Things You Never Knew Existed

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Stretch Those Dollars

Everyone around here is talking about finding ways to save money. Between the rising price of gas and the bad-to-worse economic news, I guess it isn't surprising. We figured if we're trying to save money, you are too, so we decided to give you a great deal on our exclusive T-shirt designs. They're created by our team, so they're unique and fun, plus they're cool and comfortable for summer. And the more you buy the more you save. Choose any T-shirt on this page and get one for $14.98, or two for $12.98 each, or three for $9.98 each.

Here are a few of the bestsellers and some of my favorites to get you started:

This "I'd agree with you but then we'd both be wrong" t-shirt is one of our top sellers. And this "I'm not opinionated, I'm just always right" shirt isn't far behind. The way these shirts are selling, it sort of gives you the feeling there are a lot of know-it-alls out there.

Sarcasm never goes out of style. Not for me anyway. This bright green "Let me just drop everything and work on your problem" shirt is one of my favorites and also at the top of the best sellers list. I had to have it. I also had to have the one that says: "Tact is for people who aren't witty enough to be sarcastic." And when our team came up with this "It's on my list of things to do (just after 'see hell freeze over')" shirt, I knew I would be one of the first to own one. My sister, who has never properly appreciated my sense of humor, just rolled her eyes at me when I bought all three. I told her she's gonna break those eyeballs one of these days if she doesn't stop doing that.

Aging is a funny and popular subject, too. I had to buy this "If things get better with age then I'm approaching PERFECT!" shirt for my dad because he's always comparing his age to wine and cheese—the Things in life that improve with time. If we have to age—and let's face it, we do—we might as well have fun with it. As I get (a little) older, I find myself doing things like going into a room and then forgetting why I went there. That's why I like this one: "I do everything I set my mind to...now where did I set my mind?"

Then there are shirts that poke fun at our less-than-perfect bodies, for example: "It's not a bald spot, it's a solar panel for my sex machine" and the "I'm on the ABE Diet" T-shirts. Hey, if you can't make fun of yourself, you shouldn't make fun of other people, right?

At less than thirty bucks for three T-shirts, you can make fun of yourself and your friends and loved ones without breaking the bank. Just think: with all the money you save, you can buy yourself a bus pass!

Until next week,
Bobby

Friday, June 27, 2008

Summer Things

I love summer. It's blazing hot outside, the ice cream truck comes by every single day and my nieces and nephews are out of school, which means we have more time to play with all our favorite summer Things.

The pool is a favorite spot at this time of year and our Motorized Bumper Boat is my top pick for summer Things again this year. It's revved up version of a pool float that goes about two miles per hour. It's also very heavy duty--it just bounces right off the sides of the pool. We have three of them now, so we can run them into each other while battling it out with our water cannons. It's battery operated, easy to put together and comes with an electric air pump.

When your skin gets all wrinkly from being in the water too long, you need some Thing to play with on dry land, like a high performance radio controlled boat. The Hydrostorm can hit speeds of up to 20 miles per hour. It has twin propellers and an electric motor that runs off a rechargeable Ni-CD 7.2V battery.

If you prefer a natural environment over the swimming pool, take along this Radio Controlled Fishing Boat. You can actually catch fish with this Thing. It includes tackle that you attach to the boat. Set it on the water and just watch the bobber--when it dips, steer the boat to shore see what you caught. It handles fish up to two pounds. It even has prop guards to help prevent tangles in line or weeds. I can't help but buy any Thing that makes fishing easier and more fun.

There's nothing worse than losing track of your drink while you're out in the hot sun. Our buyers found the perfect solution: The Remote Control Beer Pager. It's a coozie that lights up and belches when you press the remote control, allowing you to follow the sound to your beer or soda. It has a range of about 60 feet and even works through walls. It's great for keeping your drink cold and for getting lots of laughs.

For fun on the golf course, we have this gag golf ball. Now this Thing is funny. I used it on my dad last weekend. While he was looking for his putter, I replaced his golf ball with this remote control ball. He was just about to make an easy putt when I hit the remote and made the ball roll away. The look on his face was priceless and we made him take a stroke for missing the shot. Lucky for me, I got my sense of humor from him--anyone else might have come after me with that putter. To keep cool while playing outside, I got two of these Safari Solar Hats -- one for me and one for Dad. It gives a constant cooling breeze to your forehead with a solar or battery-powered fan. It's lightweight, comfortable and weatherproof so it's great for boating, fishing, golf or any other outdoor activity.

