April 10, 2003

Gotta Have It

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I smell something stale. It’s your life. The same thing day in and day out. Nothing changes. You’re in a rut. Well, I’m here to help you. Maybe you just need to look at things a little differently. This week I present you with three options. One’s for your eyes. Another’s for your feet. And, the last one is for all the rest of you. They say that money can’t buy happiness, but at least you won’t be so freaking bored all the time.

The New 3-D

While 3-D glasses have been around for quite a long time, there haven’t been any significant improvements made in recent years. Up till now, the best you could do was look at a book full of floating balloons, castles, and teddy bears. Or, if you are old enough, you might remember seeing cheesy monster movies with a piece of cardboard stuck to your face. The people at X3D were disappointed with the lack of 3-D viewing advancements, so they decided to do something about it. The result of years of hard work and dangerous experiments is the X3D Viewing System. Basically, it’s a pair of futuristic goggles that you hook up to your computer with the included software, instantly making everything you see 3-D. The system works by opening and closing liquid crystal shutters in the lenses while shifting the images between your eyes up to 60 times per second. X3D claims that the system works equally well with pictures, movies, and video games. When I get my hands on a pair of these goggles, the first thing I’m going to do is watch Field of Dreams and try to give James Earl Jones a hug. (x3d.com)

Get Your Head Up

Do you have trouble reaching for cereal from the top shelf at the supermarket? Do you have to sit and watch while your friends get to go on the really good roller coasters? Do you take a lot of elbows to the nose? Well, your days of suffering the effects of height deprivation are over. The good people at the Richlee Shoe Company are here to give you a new outlook on life. Since 1939, Richlee has been making men 2”-3” taller with their patented Elevators shoes. Available in athletic, casual, and dress styles, the shoes promise to improve your life in ways you’ve never even imagined. Here are a few of Richlee’s statistics: every extra inch in height brought a man an additional $600 per year in salary, job recruiters, choosing between men of comparable backgrounds and skills, select the taller man 72% of the time, women find taller men “significantly more attractive,” 90% of company chief executives are “above average” in height, and 18 out of the last 22 U.S. Presidential elections have been won by the taller man. It’s hard to argue with facts like that, but I think I’m going to just get me a pair of stilts instead. I’ll be able to step over mud puddles, dunk a basketball, and I’ll finally have an excuse to wear my giant Uncle Sam costume out in public. (elevatorshoes.com)

Go Fly a Kite

Someone finally combined two of the ultimate slacker activities: flying kites and riding skateboards. They call it the Kite Board. Pretty original, huh? What the company lacks in marketing creativity, they more than make up for in performance. The kit comes complete with an all-terrain mountain board with oversized rubber wheels and feet straps and a 3.3M x .84M ripstop nylon pulling kite. Just strap on the board, grab the kite, and wait for a gust of wind to take you on your way.

With enough practice, you’ll be able to get anywhere you want in a matter of moments, and eventually you’ll be able to avoid pedestrians. And, if you keep hitting them even after you mastered your new sport, then it’s their fault. So, feel free to thump them good. By the time they know what hit them, you’ll be long gone.

My hope is that the people at Kite Board will come out with some designer kites in the near future, like the Mr. T kite I had when I was little. It flew like crap and broke pretty much every time I tried to fly it, but I loved it anyway. Those were the days. (iwantoneofthose.com)

Archived article by Adam Matthews