oh things, how I need you all!

First off, I love Hammacher Shucmakekjafea (or however that's spelled) and Sharper Image and all Useless Expensive Stuff for Yuppies magazines... There's some incredible innovation going on in creating needs that we didn't just didn't know we had but seriously could never have concieved of having in a million years. I also love that their stuff is included in Sky Mall, the ultimate in useless stuff that seems like a good idea because air-travel makes you CRAZY!

Of course usually I'm not air-travel insane, so I don't necessarily know that I need a special device that "lets a canine share its hijinks and innermost musings with all its followers on the Twitter microblogging site." I enjoy the idea of the Automatic Nut Roaster, but only as long as three sophmoric chuckles take to wheeze out of my addled adolescent mind. Perhaps because I don't have a dog and don't understand, I'm not sure I need this either:

(although if they have it in plaid,

it would go GREAT with

a little doggie sweater, booties and

maybe a doggie purse!)



On the other hand, as I emerge into yuppie-dom, sometimes I think that NASA sciency temperature regulating bedding sounds kind of awesome. Yes, they used the appeal of SPACE!!!!! and science to take on an extra zero to the price, I am sure. But if they work, they could be kind of cool. They supposedly store and release heat in such a way as to absorb heat when you're hot and give out heat when you're cold. Considering that Andrew and I (and many men and women) quite possibly have about fifteen degrees' difference in our base temperatures at night, this would theoretically quell all kinds of weird nocturnal battles and blanket coups. Maybe.

I would also very much like one of those new-fangled treadmill/walking desks. I am a pacer and a fidgeter. I stand on the bus (I call it bus surfing since I also try to keep my balance without holding the rails and it can be challenging). I have been caught standing in a corner of my office with reading materials propped on boxes because I don't like sitting. So this kind of thing would actually make working much easier for me. Except I have yet to see an attractive one. Welll, maybe one or two for special photo shoots, but these usually come with treadmills that max out at 2 mph and considering how fast I can walk when I'm really thinking... I don't know but I just feel like I want a higher performance treadmill than that. I mean I might even want to run on the damned thing if I'm going to plunk down the kind of absurd amounts of money for my simulated open spaces experience. I imagine if I were more creative, I could build one. Or if I were richer I could commission one from a talented carpenter.

And speaking of not sitting on one's lazy ass all day, I hear that the obesity rate is perched to topple 40% in the US soon). My first solution is that we need to complement the rise in vanity sizing with VANITY SCALES. Just downgrade everyone's weight by about twenty pounds, or maybe some kind of more complicated algorithm that discounts more as a person gets heavier. Since the obesity rate is calculated from the BMI height to weight, this should solve the problem quite easily and make us all feel a heckuvalot better about ourselves. In the alternative, somebody's come up with a solution that is still scale-based at least:

Oh yes, shoes that test your weight ALL DAY LONG! As soon as you're standing still they start to chime in about your heaviness. I have to admit, I totally nt these. I would spend all day picking things up and announcing how much they weigh and then finding out how my weight changes when I drink a glass of water, when I blow my nose, etc. etc. etc. Also, I think this could recombine with my vanity sizing idea, since your weight is gonna be pretty clear to read by others standing near you. You could program your shoes to discount like 25% of your weight and make all your friends feel reeeeeeaaaaaally bad!