Help me find another cool toy/gadget/etc
I usually try to buy Cool Nerd Toys (CNT) for Christmas presents for my friends. I try to make the toys around $2.00 to $15.00 depending on the friend. Here’s some of the toys I bought in the past
A pound of Silly Putty (I subdivided it)
Hand Warmers - mundane use but so cool to “activate”
Anybody know of any other CNTs out there?
Thanks
It’s been a long time for me, what exactly does Silly Putty do? 
Judging by the links you’ve posted, I can’t imagine you don’t know about Think Geek, but I’ll post this just in case.
I hope you get a lot of answers to this thread because I can always use some interesting new ideas!
Last year, someone gave this to one of my kids. It was a lot more fun than we expected! We were addicted to the darn thing for a couple of days. Basically, it’s just 20 Questions, but it was really eerie how this thing could ask what seemed like totally unrelated questions and come up with whatever was in your mind. Try it; you can play it online at that site.
What doesn’t it do! 
Jeez… five pounds of silly putty? I can finally achieve my dream of being covered in nothing but silly putty. I wonder how much I would need to completely cover everything but my face?
It took 53 pounds to do me. How tall are you?
Six feet even.
Reminds me of an Ian Fleming novel…
Silly Putty. You kids and your fancy-shmancy dimethicone polymers.
In my day, we had water and we had cornstarch- AND WE LIKED IT.
I think the zero-fog blaster looks cool. And if I thought I could pull off owning a stuffed animal at 36 I would get the plush Cthulhu.
The Celestial Orb is a fascinating thingie. I also recommend Parabolus. These are great for fiddling with while you’re waiting for someone who has you on “hold” on the phone, or other occasions when you have time on your hands and need to fidget with a widget.
I have found some nice stuff at this place. It is mostly overpriced IMHO but sometimes I stumble across a great item there. I like the catalog better than on-line. The best thing I ever found there was one of those “will be back at” plastic clock looking things you put on your office door, you know the white background, blue face and red hands? But this one was a real clock so if you set the hands ten minutes ahead of real time you are never late! It was like nine dollars. Note of caution, if you make a syntax error in the url you end up at a sexually oriented site not suitable for office viewing. Or at home depending on your own preferences. I know Mrs. Seenidog was not amused. :eek:
Cool, reminds me of Guess the Dictator or Sitcom Character: Guess the Dictator/Sit-Com Character
Actually it doesn’t have to be a sitcom character, think of just about any obscure TV character and it will probably be able to guess it.
I believe both of these are enhancements of an old 1980’s (or older?) BASIC program called ANIMAL that would try to guess an animal, and you could expand it’s database if it didn’t guess the animal.
You might be interested in gifts from Archie McPhee.
Well, if one of your friends is a girl, you could get her caution–possibly not work safe this.
I just discovered this one Saturday.
This is not conventionally geeky, but it would be good for a pretty literary geek.
Poor Yeeter…old enough to know better, but still cares what others think.
It’s not a doll, it’s an action figure. 
I have a few choice TikiMugs hanging around (http://www.amplifier-store.com/tikibartv/ look for ‘sufferin bastard’ )
Thanks everybody for some great leads. -
Some info on the Silly Putty since it was discussed earlier. A lot of places sell silly putty in one pound containers but are (were) at a higher cost than crayola.com. When I bought the putty from Crayola a few years ago they were selling it at 59.95 with free shipping.
If you really want to get a big ball of it Dow Corning used to sell it in 50lb bulk (3179 Dilatant Compound) for around $400 but I think that they wouldn’t sell any wholesale orders under $500 so that you would have to buy 100 lb to get some. I’ve read articles about people in offices chipping in for a “share” of the putty. It’s the cheapest way to get real silly putty.
There is a cool video of some software geeks throwing a 50lb ball off of a parking garage onto a driveway at this site.
I’m working at a new job now so I’m going to repeat some old choices for my new coworkers. Everybody here is getting a hand warmer from hotsnapz.com this Christmas. These things are the coolest nerd gadgets so far. I work with engineers and they find these things fascinating.
I’ll bump this and let you know what I’m buying for my old gang.