So many of the country’s best and brightest engineers are designing meaningful solutions to significant problems – climate change, alternative energy sources, medical research, earth-saving environmental innovations. Some, however, are not. They’re applying their gifts to new products that, well, are of somewhat dubious benefit at best. A catalog arrived yesterday of, shall we say, high-end products that are interesting and curious. These are pretty costly, and quite frankly, don’t really seem to be filling a niche in the marketplace. As I was leafing through the pages, I wondered who actually bought these items. And, of greater importance, who has or is making so much money that they really consider some of these items “essential consumerism”. For example:
There’s a portable drive-in movie theatre for a mere $600. It’s got a projector, complete with its own screen. What a great idea, having all of your friends and neighbors driving all over your back yard, although presumably you don’t need cars to make this work. This is perfect for the folks that spent thousands of dollars on a “home” theatre, and now want to extend the joy to the great outdoors. The sound system is battery-powered and will run for three and a half hours, which should really delight the neighbors. To their further enjoyment, it comes with microphone, so anyone setting this up can have karaoke nights too! What fun.
Next, for the pet enthusiast that doesn’t want the hassle of taking care of animals, there’s this intriguing item. It’s a glass globe that is a mini-aquarium, complete with rubber jellyfish, which one plugs in and the jellyfish gently weave about to in a generated “current”. This is supposed to induce calm and relaxation. I’m not sure about this, readers, but seeing jellyfish floating about usually causes my “flight reflex” to kick in, heading for solid ground of the beach as quickly as possible. I still imagine that hilarious scene from the tv show, “Friends”, where Monica is stung (bitten? Not sure of the technical term here) by a jellyfish, forcing Joey and Chandler to improvise a medical treatment. There’s a similar item farther along in the catalog. It’s a faux fish tank – more a column of lights and faux fish, that will apparently delight anyone viewing it. The only thing more appealing than tropical fish would be faux fish.
I’ve seen this item in other catalogs in various forms, but this one is a parking sensor for your garage. It tells you when you’ve gone far enough into the garage, so you don’t inadvertently bash through the back, ending up in the back yard. I hate when that happens. This speaks well to the quality of drivers we’re producing in America today, although it does make a humorous scenario in comedies. I say, if you can’t see the back of the garage – and you can’t tell how far away those hanging tools are, then you really shouldn’t be driving at .025 mph, let alone 60, and should consider cutting up your license.
There’s an electric, turbo nose hair clipper ($40) that surely is an improvement over the old, manual ones. Now, I will say that I rarely see someone with so much nose hair, literally ponytails of nose hair, that you need this super-charged version. Perhaps some do, but those folks really shouldn’t go out in public anyway. They should just stay home and . . . . .
Now this is a breakthrough that’s long overdue. An alarm clock on wheels that rolls itself off your night stand, forcing the sleeper to get and chase after it to turn it off. It features robotic sound effects, and sells for a mere $70. You can also shut off the wheels if running around the bedroom after an alarm clock really isn’t your “thing”. I know, who wouldn’t want an escaping electronic device? This will practically sell itself. Of course, if it runs under the bed, I’d let it go until the batteries wear down. We did that once with one of those vacuum cleaners that wedged itself under the couch and just whimpered itself to death. I retrieved it about two years later when I had to move the couch.
This is another innovation whose time has come. An inflatable chair – a take on the old beanbag, except the seat lights up in a variety of colors. According to the add, there are 120 colors, combinations, and effects. What joy for your rear-end. Who wouldn’t want “pink butt”? It sells for a mere $80, and can travel (presumably with help) from the living room to the back deck to the beach. Yes, indeed. One would certainly be a hit on a crowded beach with this thing lighting up. It requires three batteries, and we can only assume that they can’t run down fast enough.
If you really wanted a fireplace but couldn’t install a real one, there’s a table-top version. It’s metal and glass, and runs on bio-ethanol, whatever that is. I suspect it’s something I won’t mention here, in a family-friendly blog. Because it burns this bio-ethanol, there is no smoke, soot, or ashes. Good so far. But are we really so desperate for a fire that we need a table-top fire pit? I can’t see this being endorsed by the Firefighters Association any time soon.
As summer approaches, here’s something no backyard pool should be without – a motorized tube float. This is definitely for the person that wants to float idly around the pool, but wants to get to the other end faster. It’s powered by twin engine propellers, so you won’t just be going around in circles. I know, right? This should truly speed up the lounging process, giving pool drifting a sense of purpose and direction. Well done, pool engineers!
Here’s another great innovation for the gardening crowd. It’s a weed killer that zaps weeds with infrared light to kill the roots. That baby is $150, and worth every penny in my book. Here all these years I’ve just been yanking the weeds out with my pronged weeder. How positively Victorian is that? Of course, one still has to pick up the weeds and throw them on the weed pile, but knowing that they’ve been scientifically zapped by light produces such peace of mind.
There are other wonderful innovations too, like an electric s’mores maker. An electric heater toasts the marshmallows to a golden brown right in the comfort of your own home. Wow! No more backyard fire pits, no more campfires and sharpening branches from the nearest tree, no more Kumbaya as the marshmallows catch fire and turn a rich black before you toss it and start another. New summer memories that can last all year round, and all for a paltry $80. Another modern marvel. Along with this, and I’m sure that folks purchasing the s’mores maker will be snapping this up too, is a touch-free candy dispenser. It has a built-in motion sensor, so your hands activate the flow of candy from this magical machine. And here again, we thought that tearing a bag open was the way to go. No, no. For just $60, you can get a handful of candy just like that! (My fingers are snapping for effect, in case you were wondering.)
This is truly one of my favorites. A light and massaging hair brush. Apparently, it’s a spa-like massage for your scalp, stimulating follicles and making your hair thick and luxurious. I could use that, as my hair follicles have been jumping ship like rats now for quite some time. $100 and two AA batteries and I’ll be a star once again.
Wrapping up this wonderful catalog, here’s another idea that just hits the mark like a dart. It’s a “surround sound” system for your shower. Again, wow! Who would have dreamed that up? Several questions arise, though. Aren’t showers walls of glass, tile, marble, that sort of thing? So aren’t showers, by definition, “surround sound”? They’re basically reverberation chambers. Why would you need . . . . . The other thing that pops up to my inquiring mind is, how long are these showers that people are taking that they’d need a sound system? Aren’t these typically 10 – 15 minutes max, unless you’re our daughter? How much water are we wasting to get maximum benefit from a high-powered, acoustically balanced sound system? Does one program in mix, or do you just download an album? There are certainly many, many unanswered questions here.
So, my faithful readers, just when you thought you were engulfed in all of the latest technology and pampering devices, not quite as much as you thought. America’s best and brightest minds are working around the clock to produce things you never even imagined, much less thought wanted. These inventors are spending, well, way too much time on . . . a lot of things. For most of them, I’m thinking . . . . . . not so much.
I'm Thinking...No! 