For the most part, CES is a tranquil affair composed primarily of civilized technical discourse. Then you get to the booth with the dongs.
To be fair, this is not the only keg-shaped PC mod out there. But it IS the only keg-shaped PC mod I've seen that can still dispense beer as the Lord intended. The kick-ass Sandy Bridge sporting rig not only contains the newest and bestest CPU CES has to offer, it can dispense a half-gallon keg of beer out of its own self-refrigerating and carbonation unit. The Kegputer was pouring Sierra Nevada Pale Ale at the show. It was also running Starcraft II on three 30 inch monitors in portrait mode, which is much better than I can do when filled with a half gallon of grog.
I don't know what's more bizarre: that Polaroid is trying to get us to reinvest in instant cameras , or that Lady Gaga showed up at CES claiming to carry a Polaroid photo printer in her purse wherever she goes. At a show whose guests have traditionally been on par with Michael Dell's dry cleaner, there sure was an uncomfortable amount of star power this year: 50 Cent even showed up to sign autographs and shill his headphones. Is there no place left where nerds can just be among our own kind?
Do you have so much money that you can afford to void your iPhone's warranty with bodily fluids? Then perhaps I can interest you in OhMiBod's Body Heat, an app that can set your "personal massager" to vibrate in time with your iPod's music, with you controlling the strength and speed of the vibration via the touch screen. How app crackdown-happy Apple let this slip by I have no idea. Just don't you go syncing this up with something like "Teddy Bear's Picnic" and ruin it for everybody.
The app everybody has is now being made into a physical board game by Mattel, complete with plastic birds and pigs. Draw a card, use the plastic wooden planks to build the structure pictured, then knock it down by launching a bird from the tiny slingshot.You might as well just throw the cards away, though, because you know the real fun in this is just knocking everything down. Grab some army dudes, action figures, blocks, a neighbor kid--get them all in the mix and watch them fall on their knees before the power of your mighty slinger. The game will hit stores at the respectable MSRP of $14.99.
I've never particularily felt the need to turn my iPad into a tiny arcade cabinet, but now that I am aware such thing is possible, I am unable to concentrate on anything else. Online retailer Think Geek first conceived of the iCade as an April Fool's joke last year, but as has happened with their other April Fool's joke products (Star Wars TaunTaun sleeping bag, 8-bit tie), this one is actually coming to life thanks to ION Audio. It'll be out this spring for $99, and with Atari already working on games like Asteroids for the iOS, this doesn't seem entirely crazy to me.
Step right up to the Taser booth, tell the attendant "Yes, Tase me, bro!", and you'll get a commemorative Taser hat and coin. Of course, you will actually have to experience a full Tasing (after, naturally, you sign a two page waiver that says you won't sue in the event of your organ being punctured or you straight up dying). If I could have, I would've just spent every day of CES camping out in front of the booth watching people get Tasered for a shitty cotton cap with an unidentifiable logo. Who would agree to this? You must be aware of the risk of taking a public dump after experiencing thousands of volts of electricity running through your body.
Could Mario Kart get any more fun? Yes, says CTA Digital, if you play it while sitting in an inflatable toy shaped like a go-kart. Check it out, though, the steering wheel's got a holder for the Wii remote--the ingenuity of which is worth at least $20 of the $40 asking price. The kart itself can support up to 300 pounds of obese American toddler. Your kids will probably hate you, though, when they see this in the living room and then quickly realize what it actually is. Doug from CTA says he has "no doubt you'll be the most popular person on the block" if you buy this, though, so it might be worth the risk.
Autotune user T-Pain showed up at CES to promote his new business endeavor, the I Am T-Pain microphone. According to Mr. Pain, the mic works just like the eponymous app. Talk into the mic and your voice comes out like Robot Squeaky Fromme farts. You should be able to buy this for $39.99 this summer, if you can't think of anything better to spend forty dollars on than bearing a superficial resemblance to a song interrupter who hasn't been on the charts for many moons.
A back-talking Showbot jamming out to AC/DC roamed the halls of CES, confusing conference-goers and leaving broken-hearted and confusingly aroused women in his wake. Turns out they're roving mansuits available for hire should you want to promote your company and/or item, and though I'm receiving nary a robo high-five for mentioning them, every company needs to start using these instead of giving me crappy pens and water bottles I'm just going to give to Goodwill to feel good about making a living eating Lornadoones and typing about robots.
Having been raised Catholic, I did a lot of rosaries as a child. Some for sass-talking my mother, others for waking up late for school, others still for accidentally eating an entire sleeve of communion wafers I thought were crackers (this is actually true). Basically you have to say a prayer for every bead on those long necklaces, and it's pretty easy to lose track of which bead you're on when you've already done thirty Hail Marys and you want to go outside and play. Now, thanks to the ioPrego, which I first thought was Italian for iPregnant, something that would've made a much better gadget, you and your Catholic bros can take advantage of Chinese innovations to worship Mother Mary just how she would've liked: easily, and with beeps.
How much did you spend on your Xbox 360? $300, max? Well, instead of buying a protection plan for a fraction of the cost, why not buy a Calibur11 vault for $90? Though the Vault won't protect your 360 from technical failure, which, chances are, what will actually break it, it will probably protect your Xbox from being punched. It also makes a scary face on the side. Approved by Major League Gaming!
No comments:
Post a Comment