Two more of my favorite Things for summer are the Geyser Tube and the Marshmallow Shooter -- they'll both give you a gooey excuse to head back to the pool or sprinkler. You've probably seen the dozens of demonstrations of the soda geyser on the Internet.

It's a remarkable Thing that works with Mentos candy and diet soda. You just put 6-8 Mentos in the plastic tube, put the tube over the mouth of a two-liter soda bottle, pull the trigger and run to get out of the way of the sticky eruption. The marshmallow shooter is an air gun that rapid-fires mini marshmallows. It's a pump-action shooter, so the faster you can pump the handle, the stickier your victim gets. My nephew is getting pretty fast with it -- he can paste me with marshmallows and reload before I can even empty my gun.

I don't know how people think of these Things, but I'm sure glad they do. Summer just wouldn't be the same without them.

See you next week,

Bobby

Friday, June 20, 2008

Are UFOs visiting Earth for summer vacation?

There have been dozens of UFO sightings in Missouri, Massachusetts, Maryland, California, Illinois, Tennessee, Georgia and Texas this month. Since April, the National UFO Reporting Center has logged over 800 sighting reports. And those are just the U.S. sightings! UFO activity has also been reported in Germany and the U.K. this month. Being curious people, our buyers went out looking for new books and other materials to help explain this phenomenon. And they came up with some good Things.

This UFO Secret DVD explores the question of whether the official US government position on UFOs is a carefully orchestrated deception. It's packed with videos, photos, interviews with leading UFO experts and alleged secret government documents. It raises a lot of interesting questions. And the UFO Abductions DVD raises even more chilling questions: Are aliens abducting human beings?

And if they are, why? The DVD gives detailed accounts abductions from all over the world, including the British policeman who photographed one of the aliens that abducted him. The Alien Implants DVD Set tries to answer the question of whether human beings benefit from alien implantation -- or if we are victimized by it. The DVD captures the surgical removal of alien implants and presents results from pathology and laboratory test results. It even shows an actual alien "claw" found at the scene of a repeated alien abduction location. The DVD claims that the medical community has denied this evidence.

I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I do wonder if the government tells us all it knows. Certainly, cover-ups have been uncovered throughout history. So, what are is the government hiding? Sometimes you have to venture outside of traditional sources to explore questions that might lead you to the truth. A perfect example is the controversy over the Red Planet. This Life On Mars DVD shows truly startling evidence of artificial structures on Mars. The DVD analyzes NASA/JPL photos taken by the Mars Global Surveyor. It seems to show enormous monuments, "T" shaped craters, gigantic glass tube systems and ancient forest remains. I was literally stunned by it.

I don't know if space travel over long distances is really possible. I don't have the scientific background to answer that question. But Forbidden Science dives into the realm of alternative science and makes me think it might be more possible than we've been led to beleive. Research by Nikola Tesla, Immanuel Velikovsky and many others, often suppressed by various governments, explores amazing possibilities, such as the ability to harness free energy from space and the power of water and spiritual science among other things. It's a fascinating read.

If the ideas presented in Journey Beyond The Poles prove true, there might be no need for space travel. Besides the details of Admiral Richard E. Byrd's mysterious journey to find a subterranean Nazi base, topics include:

How the world was formed.
The existence of the mythological lands of Hyperborea and Ultima Thule.
The development of the Flying Saucer.
The mysterious lands and people of the Far North.

All the theories propose that our planet is actually hollow with a habitable inner surface. Interesting idea, to say the least!

I don't know what's true and what's not and you'll have to decide for yourself what you want to believe. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think it's good to keep an open mind, but not so open that all my brains fall out on the floor.

Until next week, I'll be watching the skies. How about you?

Bobby

Friday, June 13, 2008

Celebrate the USA with a Bang!

With the 4th of July coming up, I got curious about the history of celebrating Independence Day with fireworks and other noisy displays. Did you know that the United States doesn't really have national holidays? It's up to state or local jurisdictions to determine their own official holiday schedules. Even though the Federal government sets holidays only for its own employees, most states observe the eleven Federal holidays. I guess that's why we call them "national holidays."

Of the eleven unofficial national holidays, Independence Day is the only holiday that celebrates the United States of America and from what I can tell, the very first celebration was a noisy one. On July 4, 1777 in Bristol, Rhode Island thirteen guns were fired, once in the morning and then again at night. Philadelphia also celebrated the first Independence Day with 13-gun salutes. Over the next couple of years, the tradition of firing guns and cannons was adopted nearly everywhere:¹

In 1778, General George Washington ordered a Fourth of July artillery salute, a salute was fired from a captured enemy cannon at Princeton, New Jersey, and guns and "sky rockets" were fired in Philadelphia.

