Cavalcade of Awesome

Ask my wife. I’m kind of a geek. My particular geek-ness leans toward movies and technology (computers, gadgets, etc). Everyone from friends to family to friends of family ask me to fix their computers. It’s my lot in life. But I embrace this. As a tech geek, during the day I surf many “geeky” websites that preview new technologies and gadgets months (and sometimes years) before they hit the market. The last few weeks has seen a flood of cool items, gadgets and other stuff that are just so mind numbingly awesome that it may melt your face just looking at them. Of course, I had to tell you guys, my readers, the 4 or 5 people that frequent this site.

So, if you enjoy seeing cool, geeky gadgets that no one else on the planet would buy, then continue ahead for several items that may just fill that void in your soul and make you whole once again in a way that your spouse or significant other never could (sorry, Steph, it’s true).

Knight Rider GPS – I don’t mean to completely blow out your retinas on the first geeky gadget, but how earth shattering is this little nugget of awesome? It’s a portable GPS device similar to a TomTom GO or Garmin Nuvi, but it’s branded with Knight Rider, including moving red lights on either side of the LCD screen. But that’s not the face melting part. Like the Garmin, this GPS has voice directions you can turn on and the voice sounds like…wait for it…wait for it…KITT!!!! Yes, they got William Daniels to record the voice for the GPS directions! When you first start the GPS it says…”Michael, where would you like to go today?” You can reprogram it to use your own name. SO. UNBELIEVABLY. AWESOME. Now I have to buy a 1982 Pontiac Trans Am, trick it out with a KITT conversion and then I’ll be able to cruise around with skin tight jeans, leather jacket, calculator watch and perm-mullet. Look out ladies!

Check out the product demo:

Garmin Nuvifone – Yes, this is a cell phone, not a GPS. I mentioned up top about the Garmin Nuvi line of portable GPS devices. I personally have the Garmin Nuvi 660. It’s a phenomenal GPS that we use when we drive long distances to visit family. It also works well trying to find a new friend’s house in parts of Jacksonville we’ve never been to or finding a restaurant using the “Points of Interest” functionality. We love the little guy so much we named him Garmey. Anyway, cell phones with built in GPS tracking have become all the rage lately so Garmin decided to build their own cell phone. The Nuvifone has a touch screen much like the iPhone but built around their patented GPS satellite tracking technology and Nuvi on-screen interface. Take a look at the picture up there. The phone itself looks awesome. Very sleek and futuristic. It’s still in development too so we aren’t supposed to see any of these show up until the end of this year. I can’t wait to see the finished product. This should be a nice, slick little device that should compete very aggressively with the iPhone (which now has GPS tracking in the 3G model). Since the release is a ways off I’m not sure what cell phone carriers will offer the Nuvifone.

The NEStari portable game device – I’m bending the rules slightly with this object. You won’t be able to buy this gorgeous hunk of undiluted awesome in a store because it was custom made by hot shot gadget modder extraordinaire Ben Heck. This guy is a legend. He’s built crazy-ass gadgets like an Atari 7800 portable, an Atari/Playstation 2 combo unit, and an unbelievably small “NES Micro” device that is as small as a Gameboy but plays NES game cartridges. Looking at the stuff this guy has built on his website makes MacGyver look like a pre-schooler trying to build an Atom Bomb. Heck started with a stripped down Atari 2600 he had laying around and decided to make the NEStari, a portable game device that plays both NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) and Atari 2600 cartridges. That’s right, look at the picture again. This device plays BOTH NES and Atari 2600 cartridges. Don’t worry, I’ll wait while you search the floor beneath you for pieces of your face that just got rocked right off your head. Just the idea that I can play both RC Pro AM and Yar’s Revenge on the same machine that is small enough to fit in a backpack is enough to make me say my prayers to this guy when I go to bed at night. Thank you Ben, thank you for showing this geek that he still has a little face left to be rocked clean off.
Take a look at the video demo for the NEStari right here.

Bluetooth retro handset – This device is geeky, yet odd. It’s the only one on this list that I don’t actually want to own, but I bet my mom would. It’s a cordless “analog” phone receiver that you can pair to your cell phone using Bluetooth then talk through it. Yeah, I know, it’s weird, but kinda cool. Instead of using a cord with an ear bud or one of those stupid, stupid cell phone earpieces, you can be talking to people on your cell phone, but through a regular phone handset. I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around it. I thought it was interesting enough to show you here. It’s being offered by ThinkGeek, a great website with tons of cool stuff for us geeks.

Cool, geeky shirts from ThinkGeek.com – ThinkGeek has a strong collection of shirts for all types of geeks. Math, Science, IT, you name it, ThinkGeek has got you covered. Check out some of these kick ass shirts. Starting from the left, the first one is called “Pluto’s response”. A funny and appropriate response to what modern science has done to him. The second shirt is a really funny math geek shirt. “2 + 2 = 5 — For Extremely Large Values of 2″. As a math geek myself, that just makes me laugh, I don’t know why, but it does. Shirt numero 3 is for people in the IT department of big companies that develop and/or administer user data in a database (like me). It’s a simple SQL query denoting the cluelessness of users. EVERYONE where I work went nuts for this shirt. The final shirt on the right may take you a few reads to actually get the joke. I’m not going to tell you what it is, you have to guess. If you can’t figure it out and it’s driving you NUTS, just let me know, I’ll tell you.  You can click each shirt to go to the appropriate page on ThinkGeek and see a bigger version.

There are actually a few other shirts I’d love to post here but I think I’ve reached my reader’s attention span limits by now. If you want to see more awesome, awesome shirts, check out ThinkGeek.com’s selection here.

That about wraps up this week’s article. Oh, in case you were wondering, yes, I created the picture that’s at the top of this column. The picture is real, though. It’s Bill Gates in 1985 in a publicity photo for the release of Microsoft Windows v1.0. Looks like a spread for Teen Beat, doesn’t it? I added the border and the Geek Porn wording. It’s supposed to mimic all those Demotivational Posters you see on Despair.com and in all of those chain emails floating around.

Anywho, Steph and I will hopefully be seeing the movie Wanted with Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie this weekend. Have a really good weekend everyone.

Technorati Tags – Bill Gates GPS Garmin Knight Rider technology
cell phones Nintendo Atari geeks