For today’s Friday Funny, I’ve got to go back to a classic Onion piece with the headline: Fritolaysia Cuts Off Chiplomatic Relations With Snakistan. This wickedly clever satire takes on an increasingly common type of conflict between small nations and former republics of this or that. It is a giggle fest worthy of Jon Stewart. But for me to sit here and describe it further, well, that’s just dumb and lessens it’s fun. So just go and read…
Press-Bot
I’ve got a rather serious addiction, probably the most common addiction in the world. I LOVE coffee. Not only do I drink a cup most everyday before and during and sometimes after work, I also LOVE a good cup of Java when I’m outdoors. There’s nothing quite as sweet as waking up and having a fresh cup of Joe right there waiting for you…OK, molasses covered sugar cubes are more sweet, but you get the point.
Anyway, for all those out there who shake in this luscious addiction, I want to point you to this rather handy gadget. Nothing too extraordinary here, but the Press-Bot is a kind of take-along coffee press that beats the heck out of Nescafe. One of the great things…OK, two great things…about this sleek gizmo is that it provides the kind of high-quality French-press effect you might find in someone’s home on the Upper East Side, while also working with just about wide-mouth Nalgene bottle. Now THAT’s cool. Never mind that all your water afterward will taste like coffee. You might just have to get used to that. But in the end ,it means no carrying along some big, clumsy container, AND you get some excellent coffee beneath the trees.
Self-Erecting Tent
One of the biggest hassles of camping is setting up that tricky tent–especially after a long day of backpacking and it happens to be windy or raining. Adding to the frustration are complicated set-ups that are time consuming and, frankly, difficult to understand. Sometimes I wish I could throw the whole contraption in the air and it would magical set up on its own. Well, now it’s possible.
The 2Second Tent, by Quechua does just that. Throw it in the air and it assembles itself before hitting the ground. The tent just won a Gold Medal at the 2006 Industrial Design Excellence Awards, so I’m not the only one impressed with it. This baby is an engineering marvel. Or, as a buddy so eloquently put it, the tent is “the Viagra of camping gear . . . it erects itself and stays up all night.” Remind me never to go camping with him again…
The only downside of the tent appears to be its inability to fold down small enough to be practical for a backpacking trip. In addition, the manufacture claims that folding it back up is a 15 second task. I’ll bet it’s far more complicated than that. Probably more like folding up a road map in the wind.
Nonetheless, very, very cool. The cost is only £50 for a two-man tent (about $100) and £65 for three-man tent (which takes an additional one second to unfold). Shipping to the United States is a £55-£65.
Bright Feet
Ever have the experience of going camping, heading out into the woods for relief and forgetting your flashlight? You stumble around for a while, hoping to find a place far away from prying eyes and from your campsite, only to do your business and to discover you just went on someone’s sleeping bag in a neighboring campsite. Or was that just me?
Oh well. That’s the story that came to mind, anyway, when I saw these clever little shoes with lights on them . Called BrightFeet, the shoes/slippers have little LEDs in them, embedded in the front so as to guide you through the dark in whatever terrain you might find yourself. They run $40 and come in three sets of sizes, and are guaranteed to be a big hit at your next campout or slumber party.
Road Trip USA Podcasts
It is summer and across the country families and couples and poor lonely dudes with a car are taking to the open roads. Travel to Europe (as I learned recently) is expensive and even though gas prices are ridiculously high, it is still far cheaper to hit the road with the kids than to fly over the pond. And so the word on many lips this summer is Road Trip. OK, that’s two words, but it is a single concept. The concept of being free on the open road, hands on the wheel, moving along beneath the gaping sky. I’m getting kind of teary eyed just thinking about it.
There are so many road trip possibilities in the United States that you can get downright confused about what to do. A book out there that I recommended a ways back is here to help, Called Road Trip USA. Written by Jamie Jensen, the book is a beast. A travel tome with more tidbits about what to see and do along the American highway system than has likely ever existed. And now (this is the point of the post) he is offering free podcasts for you to download and listen to while on the road. They’re a diverse lot. The Podcast Themes include: US Music Festivals and the American Sound, Regional American Food, Weekend Road Trips, Quirky Culture and more.