Category Archives: Other Stuff

We were completely floored by the yummy white life-size Stormtrooper cake which stood at 6’4”. Trying to overshadow the Jedi is yet another life-size edible Star Wars cake- The Darth Vader Cake. The incredible 6’7” tall cake was created by Oak Leaf Cakes for the 501st Legion Banquet that took place at the Star Wars Celebration VI last week. The team at Oak Leaf Cakes must feel bad, breaking down this 500 pound cake and feeding it to 600-odd people.
A feat in itself is the cape, which was over 100 lbs of marshmallow fondant and freely hung from his shoulders five and a half feet above the ground. Also, the Vader’s light saber is a beautifully crafted single, solid piece of watermelon flavored poured sugar.
[geektyrant]

We always wondered if there’s actually going to be a life-size, remote-controlled cars resembling the ones we played with in our childhood. It seems, there is one in the market created by Chinese carmaker BYD Auto and it is called ‘Su Rui’. The road-legal, full sized vehicle isn’t just a remote toy, it operates like a regular car, but with the advantage of operating it is 33 feet radius of the driver. Drivers can start or stop the car or move it in any direction they want. Drivers can also start air conditioning remotely on excruciating summer day. In the remote control mode, Su Rui can only travel at a pace of 2 km/hr.

Cooking that perfect steak is a skill that takes years for experienced chefs to develop. Cooking a piece of meat at home by an amateur chef requires patience, and a few prayers to the lord above. What if there was something that told you when your food was done to perfection! A research group at the Tokyo Institute of Technology has developed something interesting called a “cooking simulator”. It is basically a force feedback fry pan and spatula which calculates the heat transfer from the pan to the meat or vegetables that are being cooked. As it displays the visible changes as the ingredients are being cooked, you know exactly what is happening inside the meat or veggies, enabling you to take them off the heat when they are absolutely perfect. This system is capable of calculating how moisture evaporates or flows as the temperature rises, or how protein changes color from red to brown. What’s more, along with moving the fry pan to expedite the cooking process, the simulator can feed back the weight of ingredients and also the tactile feeling of the ingredients cooking.

With the U.S Open commencing today a lot of crazy ideas revolving around tennis will be witnessed. Before the crazy frenzy begins let’s take a look at something with class like the custom-made tennis balls. Vogue asked eleven designers and a tennis legend to create customized versions of the classic tennis ball. The result? A range of beautiful tennis balls. Have you ever heard the words tennis balls and beautiful in the same sentence? Now you will thanks to the amazing work of these designers.

There is something to be said about clever marketing. Manufacturers have found a foolproof way to get their customers to shell out more money – giving things a paintjob! A perfect example would be stationary manufacturers Bic and their “Bics for Her” product line. This collection of pens is targeted towards women, more specifically young girls. They are pink, small, and feature bejeweled bodies. As pretty as they are, what is really shocking is how much these are being sold for. The products in the Bics For Her line are essentially the same as the other “non-gender specific” pens, and yet are priced at up to 70 percent more. Even more shocking is the fact that they are not hiking up the prices for similar products aimed towards men. Sometime back, they released the “Velocity” line that sold the same products with an “extra-wide, contoured, rubberized grip” specifically for the male gender. However, these are not as expensive as the women’s pens.

When you are a nerdy gamer, you probably don’t have much of an opinion on things like room décor. That is, until you lay your eyes on this spectacular Ghost Chaser Gaming Blinds! This blind features our beloved Yellow Ghost Chaser On Black Roller Blinds. Even though it is quite simple, it makes a powerful statement; guaranteed to become the centre of attraction in your room. On closer inspection, the design reveals itself to be much more complicated than first imagined. You will notice that the large picture is actually made up of images of all our favorite remotes and controllers. Every piece of equipment that has at some point been used to control these wily ghost chasers are represented in the picture. So, you have your Xbox controller – classic and new, your classic Nintendo handheld, and the PSP, nestled among so many others. All these are arranged expertly to form the Pizza Pie shape of the yellow ghost hunter.

So you are lounging about your house in your R2D2 Bra and eating some popcorn from the R2-D2 Plastic Popcorn Bucket & Drink Stein Set. You suddenly look down at your Remote Control R2-D2 Whizz Watch and realize you need to get the kids off to school! Don’t forget to pack their Star Wars R2D2 Lunch Bag with Sound! Star Wars fans will love this latest little addition to their R2D2 collection. Made by the folks over at Thermos, this lunch bag is definitely a sure-fire hit with your kids. What’s more, it even comes with all those bleep-boop sound effects we love from our favorite droid. All you do is push a button and your lunch-bag transforms into the beeping droid. The R2-D2 lunch bag is made of food-safe, BPA-free materials, including closed cell polyethylene foam insulation which keeps your food fresh for many hours. It is extremely durable and easily cleanable; just wipe it with a damp cloth.

