4 posts tagged “insane product monday”

What it is:  The animatronic roommate, AKA "Brian the Brain"

Where to get it:  Hammacher-Schlemmer

Roommates exist for three reasons:  To help with the rent, to leave dirty dishes and/or underwear lying in the sink, and to sleep with your girlfriend behind your back.  Brian the Brain can't do ANY of these things, making him quite possibly the lamest roommate in the history of ever, if also possibly the least messy.  You might think it would help that Brian looks like a gruesome trophy from Mars Attacks!, but it doesn't.  I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of sharing space with an unliving substitute for companionship, but I'd rather it looked more like a RealDoll (don't click that at work) and less like a boiled monkey skull.  And after a bad breakup, the RealDoll might just give you a pity fuck (Okay, in fairness, Brian might also.  But from him, no thanks.)   There's also the issue of Brian the Brain coming pre-loaded with the Encyclopedia Britannica, which makes him not only an UGLY fake roommate, but an annoying know-it-all fake roommate as well.  I can't bear the idea of going out and looking for any clips of this horrorshow on the Internet, but I'm guessing that any time the Britannica disk is loaded, every sentence starts with, "well, accccctuallly," or "I'm sure you meant..."

What is it:  Scale Model Bazookas

Where to get it:  http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/japanfan/995b/

"Time to celebrate your personal relationship with explosions ...by bringing 1/6th scale replicas of some of the world's most favorite bazookas to your office."
  The above phrase, copied directly from the Internet, is insane enough that it really deserves to be taken apart and dissected piece by piece.
  "1/6 scale"  Did you know that spellcheck doesn't recognize "undercompensation?"  And yet, that's what these microweapons are.  Undercompensation tools.  I think.  I'm actually not sure what these things say about your penis, but I shamefully almost want one, if only so I can say, "wanna see my three-inch boomstick?" at parties.
  "replicas"  I'm forced to assume this means they're "not actually functional," which makes them approximately seven levels less awesome.  Picture, if you will, the cubicle of your enemy.  He has gone to the staff lounge and returned with a packet of Pringles, which are awesome salty goodness that he crunches loudly and refuses to share.  Again.  You pull down from the wall your trusty miniature Panzer Faust3, take careful aim, and a one-centimeter rocket-propelled grenade chuffs down the hallway, blowing the shit out of his Bluetooth mouse, with, just for effect, a miniature exhaust contrail.  Yeah, sorry, that can't happen, because the rocket launcher is just a die-cast replica.

  "to your office."  That's the key phrase right there.  Unless you work from home, festooning your cubicle walls with miniature weapons is nothing short of rather bizarre behavior.  Once you start muttering to yourself and hanging replica weapons on your office wall, the countdown to an office intervention begins.  Hopefully, it begins at "2," because: damn, it turns out that you're the kind of person who has fantasies of extremely violent behavior over forty cents' worth of potato chips.

  Look.  Instead of spending $10 on a rocket launcher that doesn't work and will cause embarrassing questions, spend $3 on a shitload of matches and make a mortar battery of matchstick rockets.  It's cheaper, is somewhat easier to explain to your coworkers, and has the potential to actually start a fire and get you out early.

What it is:  The Love Gun
Where to get it:  http://www.kleargear.com/1590.html

Us:  (Demonstrates our love using the Love Gun.)
Her:  "Oh my god!  What the hell?"
Us:   "See?  We love you.  We just didn't know how to say it until we got this."
Her:  "You hit me in the EAR with a little plastic CUPID?"
Us:   "Yeah.  Because we ...love you."
Her:  "FREAK!   Am I blee...I'm bleeding!  Shit!  You punctured my EARDRUM with your damn cupid catapult!"
Us:   "Oh.  Uh.  We can...do you want some ice...Uh...Or, I could drive you to the Emergency Room, maybe, and then we could get dinner or have a drink or something after?"
Her:  "Get away from me.  Scott!  Scott!  I'm taking the rest of the afternoon off and going to the Worker's Comp. Clinic.  And I'm taking tomorrow off to recover.  When I come in on Monday, you can tell me what you've done about this hostile work environment where I'm getting SHOT in the EAR with goddamn CUPIDS because some freaky MOUTHBREATHER has a crush on me!"
Us:   "Okay, so, uh, call you sometime?"

This, hopefully, will be my new weekly meme.  Check back every back-to-workday for another example of something absolutely ridiculous for you to spend your hard-earned money on.  This inaugural post also marks my grudging entrance into the world of tagging my posts.
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What it is:  The Cubicle Playset Collection

Where to get it:  ThinkGeek, but available many, many places.

  "Choose between 10 different sets!  Build your own corporate labyrinth one cube at a time!"  "In this office, you're the boss!"
  The above comes straight from their advertising, and while it's a decent piece of ad copy, it does assume, allegedly correctly, that many people have missed out on two key pieces of personal development.  First, it's honestly not that hard to be the boss of an ACTUAL cube farm.  If you put in a few years of hard work and ass-kissing, you can be your own Lumbergh, forcing actual minions to work unpaid weekends, instead of bossing around plastic people that have no souls to suck out and crush, which is the best part.
  Second, it's fantasy.  There's nothing at all wrong with fantasy.  In fact, I love fantasy.  But fantasy is generally based on some combination of the unrealistic, the impossible, and the whimsical, which the Cubicle Playset misses on all three counts.  It's why model trains sell so well, and especially why the HO-scale "Hooters Express" (I only ride that train for the wings) would make a killing if they got around to creating and marketing it.  This toy is for people who want to simulate social interaction, but have inexplicably decided to pass on the somewhat cooler options like dedicating the basement to a replica of Sherman's March to the Sea.
  If You Must:  Get "Joe," pictured above.  Why?  Because if you look closely, Joe certainly does appear to be looking at pornography on his office PC.  Good for you, Joe!