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)

Oh, bobbleheads. Do your whimsies know an end? See those planetoid-sized noggins weeble wobble to and fro, back and forth, side to side and try keeping a dour expression. I double dares ya! That being said, I consider anything that would bait me or anyone else into laughing before the visage of the greatest of the Great Old Ones a sick, sick entrapment.

If one can’t tell, Cthulhu is a little something of a patron saint here in the Palace of Geekdom, to whom we pay most frequent homage. That isn’t by choice. Our patron saint was first a big mischievous St. Bernard named Schubert but Cthulhu ate it. Then it was going to be the cast of St. Elsewhere – kind of a “dramatic ensemble of saints” thing – but Cthulhu ate them too. We hoped after that debacle, he’d be so full that he couldn’t devour 1980′s sitcom star Susan St. James. We were wrong.

But I think it’s panned out. When we’re working hard but not hard enough, Cthulhu makes us snap-to. At the Geek Gems Home Office and its three Midwest satellite locations, destractions abound. Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age are SRS BZNS. So is The Office. And Archer. And always Twitter. But when production flags as we reach for remote controls, games and controllers, we meet the Great Old One’s amber-eyed visage as that comically unstable noggin wobbles emphatically side to side as if to warn us one last time, “Don’t even think about it! MOAR comical underpants! MOAR British sci-fi inspired kitchenwares! MOAR Wayne’s World! MOAR!”

Which is why we have a proposal, and to quash rumors, it is not borne of a certain demigod’s hinting that failure will result in the eating of a New Orleans-based football team: bigger Cthulhu bobble heads! Six-foot ones! Seems that green gentleman thinks with one good stare down and a wild nod of his tentacle chin from the House floor, he could have Congress not just balancing a budget but personally apologizing at every American household’s doorstep.

You’ll believe in change. Or else.

  Cthulhu Bobblehead Doll ($12.99)

Gentlemen and ladies, please agree upon this much: to a certain extent, we don’t wear cologne and perfume for ourselves. No, we adorn ourselves with those meticulously blended and balanced aromas hoping that the memories, emotions, feelings and intense sensations they we hope evoke – more often than not, of the amorous persuasion – will capture first the mind by mesmerizing the senses, then slowly perhaps a heart as an association grows between the unique intoxication of scent and us.

Demeter Fragrance Library went a very simple route and designed fragrances you’ll enjoy wearing just for yourself, but that do what decades of pretentious, overly-artsy advertisements shilling CK1 and White Diamonds never, ever have: they actually tell you exactly what the stuff smells like!

  

  

  

It works a little like the 1996 John Travolta hit Michael. Travolta played the titular archangel, who could adapt his scent to imitate whatever aromas evoke a person’s warmest, most comforting memories, putting especially women who encountered him at ease within a cozy comfort zone – even more so when he’s in heat. So where do you want this most powerful and influential of the five senses to take you? If you’re seeking the on-ramp for the expressway to the most cherished bits of your childhood, just spray and sniff just a hint of the cotton candy, crayon or Junior Mints fragrances. The latter sounds particularly sweet and sensual, with its cool, balanced blend of peppermint, wild mint, cocoa bean, vanilla and dark chocolate.

Personally, for as much as polite society champions the gentleman wearing the subtle (but over-priced) fragrances that blend aromatic hints of leather and sawdust, a man just needs to smell like a man. Save the guess-work with expensive brands. Pick up the fragrances of whiskey/tobacco, fresh dirt or even sawdust itself, and truly smell how a man is meant to.

Or if you just want a unique scent that makes an entire room crave Funyons and ice cream, try the cannabis flower scent. Described as “slightly floral, slightly spicy,” this fragrance has a “deep and penetrating attraction.” Not to be worn – or, better yet, probably not brought anywhere near – an airport. May get you lucky at a Dave Matthews Band concert. You may never get Snoop Dogg and Charlie Sheen off your doorstep.

Smells like winning to me!

  Demeter Fragrance Library Colognes ($19.99)

No jokes, this time. Nothing sarcastic. No wit. This is actually far too neat and inexpensive for that.

First, Edmund Scientific showed me an intelligent, voice command robot R2D2. But then came something that I admit, boasts two key features that little 15″ stack of awesome doesn’t: this is both useful and inexpensive.

I can’t speak on everyone’s behalf, but I dare not begin counting how many plastic water bottles sit about my place on a regular basis. Incidentally, I also dare not count how many times I could’ve really taken better pictures for want of a simple tripod. Enter the bottle tripod.

The universal mount fits pretty much any compact camera; the bottle tripod itself attaches atop a standard-size water bottle lip and pivots 15 degrees in any direction. Making sure it balances the camera’s weight could be as simple as … well, using a faucet and filling the bottle! Also, consider this: one little water bottle could easily perch atop places no tripod could, making for some unique angles. And as an outdoors-geek who can appreciate tiny devices that store easily amidst fanny-pack and backpack clutter, the bottle top tripod might be the coolest thing since beef jerky in a resealable bag.

