Normally I’m not one for little carved dolls. A lot of them just look … odd to me. Even the ones that can be taken apart to reveal a littler doll and then an even littler one (known as matryoshka or nesting dolls), until you’re left with something super small. Fun as they may be, I could not bring myself to like those beady-eyed pieces of wood. But these utterly adorable Zelda and Link dolls are changing my mind fast!

These two hand painted wooden dolls would make great accent pieces to any geeky décor! They could also make unique collectibles for children or for that man/woman-child in your life that has a deep-seated fondness for the Legend of Zelda series. The creator, Etsy artisan MyLittleNiche, even recommends them as one of a kind wedding cake toppers for Zelda fans. Now that’s geekalicious!

  Twilight Princess Zelda & Link Wooden Dolls ($38.50)

Personally speaking, there is absolutely no worse place for me to drink my coffee than at my computer. Sadder still? That’s the place I will always need a cup most.

Though intended as a sipping beverage, one can only drink coffee so leisurely. Its ever-escaping warmth always leaves a sense of urgency to finish it before it goes stone cold. But when I’m seeing paradise by my monitor’s light, every other concern just escapes me. Before I know it, distraction has robbed my body of some hot Colombian lovin’ and left me chilled, bitter fail in a cup.

Fortunately, as I’m learning every single day, there are few things a standard USB port can’t fix. This 5.5″ x 3.5″ USB beverage cooler and warmer with 3.5-foot cable will fit at even a cluttered dump of a workspace. More importantly, flip a single switch on the back and swap between keeping a hot drink steaming at 120°F to 140°F to keep you going, or a cool beverage chilly at 55°F for when you feel you need to be slowin’. Even at its hottest temperatures, this USB drink warmer won’t burn disposable paper cups, making it Starbucks-ready at such a portable and convenient size.

It’s the coaster that science intended.

  USB Beverage Cup Warmer & Cooler ($19.95)

     

Geeks don’t drink harder. We drink smarter.

Remind us: who showed you an oversized martini glass that holds a drink so large, it would almost guarantee a blackout? We did. Who sang the praises of the pocket Breathalyzer that not only told you just how many sheets to the wind you were, but also just what toll it had taken on your breath? We did. Now, answer this: who’s going to show you just exactly what will get you drunker faster and cheaper?

That’s right. We’ve got this.

Glancing over our shoulders toward history, we’ve spied a road to one resourceful buzz-on. This DIY juice alcoholic drink kit will turn your juice to hooch, and turn your casa into the low-budget fiesta that never stops. Get yourself a 64-ounce bottle of the fruit juice of your choice; pour in one of the six included yeast shots; seal the airlock top and give the blend of yeast, organic evaporated cane juice and emulsifier 48 hours to turn the juice’s fructose to carbonation and alcohol. In two days’ time, you will be reveling in the bounty of your very own boozy beverage packing an up to 14% alcohol by volume kick in the head.

This is a simple but very, very old fermentation method traditionally producing what is known in Germany as “Federweisser” (“white wine”) and in Austria as “Sturm” (or “storm,” for its commonly cloudy appearance). Actually, those authentic vintages traditionally only result in 4-10% alcohol by volume – not quite the whollop this kit’s finished product could deliver! The genuine articles produced in Europe for over a century often have a flavor akin to light grape soda or sparkling wine, but by all means: toy with flavors. Age some heavy-duty hard apple cider, or try some OJ and create an electrifying orange juice that’s a little more Black & Decker power-drill than simple screwdriver.

Every DIY juice alcoholic drink kit contains six bottle labels, one airlock, one rubber stopper, recipes and six packets of simple, magical, fermenting-then-inebriating science.

  DIY Juice to Alcohol Kit ($9.99)

“Eating” and “drinking” is for chumps with time for meaningless dull crap like “chewing” and “swallowing.” Go ahead – inhale dessert. Suck it right down. Seriously, kids – go nuts!

Sure, coffee and chocolate taste magnificent. They’re intoxicatingly rich and distinctly sensual indulgences that stir senses like so much cream and sugar in so very much java. Alas, though, everyone pays those pipers sometime. Chocolate’s soothing wave of rich flavor also brings in with the tide calories that will hang about the waist and tell a tale of vices, and slaves to them. Coffee? Don’t tell The Sleepless One about its Lazerus-like rejuvenation. For that matter, let’s not tell The Sleepless One all about crashing like a 12-car pile-up preceded by about three pots of coffee in 24 hours. You might as well give water to a drowning man.

