Snarking at Skymall

When the robots win the inevitable battle and rule the world at last, all humans will be forced to wear these mind-control caps. Be ahead of the curve and order one today!

You know, until now, the block and a half that I walk from the subway to my company’s building, and the ride up the elevator every day, all of that was just wasted time.

Proving that I’m not the only one making fun of Skymall, check out this quiz that asks you to determine which products have really appeared in Skymall. I got 7 out of 8; can you beat my score? It helped that one of the products was one that I’d already covered in this blog, and at least one more is something that I’m going to be covering.

“This patented design surrounds the beverage with a powerful triangular-shaped magnetic field, and in just 10 seconds, you’ll taste a premium drink’s smooth, mellow flavor equal to years of traditional slow aging.”

You know, until I picked up the Skymall catalog, I thought that “The Amazing Power of Magnets” had gone away at about the same time as phrenology and “bad humors”. But apparently not, because there are a whole bunch of magic magnet products scattered throughout Skymall. (Come to think of it, bad humors haven’t really gone away either. They just call them “toxins” nowadays in the hopes of sounding more scientific. But I digress.)

The point is, elsewhere in the catalog, magnets held to the skin are supposed to prevent aging, but here they accelerate aging.  Those are some pretty smart magnets, that can somehow tell whether they’re near a glass of wine or a person. Or if it’s supposed to be something special about the configuration of the magnets, does that mean that if you put your hand inside this product, it’ll shrivel up like in Indiana Jones? They should probably warn you about that.

“Guaranteed to work 24/7 for 100 years.”

Yeah, I feel comfortable guaranteeing that this will work just as well after 100 years as it does the day you buy it.

When Apple came out with the iMac, it was designed to make it as easy as possible to connect to the Internet. That’s where the “i” came from. The iBook is a laptop that connects to the Internet, the iPod plays music you download from the Internet, you get the idea.

So now I’m wondering what this wallet’s connection to the Internet is. Does it sync with your online bank account? Does it let identity thieves steal your credit card numbers without you even having to open your wallet?

There has to be something, because I can’t imagine that a reputable company like Steinhausen would use the “i” prefix purely as an attempt to sound hip by cashing in on a trend from the late 90s.

“…designed to give you the experience of a home theater…”

As long as your idea of a home theater includes a screen 1.5 inches diagonal. Who needs that 42-inch plasma TV, anyway?  As excited as I am about buying this product, I think I’ll hold out for a watch with a built-in Blu-Ray player.

“The Helmet HERO WIDE Edition camera lets you shoot exciting, wide-angle photos and videos during your favorite activities.”

I’ll bet it does. And I’m sure you’ll buy it saying you’re going to use it to film yourself mountain biking and bungee jumping and so on. But let’s be honest–you’re really going to end up using it to film your “favorite activities” in the bedroom. That’s okay, we don’t judge here at Skymall.  Just remember,

I’m sorry, did I stumble into a time warp and land in 1955?  Because that’s the only explanation that I can think of for a dustpan to be under an enormous “Holiday Gifts for Her” banner.

“The world’s first patented weather station atomic clock with LED light you can see anytime.”

There are an awful lot of qualifiers on that “World’s First” claim.

I’m guessing some other company has made a patented weather station atomic clock with LED light that you can only see some of the time?

Or maybe they made a weather station atomic clock with LED light you can see anytime, but didn’t patent it?

Or maybe they made a patented weather station clock with LED light you can see anytime, but it wasn’t an atomic clock?

The possibilities are endless.

This is actually kind of a cool product, if a bit overpriced at $3,700. But note the description:

“100 classic games return to life in this full size upright console…A host of vintage Atari and Capcom games (35 in all) ensure plenty of variety.” 

What happened to the other 65 games?

Maybe they realized, halfway through writing the description, that they didn’t actually have the rights to sell the rest of them, but the first half of the description was already up there on the screen, and it would have taken so much work to erase and re-type it.