The Worst Things For Sale

Demographically targeted at people who “fucking love science” but don’t love it enough to have learned anything about it, the Periodic BeEr Glass points out that two unrelated elements spell the word beer if you put their periodic-table entries next to each other. The Periodic LuNCH Box does the same, with different elements, for the same reason.

Instead of an explanation of why finding patterns in letters isn’t relevant to science, I’ll point out something mildly interesting: you can buy a tiny amount of erbium (Er) online if you want it for some reason. It’s worth around $5 a gram in bulk. Lutetium, the “Lu” in LuNCH Box, is worth around $340 a gram, roughly ten times the price of gold, and is rare enough that it’s not commonly resold to people online who just want a vial of it for some reason. But the most expensive element in the world right now is the radioactive isotope Californium-252. Only eight grams total of this element have been refined since its discovery in 1950, and each one of those eight grams is worth around $27,000,000.00.

Of course, if you just want something radioactive, you can buy a chunk of radioactive uranium oxide for twenty bucks.

The Lap Mug is designed to be held in your lap, between your legs (see the manufacturer’s in-use picture for how, I guess, it’s meant to be used.) It would be a great idea, except you can also put a flat-bottomed mug on your lap, and you can set that on a table when it’s full without spilling.

The Traxedo is a great way to look like you’re wearing a weird plastic tuxedo at the gym. Or like you’re wearing a weird plastic tuxedo at someone’s wedding. Truly the worst of both worlds. There’s also a version of it in baby blue, in case that’s… more… something… for you. Neither of them hold a candle to the $169 Suitjamas, a combination of a suit with a set of men’s pajamas.

What kind of world would you live in where you need to open bottles, but can’t, because you’re not at home, and not in a bar, and you don’t have your keychain, but your dog is with you? The Dog Collar Bottle Opener world, I suppose.

In my world, if you want a dog that opens a beer bottle, you get Gold Dog Push Down Bottle Opener, because it’s a plastic dog who bears the exact expression you’d expect if you shoved a beer bottle up his ass.

PyroPet, the makers of the expensive cat-skeleton candle I wrote about before, now have a reindeer version for the holidays. It’s cute, if you want to spend $44 on a single candle. At least it’s better than the enormous candle with a ring inside, which you have to burn to get the ring out.

At last, humanity has created the pinnacle of scientific achievement. No, not curing disease, achieving immortality, or even allowing all seven billion of us to live in peace with one another. It’s The Selfie Toaster, which burns a picture of your own face into bread. Like this:

(That’s me.) For the self-obsessed who don’t have the cash to drop on the relatively-expensive Selfie Toaster, there’s The Selfie Brush, a hairbrush which holds your phone.

If you wanted to fill a bowl with food and then eat the bowl, you could go with the basic bread bowl. But is it over-the-top complicated and horrible? Nope. So…

The tortilla bowl is okay, except that you need a standalone appliance to make it, and the manufacturer’s picture suggests that you fill it with a pound and a half of guacamole with two tiny pieces of onion on top.

Does this mold that creates a beautiful, crystalline bowl out of ice have an irrational amount of fat and sugar? No. Zero of both, in fact. So let’s make a bowl out of cookie dough, and fill it with ice cream, and eat the wet cookie. But we might as well go full-cancer and use The Perfect Bacon Bowl to microwave bacon into a bowl-shape. After all, the world is out there, and it’s up to you to make it into a bowl, and fill it with other food, and eat all of it.