I had no idea the Third Reich had decided to get involved in Libya or Tunisia again…
Link doesn’t work.
It was a link to the Wikipedia page on the Deutsches Afrika Korps; I can’t be bothered trying to get the link fixed for a throwaway joke. 
However, I will say that I looked in a Sharper Image store in February this year and thought it was kind of like the retail version of a 1950s Popular Science magazine- full of very cool but ultimately impractical or useless technological gizmos.
I did. Bought a stereo system from DAK which sounds great. (It still works, after 20+ years.) They even upgraded the turntable for free when the one I had ordered was out of stock. Overall, it was a good purchase.
Never saw the point of Sharper Image, though.
RR
At one of my old jobs they gave out $350 gift cards to the Sharper Image as an Xmas bonus. No one could find anything they wanted.
It releases ozone–isn’t that good for rebuilding that pesky ozone layer?
The ozone layer is self-repairing. I don’t think a chintzy little fan could add much to what the sun is already doing for it.
They sold crap that didn’t work, which it appears was often a blessing in disquise.
Reminds me of a line from the song “Charity Case” from nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot’s first CD. Up until the CD came out, Front had just been giving his music away free on his Web site. The point of the song is to explain to his fans that, no, the CD isn’t free, and also what he’s going to do once he’s rich and famous:
"Gonna buy gadgets that don’t do anything but beep and blink"
Well I’d like to know where you get your frisbees with built in barometers then, Mr. Expert Shopper.
Thanks for the link. I loved DAK then and in 14 years forgot how much I missed having Drew Kaplan explain to me in glowing terms why I need some of that crap.
Although I do have an ionic air purifier from them too.
(The warranty service on it was impressive though. Bring in a broken one without a box or receipt, and get a new one of a newer model on the spot.)
I remember them having much cooler stuff in the past than they have had in recent years.
Nowadays, it seems like 90% of the store is filled with nosehair-trimming flashlights, cheap golf shit, and plastic radio-controlled robots.
It is? So is the issue that it is depleting faster than it can self-repair?
Once in a blue moon, they have products that are pretty innovative and cool, but are of course ridiculously priced. I first saw those integrated vinyl turntable/CD burner units in Skymall, for around $500. I thought it would make a great Christmas gift for my computer-phobic record collecting brother, so I kept an eye out for it over the next year or so. We finally got him one at Target for less than $150.
Oh those barameter frisbee’s are a scam. Instead you should get the Xena disc replica frisbee with rubber band attatchment, because before now you never realized how much you wanted to play frisbee with yourself. Despite the fact that the add didn’t specifically state it, I’m sure the mechanism works exactly as you expect. Also, don’t ever let your kids order those X-ray glasses if you don’t want them to see you naked, and sea monkey really do have cool tea parties.
Thinkgeek, of course. Along with the ultraviolet laser pointer and the LP-to-VHS converter.
OK, OK, I’ve got it. We take all these Ionic breezes, and put them up on the highest point in Antarctica. Well, OK, it isn’t quite in the stratosphere; it’s close enough for government work, isn’t it?
I got a $150 gift certificate! Me and a coworker went in every time we went to the chinese food place and bought batteries. That’s the only thing we found there that we could use, and we’d go in every couple weeks and clean them out until the gift cards were empty.