Jan 7 2009 Time Flies!: An Artsy, Steampunkish Watch

Deviantartist sadwonderland went and made a steampunk styled wristwatch. While it doesn't look super steampunky, I still like the style. Hell, I'd wear it if I was a woman. Or, haha, home alone with the door locked and shades pulled tight. I'm not kidding.

This is a fancy steampunk-style wristwatch, fully functioning, with a new battery in it all ready to go!

A pair of angelic wings and decorative clock cogs frame the timepiece, and a charm chain hangs below, carrying a cog and a small victorian heart.

Perfect for costuming or fancy time-travel parties!

I'm digging those wings. And you know what they say -- time flies when you're wearing a steampunk watch! What do you mean they don't say that? Well what do they say? Toy boat ten times fast? Fine! Toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boyt, toy boyt, toyboyt, toyboyt, toyboyt, toyboyt! Oh, now everyone in the coffee shop is looking at me funny. F*** you, people, I'm a blogger damnit!

Lestrade Watch [deviantart]

Thanks to KXHone, who doesn't need a winged watch for time to fly, just alcohol.

Aug 28 2008 Another Day, Another Winged Cat

Another day, another cat sprouts wings.

A tabby from the Qingyan province in China recently sprouted a pair of fur-covered wings on his back during a hot-weather spell, the U.K.'s Daily Mail reported.

One cat owner, identified only as Feng, claimed her pet's wings were the result of stress from too many females desiring to mate with him, the Mail reported.

F***, now I'll never grow wings.

Hit the jump for a picture of Feng's winged cat (a different one) from a while ago, and a link to its story.

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Jul 1 2008 Paper Shampoo: Because Liquids Are Sketchy

The last time I tried to fly I woke up on the floor beside the bed. And the time before that airport security confiscated my juice box. Needless to say my hair was unkempt. So how can you get some shampoo on your next flight without a hassle? Simple -- Paper Shampoo.
Paper Shampoo comes in boxes of 30 sheets and costs $12.50 for two packages. They dissolve into a lather whenever you add water (including salt-water, which is awesome because I do the majority of my bathing at sea). Plus they're mint scented. And if there's one thing I've learned in my 40-odd years on this planet, it's this: mint-flavored hair is freaking delicious.

Paper Shampoo lets you travel with clean hair without being branded a terrorist [dvice]

Jun 13 2008 Folding Plane Perfect For Drug Smugglers

Ah yes, another plane for the drug-smuggling readers out there. The ICON A5 is actually a luxury aircraft aimed at rich people that have more money than they know what to do with and don't want to bother going through all the training required for a regular pilot's license.

"We designed it so that people who don't know airplanes know that something has changed," Kirk Hawkins, ICON's chief executive officer, told Popular Mechanics.

What's changed are federal regulations, which created a new form of airplane and a new kind of pilot license that requires less training and no medical check to obtain. The Federal Aviation Administration created the Sport Pilot category in 2004, but only now are players large and small entering this virgin market.

The plane has folding wings so you can store it in a garage, and comes with its own trailer. For safety, it has a parachute that will deploy and float you back to earth safely should you do something stupid while attempting to join the mile-high club. Which, incidentally, I'm a member of. I say alone counts.

A bunch more pictures (including folded wings and cockpit), along with a boring video of the plane's unveiling party, after the jump.

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May 16 2008 'Fusion Man' Provides More Jet Wing Action

I posted the story of the Jet Wing back in January, but since Yves Rossy just made his first public demonstration of the jet-powered wing, he's back in the news. Rossy and sponsors spent over $285,000 perfecting the thing, and he recently flew that shit for a gathered crowd of media before landing on the eastern shore of Lake Geneva (via parachute). Rossi wants to try crossing the English Channel later this year, and eventually fly through the Grand Canyon.

Rossy stepped out of the Swiss-built Pilatus Porter aircraft at 7,500 feet, unfolded the rigid 8-foot wings strapped to his back and dropped. Passing from free fall to a gentle glide, Rossy then triggered four jet turbines and accelerated to 186 miles an hour as a crowd on the mountaintop below gasped -- then cheered.

Steering only with his body, Rossy dived, turned and soared again, flying what appeared to be effortless loops from one side of the Rhone valley to the other. At times he rose 2,600 feet before descending again with a trail of special-effects smoke in his wake.

Ah yes, smoke effects, what a showman.

"It's like a second skin," he later told reporters. "If I turn to the left, I fly left. If I nudge to the right, I go right."

Oh yeah Rossi, just like a second skin. Except, you know, it's a rigid 8-foot wing with four jet engines attached. But besides that, yeah, just like a pair of tighty whities.

Video of Rossi and the wing in action after the jump.

Continue Reading " 'Fusion Man' Provides More Jet Wing Action "