Now, take Le Whif Coffee & Chocolate Inhalers. Each 100-percent biodegradable tube inhaler accompanies three 300-mg packs of your choice of coffee or chocolate; the chocolate three-pack includes one flavor-pack each of raspberry, mint and milk chocolate. Each puff from the inhaler delivers a 40-80 mg chocolate or coffee blast that settles across the taste buds (never down the lungs, mind you) and lets the flavor kick the joneses with a cost of less than a single calorie. Dieters and chocolate/coffee-loving smokers, whatever the vice, this is your quick flavor fix to choke out whatever habit fights you kicking and screaming.

Probably best of all, your fixes will never again mean interrupting your day’s rhythm with a single quick Le Whif. Can you make time to breathe? Then you can make time to Whif.

Call me crazy, call me kinky, Heaven knows I’ve been called a little of both – but might the post-coital cigarette have met its match, and perhaps been replaced by a couple of shared chocolate inhalers instead?

Le Hmmm …

  Le Whif Breathable Chocolate ($3.99 and up)

Down the hatch, morning after morning, goes my favorite breakfast cereal – half of which turns into a soggy fail-mush by the time I eat my way down the bowl. On top of that, at least a cup or so of milk ultimately flows down the drain. I suppose it beats the slovenly alternative, though. My five year old inner being is one thing, but the nearly 30 year old Sleepless One just feels his dignity slip a little at chug-a-lugging the leftover milk and crumbs. So could a hands-on experience with a Geek Gems favorite save my love affair with cereal, while whittling down my grocery budget?

I dug the Obol cereal bowl from the first time we featured it here. A bowl in which I could separate my milk and cereal, keeping my breakfast crunchy as I scoop-and-swoop what I needed into the milk a single bite at a time? Simple! Perfect! Useful! Where, oh where had this been all my life?

I was already impressed before the first milk drops coated the bowl’s bottom. The durable white plastic dish is molded with this C-shaped, textured white handhold in the base, making it so very simple to cradle comfortably to one’s body while reclining. It’s also a necessity, as the bowl is wide enough across that palming it would be a bit cumbersome. The shallower of the Obol’s two recesses holds what amounts to a perfect portion-controlling single measuring cup of any dry cereal. The divider between cereal and milk gives way via something shaped a little like a built-in curved playground slide to the deeper pool for the milk. And here’s where things go from “awesome” to “pretty damn awesome”.

I will nearly guarantee from personal experience that anybody could finish a dry cup of cereal using as little as a half pint of milk and pour practically nothing down the drain. Think of what cup after cup of wasted milk would’ve ultimately added up to over a week or a month. Another half-gallon? A full gallon? That couple bucks doesn’t seem like much this shopping trip, but over a year, that savings shall keep your treasure troves of Fruity Pebbles running over. Your only problem will be what you’re to do with all those extra prizes from the bottoms of all those extra boxes of cereal you can suddenly stockpile, you Seinfeldian saver, you!

I own few kitchen implements and gadgets that each day I truly relish using, and the Obol cereal bowl is useful enough to be favored among the few, right alongside my ESPN Sportszone “Chalice of Colombian Caffeination”. For casual users and cereal connoisseurs alike, the Obol gets two solid thumbs-up!

  Obol: The Original Crispy Bowl ($19.99)

Etsy artisan BaconFactory creates the most stunning word burned art portraits I’ve ever seen – and I absolutely love how many of the subjects are decidedly geeky in nature.

Hang the Joker portrait from The Dark Knight and ask your guests, “why so serious?” Or perhaps an iconic pose from the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter films would make a perfect nod to your fandom of their respective series. Star Wars and World of Warcraft are also duly represented (the pyrography portrait of a Night Elf is especially breathtaking). And for those wanting to pay homage to silver screen Hollywood ingénues, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn are yours for the wood burned bliss.

Insert obligatory joke about how they already give you “wood” here. ;)

  BaconFactory Pyrography Art ($44.90)

Wine connoisseurs enjoy the very finest beverage-enjoyment innovations. Give true vino-philes and sommeliers their deserved due: their fervent fascinations with the meticulous details that make and define a fine wine have made fruitful their pursuits of ways to better enjoy one of the world’s oldest adult libations.

