The Goat

The odds of keeping a resolution are staggeringly stacked against you. But people think they can beat long odds and gyms have the membership rosters to prove it. If I resolve to do anything this year it’s to grow a really good mustache. When I was in college I told my old boss Bob Sass at Midwest Mountaineering that I wasn’t even sure I could grow a mustache. He laughed and suggested that I was a “Major hair producer,” and likely, “wouldn’t have a problem.” He was totally right. I’m not going to put a timeframe on this “really good mustache” because that would be setting myself up for possible failure. I’m just saying I’ll do it “sometime in 2008.” Maybe I’ll sponsor a contest and send the winner some free garbage vendors have sent me. I’ll keep you posted.

Squirrels are the new mountain lions. These beasts are coming out of the trees and attacking humans—and now they’ve developed snake camo. They smear themselves with snakeskin to mask their scent and avoid getting eaten by snakes. If this “snake charming” works then the squirrel population will go unchecked for too long. When the squirrel count swells the animals will begin attacking humans in packs. We’ll all have to start carrying bb gun sidearms and wearing protective fencing masks when we walk outside.

via Neatorama

The Fit Fur Life Doggy Treadmill is slightly less cruel than tying your dog to the car’s bumper and driving around to get the animal some exercise. The consequences are just as grave if you go out to eat burgers for six hours and forget the animal is tied to the treadmill, but at least cleanup won’t be as bad and your neighbors won’t see you drag the dog corpse down the street. The Fit Fur Life Doggy Treadmill costs about $1200, but it’ll pay itself off in your laziness.

via Gizmodo [Neatorama]

The Alu Sled features a shock absorbing system designed to save your ass from getting hammered on the ride down the hill. It’s not hard to imagine the shock system acting as a spring-loaded seat to fire you into a tree. At $610 sledding has become an expensive sport to jump into, but at least you can turn this one unlike the stolen lunch trays you learned on.

via Uncrate

The Taiwanese have won the tolerable-solar-bike-light race, almost redeeming them for blowing it so horribly in the space race. This compact, 80g LED light runs for 8 hours on a full charge and only costs about $20 if you’re lucky enough to track one down. On sunny days you could conceivably never shut the thing off, though it would likely get stolen the moment you parked your bike outside the bar on New Years.  

via Cycleiciousness

We had one of these at my old job and it never put out a pile of snow like the one in this picture. It would dust the yard with a light frost and pollute our skulls with noise all day.  The Backyard Blizzard uses the same snowmaking technology as non-green ski resorts, and it costs only $2,400 plus another $290 for shipping. You run the beast off a 20-amp electrical outlet and set it up to bury your neighbor’s hot tub or something, I guess. The snow produced has the consistency and density of sand, so test it before jumping off your roof into the pile.

via Oh Gizmo!

A shark trolling the Pacific for legs hanging off surfboards doesn’t sound quite as bad after checking out this post on Angling Masters. Fortunately most of these fish were pulled out of remote areas, and the frilled shark was actually thought to be extinct until one was caught off the coast of Japan. Lamprey Eels certainly deserve to be on the list, and their prevalence in the Great Lakes is bad news for freshwater surfers. A lamprey attached to your face is the price they pay for those uncrowded breaks—while, that and arctic water temperatures. 

It’s like a suburban bulletproof vest. The RED LS2 Impact Vest comes with modular protection so you can adjust the fit or pull out the spinal protection while teaching your nephew how to snowplow down the bunny hill. RED set up the fleece vest with an iPod pocket and wonderful false sense of invincibility when you pull it on. The RED LS2 Impact Vest costs $130.

This is sewing tags on your underwear for the digital age. About $20 gets you a pack of these polyester tags that attach to your clothes and identify them as yours if someone takes the time to go online and check your registration number. Then if that person who found your iPod or shirt wants to send it back to you, the StuffBak service will pay shipping for the first two years. Let me save you time and money: No one is ever going to successfully use these things. Instead of wasting your money on tags, try taking your ADD meds and holding onto something for longer than a day.

via Vagabondish

Bring in a gift you don’t want in its original packaging and Crumpler will give you 40% off any bag in the store. They’re going to collect all the crap people don’t want and unload it to the Salvation Army. Interesting side note: My grandpa hated the Salvation Army. He bought a coat from them after WWII and found a note stitched into the lining asking the soldier who received the coat to contact the donors. He found out that the family who had donated the jacket had asked that it be given to a soldier for free, but the Salvation Army just sold it to GIs coming home with pockets full of money. But I’m sure they do a lot of good stuff, too. The Regifting Day is only happening in New York; it’s on January 5^th.

via Crunch Gear