As I write this, I’m sitting on my couch with my feet up on the coffee table. My laptop is, well, on my lap and my handheld in my pocket (does that make it a pocket-held?). My computer is connected to my wireless home network, which, in turn, is connected to my super-fast, always-on ADSL internet connection.
Next to me is my wife. She’s watching a satellite broadcast of Desperate Housewives on our flat-screen TV while clutching one of five remotes we own. Yes, it’s a rare moment that I relinquish control, but it is only for an hour a week. The TV sound is great. It should be, it’s playing through a high-end sound system with 5.1 speakers.
Right now, at this exact moment in time, I may possibly be the most wired person on the planet. Or in Wynberg at least.
Life in 2005 is good. But how can it be made better? I don’t have any ideas, but then I’m not an inventor. So for my edification, and for yours, I trawled the web to find some great, although slightly pointless, inventions that help define our generation.
Powerball neon gyroscope
Described as ”the fastest human-propelled device ever created”, this weird blue glowing ball spins at up to 15 000 revolutions per minute, says havetohave.co.za, giving your arms a quick and efficient gym-like workout without leaving your desk. I don’t fully understand how you hold something spinning that fast, or why you’d want to, but for just more than R700, you can buy one for yourself and figure it out.
The same website is also selling the Aibo entertainment robot, available in both pearl black and pearl white.
Aibo is a small, robotic dog that understands and responds to more than 100 words and phrases. A bit like a larger version of a Tamagochi, you nurture your Aibo from puppy to adult. And, in case you want your new best friend to do more than wander around yapping, it also has built in wireless connectivity and can take both video and still photographs.
I’m not sure why you’d want a dog that can take photographs. But then, five years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you why you’d want a phone that takes photographs. Times change.
Candy bra
If that’s all a bit much for you, perhaps you want to relax by slipping into something more comfortable. Like the candy bra available from www.gadgetsuk.com.
For about R60 you can pick up one of these little beauties — a bra made up of 330 small sweets. It’s a one-size-fits-all deal that, the website assures me, only comprises 60 calories.
And if the bra isn’t your thing, then you might want to go for the candy posing pouch — pouch-style underpants, also 330 sweets big and also only 60 calories. I’m a little dubious about its one-size-fits-all claim, though. We all know that it simply isn’t true, but I’m not going to be the one to challenge them.
Outdoorsy types might be feeling a little left out so far, so here’s something for your Christmas list. It’s a Big Bug Vac. No, not a holiday for giant dung beetles, but rather a vacuum cleaner that sucks up bugs and creepy crawlies.
It’s available from Convenient Gadgets at www.cgets.com for only R480, which seems a little expensive for something that does the job of an old shoe and a dustpan. You could, of course, go for the smaller model, the Mini Bug Vac, which retails for about R160, or the Computer Mini Vac for R150.
Of course, there’s nothing on their website that tells you which to use if a medium-sized Parktown prawn strolls across your keyboard. Personally, I’d be running the other way, so the question becomes irrelevant.
My final bout of ”windows shopping” was a visit to one of the coolest online stores around, Iwantoneofthose.com. Its list of products reads like the inventory of every bachelor’s fantasy. I mean, who wouldn’t want a flashing gear knob, an inflatable moose head, Twister duvet covers or a singing-in-the-shower set (comprising waterproof radio and microphone-shaped sponge)?
Landing lights
But my favourite? Could we have a round of applause, please, for the simple yet inspired LavNav. The website describes it best: ”Stumbling to the lav at night is one of life’s little irritations at the best of times, but what really makes it so darned annoying is having to half blind yourself in the process by turning on the bathroom light.
”You could almost get away with going through the process without truly waking up, if it wasn’t for the ‘Oh my good god, who put a 1 000-watt bulb in when I wasn’t looking’ experience. Well now, thankfully, that whole snow-blindness nightmare is finally over.”
The LavNav is to the late-night urinator what a set of landing lights is to the pilot of an Airbus. The built-in motion detector will sense when you are in the vicinity of the toilet (always a good start) and will light your way with a gentle, non-blinding glow. But the truly inspired part of the tale is this: if the toilet seat is up, the LavNav glows red. When it is down, the glow is green. Brilliant.
One day when historians look back on 2005, they will inevitably focus on a single slice of our present lifestyle to generalise about how humankind existed. I hope that the LavNav features strongly in that slice. It elegantly combines form and function in an unashamedly practical way. And for that alone, it deserves to be up there with the car, the wheel, fire and the internet in a list of all-time great inventions and discoveries.