From Boing Boing: “The Arkon LavNav is a nightlight that clips onto your toilet seat. It senses your approach in the night and glows gently (no blinding 100w bulb at 2AM) — green if the seat is down and red if the seat is up.”

I’m a little clumsy in the middle of the night. Can you just imagine how the toilet would look when the light fell off the lid and into the toilet? I can’t flush it. I’d have to reach in and get it. Yeah, I think I’ll leave this one to the early adopters and risk sitting on the toilet without the seat.

Arkon’s website seems to have a multitude of choices in gadgetry. Motion activated soap dispensers that would spew soap on my cats when they walked by. Personal air purifyers that would blow that strangely smelling ionized air at me. PDA mounts that would allow me to see what songs are playing on my Tungsten while I’m driving (ok, those look really cool).

I’ve talked about robots alot (Artificial Intelligence, I, Robot, I, Robot Reloaded) in the past. I don’t know why I want them to exist, but they are so cool to me. Honda has some movies of their brand new ASIMO robot. Not only can it walk on two feet (amazing!), it can go up and down stairs (rock on!) and it can RUN! They say it runs at 3 KM an hour. That’s almost 2 miles an hour, which seems slow, but when I weighed 236 pounds, I could barely walk 2 miles an hour. I think it’s amazing and the videos are fun to watch!

Honda ASIMO Videos

It just made me feel like I would be able to see robots in my future. I would be able to interact and communicate with a brand new life form of our own creation. I have all but given up seeing aliens in my lifetime, but a different species of our own making is something that we are so close to that I feel like I could reach out my hand and touch it.

We had been with Sprint for over seven years when we switched over to T-Mobile last November. We got new phones at such a discount that the rebates actually paid us to move over to T-Mobile. The switch over was relatively painless and I was happy to replace my four year old phone.

From the beginning, there were problems. Our home was a dead zone. Our phones worked within a one block radius of our home, but at our house, we never got our calls and calling out was difficult. When we could call out, we could barely hear the person on the other line because the phones cut out so often.

Then, about a month ago, my phone got worse. Wherever I tried to call, I had this noisy static coming over the line. There was nothing I could do to prevent that static noise. No matter who called, all I wanted to do was to get them off the phone as quickly as possible because I couldn’t hear what they were saying anyway.

We had a year contract. Yesterday, we broke it. We’ll willing pay the fee to T-Mobile to go back to Sprint. They ported over our numbers easily. I got the free clam-shell phone from LG and Mike got himself a Treo 650, which is a Palm device and a phone all in one. We spent most of last night talking about the phones and calling each other once they worked.

Ironically, when we had Sprint, we had horrible experiences with their customer service over the phones. Their automated phone system, called Claire, was supposed to understand English, but it didn’t work well at all. Once I would finally get a hold of a human being, they were just trying to get me off the phone as quickly as possible, giving incorrect answers and, at times, they were even rude. We had been so happy to move to T-Mobile because their service department seemed so great.

After experiencing the coverage nightmare that was T-Mobile, we were set on buying out of our contracts. We could have gone with any company: AT&T, Cingular, Cricket, Qwest, etc. Instead, we went back to Sprint. We KNEW that their coverage was great. We were able to get calls in Kauai, Hawaii and remote camping locations with Sprint. Sure the customer service was a nightmare, but the phones worked every time. That’s why we walked in the doors of the Sprint Store yesterday. The devil you know is better than the angel you don’t.

This video shows the inevitable conclusion to the iPod Phenomenon.

• The iPod Flea

Of course, if I want only one song playing over and over, I already live in that hell. There is hardly a time when I don’t have a song (or piece of one) playing over and over in my head.

Update: 04-05-09: Now that Apple has released the newest iPod Shuffle, this video doesn’t seem so funny anymore.

It won’t take any time for them to get down to the iPod Flea size.

Of course, by the time they do, it will cost $99 and play my entire music library… and I’ll be able to control it with the power of my MIND!

In Chapter 10 of my book, Looking For Christ, I created something I called Automatic Music, which fed off the moods of the listener and created music based on the people in the room.

• Cure-α – the mood-altering audio player – Engadget – www.engadget.com

It looks like that invention is coming sooner than I thought. Silly me, I thought I was being so inventive…

God, I needed this. When I saw this picture, I laughed out loud!

• Chicken Viking Hat by Sarah @ Aloha Misc. Media House

This knitting pattern is for a baby (6-12 months) Man, I need a pattern for a full grown adult. Nothing like a funny hat to lighten my day!

Via: gadgetgirl – just when you thought the internet was getting boring

We just bought a new printer. After swearing that I would never buy another ink jet printer, especially from Epson, we bought one. The truth of the matter is, ink jets are better for color printing than color laser printers and Epson is the best of the ink jet printers. We ended up buying the R200 and it is so much better than the last one we owned.

The first night we got it, I printed up some of my favorite photos that I’ve taken over the last few months. I was amazed at how good they look. I wouldn’t be able to tell them from a professional developing job. Our old printer was the top of the line Epson back in 2000 and it never looked this good, printed this fast or ran this quietly. There was always the faint shimmer of horizontal lines.

The Epson R200 is very near the bottom of the line right now and we bought it for $49 at Office Depot. We paid over $200 for our top of the line Epson so long ago. It just amazes me how quickly the world gets better.

Don’t bother me. I’m busy printing up Haunted Paper Toys.

This is how I know that I’m a complete nerd. I am currently fantasizing about spending the 300 bucks to buy this thing. I love the idea of constructing my own Death Star. You do know that even though it only looks half finished, it is fully operational. I could blow up my neighbors motorcycle with that thing, right?

“I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of motorcycles suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”

I wonder how long it takes for one adult to construct that thing?

I am now writing for The Gadgets Page, so all my ideas about cool gadgets are going to go there from now on. You can read my reviews here:

• Gadgets Page – Gadget news and reviews for the real world

I am excited to write down all my ideas about the new stuff out there, so please read my reviews for gadgets, video games and computer stuff there!

Wish me luck!

Mike, could you make this iPhone camera flash for me?

• iPhonexe Forums :: View topic – iFlash How-To *56k-Unfriendly

Thnx, bye!

Via: DIY iFlash for the iPhone – The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)