave of collectibles based on Netflix’s new anime series Yasuke. The collection includes three 6″ vinyl action figures – Yasuke, Natsumaru, and Ahujah – and three 3″ super-deformed figures – Yasuke in armor, Natsumaru, and Nikita in beast mode.

Because Japan takes its sushi and sashimi seriously, the Ma Corporation has developed the Katsugyo Bag, a clear cylindrical briefcase designed for transporting live fish that you caught or bought from the market to your home so you know you’re preparing a meal with the freshest fish possible.