In Boston in 1779, ships fired a "grand salute" from their cannons and in Philadelphia, an official dinner was followed by a display of fireworks.

In 1782 in Saratoga, New York, the "officers of the Regiment" of the Continental Army celebrate with toasts and a "volley of Musquets at the end of each."

In 1783 the governor of South Carolina gave a dinner at the State House. The guests drank 13 toasts, the last one accompanied by artillery guns firing 13 times.

Fireworks are cool, but to celebrate the 4th of July like they did in the early days, I think I'll buy a field cannon this year and fire it once for every state in the Union.

We have a super loud 25-inch field cannon with an automatic charger mechanism and flint ignitor. That means it handles rapid, multiple firing, which I'll need to pull off a "50-gun salute" with only one cannon. No need to worry about safety, the cannon operates on the same principle as a car's gas engine.

You just add powdered calcium carbide "ammo" and water in the chamber of the cannon, which forms acetylene gas. The auto flint firing mechanism creates a spark to ignite the gas and BOOM! This cannon even produces a realistic flash that makes it seem like a cannon ball has been fired.

I can't wait to see the look on my nephew's face when he sees this Thing on the 4th of July. If my sister will allow it, I'll even let him fire a few rounds. The cannon is made of metal with a heavy-duty cast iron chamber and wheels, so it's sturdy and safe, but we recommend adult supervision for kids under sixteen.

Happy Independence Day. I'll see you next week,

Bobby

1. http://www.american.edu/heintze/fourth.htm#Notable

Friday, June 6, 2008

Saving Gas

Gas prices are still on the rise. I looked at GasBuddy's web site today to get the averages across the nation. Per-gallon prices are between $3.759 (Missouri) and $4.779 (Alaska). Here in Florida, the average is $3.948. I've been staying home a lot these days and I know I'm not the only one. I'm doing my shopping online and spending a lot of time playing with toys for my computer. That's why I thought I'd show you some Things you can find on our web site that will give you something to do with all that extra time at home.

I'm probably dating myself by telling you this, but I have about a thousand records. Remember those? They were also called "albums." They were really big and made of vinyl that scratched, broke and melted easily.

Some popular titles have been digitally remastered and re-issued on CD, but a lot of the older, more obscure stuff will probably never make it to the new digital medium. So I bought this Instant Music gadget. It plugs into your computer's USB port and you can use it to record from any analog source, like a turntable or cassette player. Then you just choose the format you want and convert your music into digital files that you can download to an MP3 player or burn to a CD. This Thing has kept me busy for hours!

Along the same lines, our Digital Picture Converter digitizes your old 35mm negatives and slides. You just put your slides and negatives a tray, position in scanner and press the "copy" button. Five seconds later, your old photo is a digital image that you can store on your computer. It even includes photo editing software. The scanner plugs into your computer's USB port for both power and photo transfer.

I got this Digital Microscope for my nephew, but I had so much fun "testing" it for him, I think I'm going to buy one for myself. It displays magnified images right on your computer screen. With 6x - 130x digital zoom, you can see a live image of everyday Things on your computer monitor. You can also store the images with the click of a shutter button.

If it's too expensive to go see your friends and family this summer, keep in touch with the Talking Email. It's really easy-to-use. You just plug the microphone into a USB port on your computer, press a button and start talking. When you're finished with your message, press the button again and then press send. The recipient gets your e-mail in their inbox just like a regular e-mail, but instead of reading it, they listen to it. And they don't need any special software or hardware to listen to the message.

I don't know about you, but I'm saving gas by shopping online. These days, there aren't many Things you can't find on the Internet.

Time to go back to my records and old pictures. See you next week,

Bobby

Friday, May 30, 2008

What is a Novelty?

X-ray gogs, the Whoopee Cushion and the Joy Buzzer are some of my favorite Things. We've been selling novelty items for over 90 years, both through our catalogs and through advertisements. When I was a kid, we used to take out full page ads in comic books to show off our best novelties. We even advertised in the very first Superman comic book. I was looking at some of those old ads the other day and that got me wondering...what makes an item a novelty?