It’s embarrassing to admit, but the other day my three-year-old niece showed me how to do something on my iPad! As the generations pass, kids are becoming more and more tech savvy, with an innate grasp for everything digital. These Design Nerds Flash Cards are designed to give your kids a head-start in learning all those tech, design and media terms, which are bound to be part of their everyday vocabulary in the future. Sure, A is still for Apple; but not the fruit we grew up with. This concept is the brain-child of South African designer Emma Cook, who wished to create a set of “culturally relevant” flash cards. We have to agree. After all, when was the last time you came across a (X is for) Xylophone? On the other hand, doesn’t it make more sense to say “U is for USB Drive” to your little tot?

Be honest, who doesn’t enjoy the occasional glass of alcohol with breakfast (oh, don’t give me that look, you know you do). While all these years champagne has enjoyed its monopoly on breakfast, it might all change with the new Georgi Waffle Flavored Vodka! You heard right, it is vodka flavored to taste like our favorite sweet breakfast. Georgi introduced this exciting new flavor in honor of National Waffle Day, which was on August 24th. It debuted at Holiday Inn Express of Stony Brookwhich was serving alcohol flavored waffles complimentary to all guests wide a side of this new vodka, and at the Kennedy’s Restaurant in New York City, which served traditional Irish breakfast items made with the waffle vodka. This vodka is apparently four times distilled, promising a smooth waffle flavor.

The most serious and magnanimous things in life start off as a silly game. Although, the Educo Discovery Rocket is far from being silly, it is a full fledged career path for a budding astronaut. The cool spaceship shaped fun house gives the idea of being in space in a small way. The Rocket has four levels and is designed to look like a space station. With the recent demise of first man on the moon- Neil Armstrong, more and more kids ought to have interest in this profession.

Six huge movies, and countless books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books later, we still can’t get enough of the Star Wars franchise. Star wars fans, you have something new and much more exciting to look forward to! At the Star Wars Celebration, held earlier in the week, a new comedy animated series based on the ‘Star Wars’ film franchise was announced. Aptly titled ‘Star Wars Detours’, the show is a collaboration George Lucas and ‘Robot Chicken’ creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich. The show will be set between Episode III and Episode IV, shortly before the events of A New Hope. Unlike the movies and such, this will be an out-and-out comedy show. It is going to be based on the everyday lives of some of our favorite characters of the Star Wars universe; it will focus on regular folks and their everyday problems rather than some huge inter-galactic wars.

On which side of the great paper war do you fall? Do you take notes on your Smartphone, or still pull out your old notebook? Now you don’t have to take sides! Notebook app Evernote and notebook giants Moleskine have collaborated, and created something called the Evernote Smart Notebook. The idea is to bridge the digital and analog worlds by allowing you to take notes physically and then saving it digitally onto your device! The notebooks will be made with a special kind of formatted paper, which allows it to work with Evernote. It uses Evernote’s Page Camera feature to capture photos of the pages with your Smartphone or tablet. Once the photo is taken, you can save it, search it and share it with the world. Smart Stickers are stickers that you place on the physical pages. Once the photo is taken, the Smart Sticker icons become searchable, digital tags that make it easy to keep track of your notes.

It’s a known fact that gamers spend all their time on hardcore gaming and bathing becomes the last chore in their list. If the videogame charm could be imported from the living room couch to the bathroom, don’t you think gamers would give cleanliness a second shot? Well, the Gamer Soaps from Firebox is designed to do just that with their fun range of gamer soaps. With these soaps, you’re sure to become a regular at the shower and make mommy very happy too.

Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy might have ended last month, but it’s left everybody loving it and lurking in the suspense as to what is going to come next. The Batman merchandize keeps coming and another one joining the army is the Batarang. The twin-blade folding knife that features a bat handle, stretches out on both sides like a bat’s wings. The design is pretty awesome but the process of unfolding the knife itself may leave your hand bleeding for a while.

We love anything inspired by video games from the 80’s and the hunger for geek gadgets never seems to satiate. Last year, the geek-o-meter was set bar high with the Space Invaders Watch and this year we get to see the Pac-Man watch from the same company, Romain Gerome. The watch donning the Swiss automatic Concepto movement, will only be released at the Colette store in Paris on September 3rd, followed by a launch at Romain Gerome retailers on the 10th of September.