Its Christmas, time for all the trashy nerdy gizmos…

Feeling quite nostalgic for the days of old when a light-sabre from Star Wars would be a wonderful gift. I told family and friends not to buy me anything sensible this year so looking forward to what I will get. As I can’t wait and love hunting around the internet I have found a few suggestions.

Solarbotics Perpetual Motion Marble Kit, I can put this in the garden or on a bright windowsill and I can pretend I can create perpetual motion. Building it sounds like fun as well.

Now I am still a Star Wars fan and I can combine this with a truly great lawn/desk decoration. Its a fallen AT-AT Walker, a what at you say, clearly you have never watch The Empire Strikes Back, it is the one and only AT-AT Walker that fell at the Battle of Hoth. How the mighty can fall, something for us all to remember.

Tickets for the Armageddon Expo, I can travel to any of them ..Really! I would love to go.

Well thats enough of that. To more interesting news, interested in how the world began, did an asteroid strike kickstart life on earth? Scientists have been trying to prove this theory and this post gives an interesting but not decisive account of how they have tried to recreate the action. Not quite Star wars of Jurassic Park but interesting. To conclude this meandering post, how about how tech is catching up to Star Trek? This post argues that we are fast catching up with our smart phones being on route to Captain Kirks communicator and with the new tech bringing medical assessments to the phones we will not need Dr McCoys tricorder…Thank goodness whiskey will stay the same, oh yea a bottle of Sctoch would also do very nicely for Xmas, Thank you.

Optimus Prime — still going strong.

Transformers were invented in Japan by Takara Tomy sometime in the ’80s. I played with transformers religiously in my childhood (that never really ended), and I am delighted to see that the tradition of worshipping spacefaring, sentient super awesome robots is a long-lasting one. I never would have thought that in my adult years I would see little kids playing with the most popular toys of the ’80s. I really wish I’d saved some of the very well-made Transformer action figures my mother bought for me with her hard-earned money. I remember having one that transformed into some sort of space-gun with lights in it. Naturally, I disassembled it to take a look inside. My mum threw a hissy fit unlike any I’d ever seen before. Now, she just accepts that I’m brilliant in my own, slightly retarded way.

Recently, I’ve opened my eyes to premium quality die cast collectible Transformers. They are sculptural art, really. On some models, you can open the front to expose the inner workings of the robot. The details are stunning! If anyone says I own toys, I’ll just refer to the ¥88000 (Japanese Yen) price tag. What toy costs nearly NZ$ 1000?! I have to say, just looking at one makes my neurons fire serotonin until I’m down on the floor looking for my credit card. Shut up and take my money!