Wicked Cool Shit – a Cigar Advisor Buying Guide (May 2013)
Foto.sosho iPhone Camera Attachments
Lucky for all of us, there are people who understand that the camera in your iPhone is much more useful than for ugly girls taking shots of themselves duckfacing into a mirror. These blew up the CES back in January – it’s a camera attachment called the foto.sosho, that fits over your iPhone 4S and 5. Three models each have a different look and specs; but each will turn your iPhone into a version of a point & shoot, on which you can change lenses, add grips, edit pics on the fly and share artist-grade shots (or duckfaces) socially. As of press time, the foto.sosho is only available in the UK – so unless you have a friend abroad or can get someone to ship you one, you’ll have to survive with what Apple has blessed you.
Price: TBD
Lehmann LA100 Drone
What, you thought only the CIA could have drone capabilities? Level the surveillance playing field – or launch a black-ops program of your own with Lehmann Aviation’s LA100 drone. Just snap your GoPro camera into either of the mounts on the LA100, connect the battery and launch. It flies itself (which means you can’t up the creep factor to 11 and hover outside somebody’s window) for 5 minutes, then returns to you with a full video payload from up to 330 feet above the ground. Constructed of foam and carbon fiber, you can install up to 2 GoPro cameras (you supply). Great for the photography hobbyist who wants a new view, or to get the lowdown from up high on what your douchebag neighbor is up to on the other side of that fence…hey – just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean he’s not out to get you.
Price: $1300
The Man Ring – Titanium Utility Ring
“This is one of the most unique rings ever produced,” says their website – we counter with “epic.” We’re talking Survivorman-type stuff here. The Man Ring (not to be confused with that other man ring, obviously) is crafted from aerospace-grade titanium, and is custom-made to the quarter-size for an exact fit…which means you won’t lose it when traipsing through the wilderness on the hunt for civilization. Hidden inside: a working bottle opener, straight and serrated blades and a saw. There’s even a comb, so you can look good for the tv cameras when they interview you about having survived in the wild for 6 months with nothing but your Man Ring.
Price: $385
http://www.etsy.com/listing/115928701/the-man-ring-titanium-utility-ring
C-Seed 201 LCD TV
Your idiot brother-in-law, who constantly jaws about his awesome 72″ plasma? Bitch, please. This is the world’s largest outdoor viewable LCD tv. Perfect if you ever dreamed of owning your own drive-in theater, or are building a near life-size replica of Cowboy Stadium in your yard. It stores below ground in a water-tight shaft; hit the button, and it soars to over 15 feet high, unfolding its seven ultra-hi-res panels into a 201″ viewable screen. The C-Seed 201 has a refresh rate 500x times faster than the flat panel in your living room, and boasts 4.4 trillion colors. An integrated, hi-fidelity sound system features 15 speakers, and the whole unit rotates 270 degrees via remote control (which is secured through biometric fingerprint ID) – so there’s not a bad seat for miles.
Price: undisclosed
http://www.cseed.tv/design/movie.html#/overview/entertainment.html
DreamArcade Kegerator
Just as it seemed that the gaming world was going small – (see Nintendo’s 3DS, Sony’s PSP Go, your smartphone) – the good people at Dream Arcades come along and lay down some solid truth: bigger is better. With an assortment of pre-built arcade options available, it was the Dreamcade Kegerator Arcade that caught our eye. Sure, it has a huge 29″ arcade monitor for playing over 140 of your arcade-era favorites; yes, it’s PC-based/MAME-compatible, so you can expand the library with additional game packs. But they installed the “dream” by integrating a fridge, 3 taps and 2 built-in cup holders into the machine so you can drink up, when you level up.
