A Cool Gadget

This oooey-gooey delicious skeleton is made from the melted down old carcasses of cassette tapes. Artist Brian Dettmer created these guys for an exhibition at the International Museum of Sugical Science, right here in my hometown of Chicago.

While the full-sized skeleton looks like it’s inspired by 80s greats such as R.E.M., The Knack, and The Police, this skull the artist also made appears to have fallen off from too much head-banging. (Note the Judas Priest and Mötley Crüe cassettes).

For some reason, these remind me of the famous face-melting scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[via Clutter via ALBOTAS]

This Galaga pillow is sure to liven up your bedtime by adding a touch of pew pew pew! to your nightly ritual.

The fleece pillow is handmade by CrazyOwl and sports a fighter from one of the mostest awesomest video games of all time, Galaga. It can be yours from Etsy for a mere $8. Oh CrazyOwl, you should really value your time more highly. That pillow is worth at least $8.50!

The pillow is “made in a smoke and pet-free home” which is good news if the last thing you ordered from Etsy was coated in cat hair and ash and triggered an anaphylactic reaction and hives. That totally happened to me. OK not really, but once I did get an Etsy purchase that smelled weirdly like Pine-Sol. Tragic but true. I’m still in therapy about it, thanks for asking.

P.S. If you would rather play Galaga than merely hug its fleecy stand-in, then you can play it in Firefox by downloading FireNes, or you can go for this janky online version (amusingly called “Galaca.”) I don’t recommend the phony Nintendo online version because it crashed my computer like 8 times, but maybe you like to live dangerously.

This certainly wouldn’t be the first Nixie tube clock that I’ve written about, but it is definitely one of my favorite designs. Maybe it’s the funky front-facing display tubes that make it super sweet.

There’s something just so right about the contrast of the sleek modern acrylic box which serves as a home for the intricate retro display tubes. As an added bonus, these special tubes gradually cross-fade between digits as the time changes. Cool!

And unlike many Nixie clocks, this one isn’t a kit. It’s pre-assembled and ready to go. If you’d like one for your desk, just head on over to eBay and plunk down your $118.

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Artist Danielle Aubert creates pixelated masterpieces using Microsoft Excel, with surprisingly dazzling results.

About the project, she says, “…the drawings are a part of a series that I executed on an irregular daily basis for 16 months. Each drawing is in a new ‘worksheet,’ which is automatically set up as a grid. The drawings were made by changing cell preferences for background color, fill pattern, and border styles and from time to time inserting ‘comment’ boxes and letters or words.”

Many of these have been published in a book by Various Projects and is for sale at Project No. 8. Some of the book’s pages are presented as an entrancing animation in this video.

I must warn you that Danielle Aubert’s website overloaded my brain and practically caused a seizure, but if you can successfully navigate the visual arrays without passing out then you will be rewarded with more pictures of her work.

I commend her for this creative use of a stodgy computational beast of a product. The only thing that might top her art would be if you could, oh, say, play video games in Excel…

[via DesignBoom]

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There’s no reason that the pillows on your couch have to be square, round or rectangular. Why shouldn’t they reflect your Star Wars addiction like anything else?

These plush versions of classic characters from the Star Wars universe are just too cool. From the squishy R2-D2 to the scruffy Chewbacca and blobby-headed Boba Fett, you need these in your house.

At about 7-inches tall each, I guess they’re not quite big enough to serve as pillows, but they’re great as an accent on your sofa, bed or just lying around your room.

Even one Yoda gets.

The whole collection is available over on Entertainment Earth for about $13 a piece.

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1980s power-ballad mavens Journey and technology have a long-standing relationship. Back in 1983, they entered the geek psyche with the classic Journey arcade machine. Now they’re back in the electronics biz with their own MP3 player.

Adorned with the group’s iconic airbrush winged scarab and flamejob art, ZVUE’s Journey MP3 player ($40) is perfect whether you’re a fan of original frontman Steve Perry, or his modern-day (dead ringer) replacement Arnel Pineda. The player comes pre-loaded with 22 songs from their recent Revelation album, including 11 new tunes, and 11 classics re-recorded by Pineda. Of course, with just 1GB of storage, you won’t be able to store all that much more than the complete works of Journey anyhow.

So if you’re ready for you and your money to go Separate Ways, head on over to Walmart and put one in your Open Arms for some Lovin’, Touchin’ and Squeezin’ now.

[via anythingbutipod]

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We seem to have a food theme going this morning. After you nosh on an appetizer of some Lego sushi, why not fill up your belly with some USB BBQ?

These goofy USB flash memory devices are disguised to look like crispy, delicious Chinese BBQ. Available in chicken wing, drum stick, and BBQ pork “flavors”, you definitely don’t want to bite into one of these if you have any interest in keeping the teeth in your mouth.

And even if your choppers could tear through their rubbery exterior, you’d probably have a pretty tough time stomaching the metal USB connector and the silicon circuitry inside.

As long as you can resist putting these in your mouth, you can store up to 4GB of files on each one. They’re available from Brando for $28 each - not including steamed rice.

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Too bad this Lego sushi is inedible, because it looks oddly delicious! I love the wasabi- that’s got to be a specialty color.

I must be in serious need of a snack because I actually drooled a little bit when I saw these pictures. Of course, it’s hard to tell if that’s because of my love of Legos or sushi- maybe both.

These tasty-looking treats are from Big Daddy Nelson’s flickr page. You can see more photos of the sushi (as well as other lovely Lego landscapes) there!

And now, here’s a completely different take on combining sushi and Legos- it’s real sushi presented on a lego train, sushi-boat style. I guess it’s one way to get that sushi-boat experience from the comfort of your 4-year-old’s bedroom. Check out the video here.

[via xorsyst]

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If you’ve always dreamed of serenading your very own Zelda with the dulcet tones of an ocarina, now’s your chance. You can buy this playable replica, tri-force logo and all!

Anything that’s described as a “mesmerizing playable fairy flute” is sure to get the ladies lining up at your doorstep. Why, look at this enchanting fellow playing his ocarina. Have you ever seen anything sexier? *swoon*

The ocarina is made from glazed earthenware, which I found surprising because it kind of looks like plastic in the photos. It boasts 6 holes and comes with a songbook of your favorite Legend of Zelda tunes. Of course, that assumes you know how to read music for a fictional instrument, but frankly if you’d burn 40 bucks on one of these, that’s probably the least of your worries.

You can buy one for $39.99 at ThinkGeek.

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I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a very good golfer. If you take par, then multiply it by a factor of 1.5x, that’s about what I usually hit. So I guess I was pretty pleased to see that this little robotic golfer doesn’t play any better than I do.

CrabFu’s Putter Bot is a remote-controlled robot that’s designed to do just one thing - putt the ball.

Nope, it can’t hit a 200 yard tee shot, nor can it get out of a sand trap, but it should be able to gently tap the ball into the hole from a few club-lengths away.

Of course, that assumes that the person controlling the Putter Bot can actually aim. I counted 4 strokes on that last putt. Maybe with a little more practice, it could hit a proper two-putt.

[via Make:]

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