From the time Jesus re-stocked the bar at a dry wedding, necessity has been the mother of invention. We’ve seen aerators that will enhance a low-quality, cheap wine’s flavor noticeably; electric corkscrews, and manual ones that resemble deformed drill presses; I’ve even found an infrared wine thermometer and single bottle wine cellar with customizable temperature and humidity settings. Few aficionados take enjoying their passions to heart quite as wine lovers do.

And oh, the troubles this Instant Wine Bottle Chiller solves. I’m no sommelier, but I do love good wine. Unfortunately, it’s proven every time I want a chilled Chardonnay or white port that forethought might never be my strongest suit. I rarely have something chilled when I want it, and by the time a hastily refrigerated bottle would finally cool to the perfectly chilled temperature, oftentimes I just don’t desire a glass any longer.

Sure, I could start making a habit of always having a bottle gettin’ chilly in the fridge – or I could just toss this wine bottle chiller spout in a freezer for six hours before using, and instantly cool a room temperature wine up to 15°F with a single pour. The thermos-like shell will keep the internal stainless steel pouring tube cold enough to chill an entire bottle, and covering the spout’s air inlet with a thumb will slow the flow, keeping the wine chilling longer inside the spout before it exits into the glass.

  Ravi Wine Chiller ($38.36)

My sweet tooth doesn’t often gain a foothold – but when it does, I catch myself lamenting being caught without a handy emergency fix. My freezer tells my dietary sensibilities’ story: meat with sides of meat. Chicken, fish, beef and game leave precious little room for much else. Besides, on tight a budget, spending extra on tubs of ice cream and boxes of popsicles I won’t dig into but once every couple months or so and can’t even store makes precious little sense.

But still, what a fellow would give at times like that for a quick, no-muss fix … oh, and as long as I’m getting greedy, how about something reasonably healthy, too?

The Zoku Popsicle Maker will freeze three tasty, custom treats in about ten minutes, as long as it’s been primed in the freezer at least 24 hours before. From there, the three die-cast aluminum molds will freeze fresh fruit, juice, pudding or any other filling or ingredient smoother and with fewer ice crystals than anything you could pull from a grocer’s freezer.

And just because I’ve known nary an adult who every so often doesn’t have to compromise with an inner moppet, I have to wonder what a delicious White Russian-pop could taste like. Or if I could stop at just one …

  Zoku Frozen Juice Pop Maker ($49.95)

Know what doesn’t break out nearly randomly enough? Hockey games.

Not many droll, drab tux-and-tails affairs couldn’t be improved vastly by 12 gentlemen and ladies spontaneously fashioning a crude puck of a canapé or tuna can, sticks from a few brooms (or, would one be so inclined, actual hockey sticks), and a net from a pet kennel or fireplace. And here you go, folks: now, you needn’t even want for skates.

The friction-resistant plastic base and foam foot grip of Simtec’s Carpet Skates fit over any athletic shoe (up to an adult size 15) with an adjustable hook and loop closure. Find a big carpeted room with some wide open space, like a hotel conference or banquet room, and imagine that any place is center ice at Madison Square Garden. For you showier sorts, check out the DVD that comes included with your carpet skates with bonus performance tips and artsy tricks.

Or … just glue it together with about six or seven other DVDs, and you’ve got another puck. Watch the DVD. Hit the DVD. To each, their own.

If Clerks should’ve taught us anything, it’s that there isn’t a bad place on God’s green Earth for a good pick-up game. Whoopity-doo, so Mom told you never to play ball in the house? Don’t use a ball. Use a puck. GAME ON!

  Simtec Fun Slides Skates ($15)

Like sands down a picture frame … this is my productivity sliding down the tubes.

Will these desktop sand windows back up my hard drive? No. Help me take better pictures, make better meatloaf, or woo my dream woman? No. Can this thing even find lost car keys? No. But it will briefly help you forget that you lost them!

Just let the flowing sands cased within a black beech-wood or walnut picture frame slide over one another. While the sand windows’ speeds and directions change to form their own perfect landscapes before your eyes, it’s like watching the creation of an utterly unique work of art, right before your eyes – and right by your side at your desk or on your end-table.

It’s instant, customizable, interactive art at your fingertips. It’s unusual we wax philosophical about these products, but it really reaffirms the miracle of something being created from nothing to watch something so simple as moving sands create a seemingly random (yet undeniably beautiful) landscape before one’s own eyes. Each sand window also includes a small syringe for removing water and air, the regulation of which will alter the way the sand flows and thus, what majesty it creates with each turn.

  Desktop Sand Window ($90)