Dictionary.com¹ says a novelty is "an article of trade whose value is chiefly decorative, comic, or the like and whose appeal is often transitory." Okay, that fits pretty well. But I think Wikipedia² gets closer to the mark, "Novelty items are generally devices that do not fit into another category such as gadgets, by virtue of being impractical, but this distinction is often blurred."

By virtue of being impractical. I like that. Not all Things have to be useful. Sometimes Things can be just plain fun. With that in mind, I thought I'd show you some of my favorite classic novelties and some new spins on old ideas.

X-ray Gogs have been around for years. Maybe you even remember the old comic book ads that show a man wearing the gogs and seeming to see through his own hand. Of course, the gogs don't really x-ray anything, but the effect is pretty good. (I can't tell you how they work. You'll have to look that up yourself.) I remember wearing them as a kid, mostly to rile the girls who weren't exactly sure that the specs couldn't see through their clothes.

In the 1930s Alfred Johnson Smith wrote one of the best lines ever written when describing the Whoopee Cushion. He said it, "gives forth noises better imagined than described." (We still use his description.) Today, technology has given us funnier and funnier ways to "give forth" such noises. The Remote Control Fart Machine is one of our bestsellers, for example. Plus we have farting bears, farting gnomes and even a farting keychain for the prankster on-the-go.

Shocking Things have always been popular, too. Invented in 1928, the wind-up Joy Buzzer is still one of my favorite Things. But shocking people has also been enhanced by technology. The Shocking Pen and Shocking Lighter are two of our top pranks. We even have a Shocking MP3 Player.

Not everything has been changed by technology though, some of our staple novelties, like fart powder, fart candy and fake poo haven't changed much over the years and they still cost less than a dollar.

Maybe the value of a novelty is "chiefly comic" and maybe they are "impractical", but they're still Things I couldn't possibly live without.

See you next week,
Bobby

1. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/novelty
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novelties

Friday, May 16, 2008

Things for Life's Little Emergencies

As May comes to a close, Floridians start thinking about the approaching hurricane season. It's a fact of life here, so you have to be prepared. But life's emergencies can happen anywhere, so I've compiled a list of Things to help you prepare for the unexpected.

An Emergency Radio is a must for every storm season emergency kit. This one monitors all 7 NOAA weather channels plus AM/FM frequencies. It even has an LED flashlight and the capability to charge your cell phone. It works with a solar-powered rechargeable Ni-MH battery, hand crank or an AC adapter. The worst thing about storms around here is losing power--and air conditioning--when it's 90-plus degrees outside.

Our battery operated Portable Fan can help you stay cool until the storm passes. And don't forget the flashlights. Our LED Flashlights are shock proof, highly water-resistant, and virtually indestructible. Around here people joke that the mosquito is the Florida state bird, but if you've ever been outside at dusk, you know that the bugs in Florida are no joke. This portable Mosquito Shield emits a scent that mosquitoes, no-see-ums and other biting bugs hate. Now you can enjoy the great outdoors without getting eaten alive.

This Mighty Putty is the just the Thing for leaks and other small home repair emergencies. It seals leaks and fills cracks instantly. You can fix almost anything with it. It's strong enough to support up to 350 pounds and works on almost any surface. Just mold it to any shape, knead the putty to activate the epoxy, apply it to the leak or crack and let it dry.

For auto emergencies, we have the Porta-Jump™ that recharges your car's battery in about ten minutes using power from your car's cigarette lighter socket. It comes fully charged and recharges as you drive. And it's small enough to keep in your glove compartment so you don't have to worry about losing trunk space. And this Liquid Transfer Pump is a handy Thing for when you run out of gas. It can siphon over a gallon per minute so it's perfect for pumping gas from a can to your car or boat. It also works great for emptying aquariums.

Stay healthy with this UV Scanner that destroys 99.9% of all bacteria and viruses like E-coli, hepatitis, and the flu. It's the same technology hospitals use so you know it's is safe. You just pass it over the surface you want to disinfect. If you do come down with something, look up your symptoms in the famous Merck Home Manual. It's one of the most widely used medical references in the world for understanding symptoms, causes and treatments. The home edition gives you access to the same reference that doctors use, but in language anyone can understand.

I bought this Language Translator for my sister when she went to Europe and she loves it. It can help you ask for directions or locate a doctor in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian or Dutch. The database contains 5,000 words and it comes preprogrammed with common phrases and questions. It does exchange rate conversions and you can even use it as a calculator.

My dad always taught me to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Hopefully, you'll never need any of these Things, but just in case...

See you next week,

Bobby

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