Weirdness.
This site is selling actual MiG helmets.

For $149.98 you get:

Cirrus will release a new personal jet in 2001, according to this story from the UK Independent:

BBC News: New yuppies shun champagne lifestyle

The term yuppie conjures up images of the brash 1980s, when bright young things lived a loadsamoney lifestyle of flash cars, lavish lunches and power dressing. It was an era of playing hard and working hard. These days, young professionals are different. New research suggests they are more cautious about money than yesterday's yuppies, who are struggling to maintain their once high-flying lifestyles.

Research from Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society, a financial services company, suggests that pensions, getting on the property ladder and paying off debts are bigger priorities for today's young professionals than living a champagne lifestyle. Four in 10 young urban professionals in 2007 cite paying off debts as a financial concern, compared with a third in the 1980s, according to the research based on a survey of 2,409 adults.

Almost a third say that saving for retirement is one of their top three biggest financial worries, compared with just 12% of original yuppies. With conspicuous consumption falling out of favour, today's young yuppies spend their hard-earned cash on organic food and green fashion. But young go getters do enjoy the original yuppie love of gadgets, with 24% spending their money on technological wizardry compared with 18% in the late 1980s.

Literally. TrendHunter reports the luxury carmaker is cranking out a limited edition of 1,000 of these bad boys:

Rendered in stainless steel and selling for about $1750 US, and Lamborghini-brand coffee available but apparently not included, you could definitely crank out some red-line espresso with this unit. Buy it at Lamborghini's website.

Ah, the sweet life of James Bond. Those custom made Brioni suits, the finest of hotels, Omega wristwatches, vintage champagne and caviar, a license to kill and oh, those amazing cars, especially the new 2008 Aston Martin DBS.

Throughout the film series, from the classic Aston Martin DB5 in "Goldfinger" to the car-turned-submarine Lotus Esprit S1 in "The Spy Who Loved Me", James Bond has had his share of vehicles to die for. And those that kill.

But the one constant about the Bond vehicles is the cutting-edge gadgetry designed and installed by Q. Take the bulletproof DB5 from "Goldfinger", conceived more than 40 years ago. Equipped with evasive gadgets like a smoke screen and oil slick, dual machine guns, tire spikes and, the most Bond of all features, an ejecting passenger seat, the silver Aston Martin helped to create the Bond persona for the entire series.

"These cars act like characters in the Bond films," says Michael Isabell of EyeSpyfilms.com, who is working on a documentary about James Bond fan culture, "Besides the fact that the cars have a lot of technology, they always seem to get him out trouble as well. Also, there is something sexy about a beautiful girl in a beautiful car too."

So it comes as no surprise to see the same 1965 Aston Martin DB5 appears in the latest Bond film, "Casino Royale" too. But the car that garners the viewer's attention is the awesomely cool 2008 Aston Martin DBS.

The vehicle says something about of the exclusive nature of Bond's status. The fact that he drives a vehicle of such élan, taste and exclusivity – the DBS doesn't come on the market until October of 2007 – says something about Her Majesty's Secret Service clout at the Aston dealership. A team of Aston Martin engineers worked closely with the film production company to provide both technical support and quite a few DBS models during the production. The DBS in the film features a hidden weapon compartment, life-saving high-tech equipment and, if you've seen the movie, more accident safety features than a soccer mom's Volvo wagon. None of these features will be available to the average consumer, of course.

While Aston Martin is somewhat tight-lipped on the DBS's specs, look for the model to build upon the heritage of classic production models and their recent racecars, the DBR9 specifically. Basically, the DBS is a racecar in street clothing and is what you expect of a car befitting Bond. Providing more power – a rumored 500-horsepower V-12 is under the hood – and luxury than the already luxurious Aston DB9, it is said that Aston Martin will build only 300 examples of the DBS for budding Bonds the world over.

"The Aston Martin and James Bond relationship is one of cinema's longest and most durable product placements. There is something that is indeterminable about the Bond character that is so well reflected in an Aston Martin," says Tim Watson, VP Communications & Public Affairs, Aston Martin, "In everybody that buys an Aston Martin, there is an element of Bond in them."

When asked to elaborate on this, Watson grins, "People don't really get to be Bond. I always say to them, 'Bond, he's not real."

They don't call it movie magic for nothing.

By Jon Alain Guzik, Editor-at-Large, Yahoo! Autos

From Gizmag:

UK-based bespoke luxury goods creator Luvaglio has created the first million dollar laptop. Full details of the laptop have not been released at this point, but it is known that it incorporates a 17" widescreen LED lit screen with a specially designed anti-reflective glare coating for clear and brighter image, 128GB of Solid State Disk space and a slot loading Blue-Ray drive. There is an integrated screen cleaning device and a very rare coloured diamond piece of jewellery that doubles up as the power button when placed into the laptop and also acts as security identification.

As their web site says:

We've created our own path - our creations, our designs, our attention to detail... are like nothing you've experienced before... We're not interested in 'mass production' or designing 'entry level products' - we leave that to others...We guarantee that everything we do will exceed expectations...We create and hand make the very best...

No word on whether the laptop comes with Windows Vista, which would subsequently lower its value by at least $500,000.

~BG

More shoes than closet? That happens to most of us. Rakku Designs has an innovative solution: a wheel that makes the best use of vertical space in your closet:

Featuring expandable pockets, clear vinyl panels and a sturdy metal frame, Rakku's rack also serves as a giant transparent dustbag. Available in white, chrome or black to match any closet scheme.

From Rakku Designs, $65.

Can't get enough of convergence, or cognac? This little gadget will tell you when you've had too much to drink, and will also broadcast your iPod tunes over FM radio:

I love their advertising copy: And if keeping you out of the pokey isn't enough, this cool gadget doubles as a wireless FM transmitter to beam your tunes directly to any FM stereo!

Priced at $50 from David Steele Enterprises, it's not much more spendy than a standard iPod FM transmitter.

You've seen it. You knew it was going to be announced at MacWorld. And now that it's out, you probably covet it on some level.

Available in 4GB ($499) and 8GB ($599) versions.

Much more exciting than Dell's tree-planting plan unveiled at this week's CES, isn't it?