  Bottle Cap Tripod ($9.95)

Coloring is a timeless past time; you’re never too young or too old to grab a box of crayons and color in that picture of Pinkie Pie from that My Little Pony coloring book. However, you can get tired of the same old crayons very quickly. I mean, those things never change! They have always had their thin, cylindrical structure. Totally boring, right? How about spicing up your hum-drum crayon box with some awesome robot crayons!

Who wouldn’t have a blast coloring with bright robot shapes? If you think you wouldn’t, just imagine having these little guys on a shelf for display, or using them to act out the great robot war between red and yellow over who will have control of orange and his mysterious ability to love. I’d say that potential adventure alone makes this set worth buying. Well that, and come on – you’d be the coolest person around if somebody wanted to color and you whipped these great little guys out. ;)

  Lil Doodlers Robots ($8.95)

For every monumental revolution of the mind whose time has come (see: titanium sporks), at least two arise whose uses could have unintended consequences, but that are just too entertaining for anybody to pass up.

Thanks to the Scrolling License Plate Frame, you have bellowed a mid-rush hour, Tourette’s-addled tirade to wacky drive-time DJs for the last time. Now you can forevermore vent your rage in 120 LED characters or less to the amusement of any and all far-less-cool motorists stuck behind you.

The world’s your oyster with this handy trinket, folks. If you’ve word-vomited it via Twitter, you can share it with other complete strangers along the highway. Pre-enter up to five messages using the included wireless remote (NOT in mid-drive, please) and get across any message you can think of. Set the frame to turn on anytime you start the ignition, or just whenever you hit the brakes.

For example, “I Found This At GeekGems.com. Ain’t It Cool?” weighs in at only 96 characters. Tack on 24 exclamation points. We won’t mind – honest! Then again, your standard 4chan user obviously needn’t have mastered Egyptian algebra to realize that “BUTSECKS LOLZ” only takes 13 characters.

Before you revel in the red LED kick-ass of the supreme mobile Twitter, please check your local vehicle regulations, as LED license plate frames may not be legal everywhere. And again, hands off the remote while your foot’s off the brake.

  License Plate Flash Frame ($29.99)

If you were anything like me as a child, you loved your Gameboy games to the point that some would consider it an unhealthy obsession. Well, “some” would be wrong. There’s nothing wrong with loving your games enough to want to sleep, eat, and bathe with them, right? Eating and sleeping with games has never been much of a problem. Sadly most gaming companies still haven’t perfected the art of waterproof cartridge video games. But there is hope yet: Digital Soaps has done it! These little soaps are just amazing. Now you have the chance to be truly … er, intimate with your games, and it’s perfectly fine because it’s helping your hygiene! Of course, you could also save them for a sexy, geeky couple-shower. Nothing makes a nerdy girl melt like being rubbed down with a scented video game!

These video game soaps are available in different scents too, depending on which one you order; yellow, for example, has a wonderful Mountain Dew-like scent. And don’t worry if Gameboy wasn’t your thing. There are also NES, SEGA (oh the nostalgia!), PlayStation, Xbox, and other soap replicas available for you to choose from. Now you’re totally free to get sudsy with Samus, lather up with Link, and get mega-clean with Mega Man. ;)

Digital Soap ($4.50 and up)

There are almost no words to describe the sheer, gleeful amusement I experienced when I found this USB pole dancer toy. Literally, I think I let out a squee. A proper feminist, I am not!

Candi is her name, and pole dancing is her game! Plug her into the USB and audio port on your computer, and whenever a sound plays, this pole dancing girl swivels and gyrates around like it’s her job (though you might lose yours if you take this to work – but what a way to go!) And if this decidedly non-PC PC pole dancer is too much of a treasure to leave behind when your computer time is done, Candi will also gladly groove to the tunes of your choosing on any mp3 player. Sure, watching a pole dancer doll do her thang to “Pour Some Sugar On Me” would be fun, but why not mix it up with a playlist of classical music or Christian pop?

Yes, I am definitely going to hell.

USB Pole Dancing Girl ($27.49)

This massively wacky tooth care set, featuring what must be the world’s only bacon flavored dental floss, is either brilliant or disgusting – and my best guess is that it’s a little bit of both. Along with the aforementioned pork-flavored variety, the breakfast floss set also comes with coffee and waffle flavors. Got a little leftover breakfast stuck in your chompers? Wiggle it free with some waxed bacon floss, baby! Open wide and say yummmmm. ;)

Breakfast Flavored Floss ($5.99)

I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical reason for perching a pair of elf ears on your car. No really, there has to be some sense to this … Maybe some kind of vehicle-based Lord of the Rings LARPing action? Hey, let’s see you come up with something better!

The Elf Car Costume comes with ears that are a sorry excuse for Middle-Earthian appendages, and a completely inexplicable striped hat for your grille that would look far more at home perched on the noggin of a Where’s Waldo cosplayer. The product info states that the elf ears are easy to install on rolled-up windows. A design requirement or a safety precaution, given all the insults and ridicule that will likely be hurled in your direction? Only one way to find out!

Elf Car Costume ($7.98)