Price: call to order
http://www.dreamarcades.com/tables.shtml
Dish Anywhere
Our preliminary research reveals that the internet was “developed so that U.S. Department of Defense researchers could share information with each other.” National security aside, we’ve found it to be much more useful to bullshit about cigars and watch stuff. DISH Network has decided that our approach is more fun, too – and unleashed DISH Anywhere. Install their Hopper DVR with built-in Slingbox to a hi-speed net connection. Download their app, and blam: watch live tv, on-demand content, even all of last season’s Game of Thrones episodes you recorded and have yet to watch, anywhere there’s a wi-fi connection. Off the grid? No worries – dump that DVR content to your iPad before you leave the house and you can conveniently ignore everyone, on demand.
Price: App: free; service starting at $24.99, with DISH plan
http://www.dish.com/technology/dish-anywhere/?WT.svl=freedom-button
Martian Passport Smart Watch
Maybe you saw the picture and thought, “great – another obnoxious speakerphone.” Wrong. The brains at the Kickstarter-funded Martian Watches have created a monster: Bluetooth? Check. Speakerphone, remote camera trigger, text message readout? Uh-huh. Full integrations of Siri voice prompting capabilities for iOS users? Oh, yeah. It even signals an alarm when you’ve moved too far away from your phone. Bonus: let’s say your phone rings – and the caller ID on your Martian shows you it’s the last-fucking-soul-on-earth-you-feel-like-talking-to-right-now’s number. Brush them off with a simple flick of the wrist, as your smart watch sends them to one of the 7 layers of voicemail Hell. Oh, and much, much more.
Price: starting at $249
http://martianwatches.com/products/passport-watch/
F-4 Ejection seat
Whether you “have some time in the aircraft,” as they say – or are just a desk jockey who has ever dreamed of slipping the surly bonds, your desk is about to go supersonic. From the El Segundo studios of Motoart – who design and create high quality corporate and home furniture from vintage airplane parts – it’s the F-4 Ejection Seat desk chair. The seat color is up to you, but the bucket is in original condition, straight out of the cockpit of this Vietnam-era bird. And if someone comes in to drop a heap of work on your desk, just sit back, look them in the eye and tell them, “negative, Ghost Rider – the pattern is full.”
Price: inquire
http://www.motoart.com/seating/chairs/f-4-ejection-seat
Bicycle Wine rack
We have a friend who once had his license taken away; and since he couldn’t drive, he biked the 4 miles each way to the strip club on the other side of town. Even in the winter (that is, until his bicycle seat was stolen and he had to ride the post home in the snow – true story). The club was BYOB, and our boy would have benefitted greatly from one of these. If you, too, insist on traveling with a full 1.5L of the sweet nectar, then by all means – make sure it gets there in one piece. You’re not going to hold the bottle in your teeth, and you sure can’t change gears with a bottle of port in one hand. A couple of potholes shouldn’t throw your vino for a loop, either – so this handmade holster has a hidden clamping system to keep the bottle in place. And if 1.5L is too small for your trip, the wine rack adjusts to fit different sizes of 3″ bottles.
Price: $39.95
http://shop.coolmaterial.com/products/bicycle-wine-rack
Prinstant Replays
X’s and O’s are no longer reserved for the coach’s playbook – they have earned a spot on the wall of wherever you watch the game. And these aren’t just great plays, they’re the plays. Artist Hunter Mize of Nashville (home of the Music City Miracle), a huge fan of sports and sports history, has connected fan to team through the typography maps of these plays, as they happened. The website is pretty awesome, too – coupling the diagram of the play with YouTube video of the broadcast. You’ll find a nice mix of classic Prinstant Replays (The Immaculate Reception, The Catch, Flutie’s Miracle in Miami) and more recent game-changers, like the diagrammed “Flacco Fling” – where he hit Jacoby Jones with a 70 yard bomb, after Jones burned Denver safety Rahim Moore in this year’s AFC title game; or DeSean Jackson’s 65-yard walkoff punt return up the right side vs. the Giants in 2011. Unfortunately for Eagles fans, there really is no way to diagram Coach Tom Coughlin taking a stroke on the Giants’ sideline.
Price: 11×14 print, $19.99; 18×24 poster, $29.99