Avoid resort crowds by buying your own tropical island on eBay. This 225 acre island near Fiji is selling for only about $341,000, which is a small price to pay for an uncrowded break these days. You can make your own laws and issue your own money—maybe even host dog fighting tournaments.

When you’re too lazy to drop your tent or jacket off for a quick sewn repair, just slap some of McNett’s Tenacious Clean Tape over the tear. The transparent tape is meant for field repairs, but if the company’s “nearly invisible” claims are true you know you’ll never really get it fixed. They call it Clean Tape because when it’s time to make a real repair, the tape pulls off without leaving any crap behind. The only thing that baffles me is why McNett packs it in a shotgun shell.

Turn your studio apartment into a biodiesel refinery. The British company Etruk is selling these in-home Biodiesel Processing Plants that let you make gas for your Ford F-350 from used vegetable oil and virgin feed stock. The guys who ran the Oil and Water Project must have been doing something wrong by getting across the world running strictly on veggie oil.

What’s more interesting about this thing is that it can turn virgin feed stock into fuel. I was under the impression that biodiesel was a negative-production energy since it took more energy to make the fuel than it would produce when burned. It doesn’t look like the Etruk plugs in anywhere, so I would imagine that you need to turn that crank on top for days. At least that road-tripping guy from Patagonia will be on board.

via Gizmodo

It’s not often that I need to scale fish since I rarely catch fish big enough to keep and frozen grocery store fillets are scaled before they’re breaded. The couple times I’ve scraped fish with a knife I managed to only clean half the scales and they ended up in my hair and all over my kitchen. The guys over at Cool Tools are recommending this Magic Fish Scaler that relies on 19 floating plastic heads to pull scales cleanly away. Hopefully the Tackle Factory is better at making these fish scalers than they are at designing websites, because their retail site is strictly Apple IIe.

via Cool Tools

It’s for when you don’t have a car to run over big logs to break up your firewood. The Trail Blazer Survivor Saw is a 9.5 ounce folding aluminum saw that makes cutting up downed trees for firewood a lot easier. It’s available in 15- and 18-inch versions and sells for about $40. Trail Blazer left some space in the handle for extra blades, which is handy since they make blade specific to cutting bones—it’ll be handy for those backcountry amputations.

It burns a little. The upcoming “World’s Greatest Superpower” title handoff. The part where the U.S. becomes the new U.K. and the U.K. becomes the new France. Maybe that’s why I’m so eager to jump on stories about Chinese pollution and cast dispersions on them for exporting crappy toys and tea with DDT. In a rare PR move, the Chinese government has agreed to put plans for a highway to Mount Everest on hold. They say they’ll postpone the $20 million road to Everest’s base camp until environmental authorities approve the project.

“Environmental protection authorities always have the right to veto this kind of project,” Tibet vice chairman Nima Ciren.

Maybe after those environmental protection authorities give the nod on the base camp highway they can do something about my green tea?

via Outdoor Weblog

I sure hope there isn’t a crosswind. These Moon Discs cost $75 each, so you’ll need four to cover all the spokes on your bike. They don’t replace your spokes or rims, they just make it look like you’re trying to break a land speed record in futility. And here’s the weird part—they only work with 21-inch wheels. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen or, uh, heard of a 21-inch bike wheel. I guess that explains why I don’t see more people rolling around on their Moon Discs.

via GetOutdoors

Crocs has a successful business model and they’re sticking with it:  “The more holes in the shoes, the better they’ll sell.” Crocs announced today that they would buy Bite Footwear for $1.75 million. If you’re one of the hundreds of guys who started a knock-off Crocs company and you’re about to run to the mailbox to see if Crocs also sent you an offer to buy your hybrid Croc/Ugg, you can stay seated. Bite Footwear is a legitimate company selling comparatively normal shoes alongside their holey Croc- and Keen-looking shoes. They even have some fishing shoes that look wearable, the fishing sandals—not so much.

Thanks Kruck

Your nightmares about plane crashes won’t get any better when you begin waking up to flashing lights pointing your toward the exits. The Eureka! Solar Intent Tent is a family camping dome tent that uses a 4oz solar panel on the roof to power LEDs lining the ceiling. Eureka! went to the trouble to make the solar panel “splash proof,” so hopefully you only get a little spray from waves crashing on the rocks right next to your campsite and you don’t see any real rain.  The 16lb Eureka Solar Intent Tent costs $240.

via Product Dose