odd toys

If there's a battle for best brand each year on this day, April Fools Day, ThinkGeek is certainly in the running for emperor. This year we've got a handle on their entire collection, starting with the couple of products you see here in the header image. That's a very tiny hand of Magic: The Gathering cards - a Travel Edition. Behind it, you'll find a White Noise Machine along the lines of Star Trek. You might see where we're going with this one already.

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Sugru is a strange sort of self-hardening glue/clay that comes in a variety of colors and plays very, very well with LEGO bricks. It's made for all sorts of different situations, like fitting around my MacBook power cord to add some protection to the places where it normally feels the most wear and tear. When we were provided a few packs of Sugru to review for SlashGear, we didn't just want to stay within the bounds of the given example uses of the product. We wanted to use the unique qualities of Sugru to step our LEGO game up to the next level.

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The following Valentine's Day gift guide is androgynous and prepared for the nerd in your life. Whether you're in love or just obligated to gift don't want the recipient to get the wrong idea, here you go. This list is for you. It's relatively brief, and everything on the list is 100% full of guilt-free joy. You and yours can partake and feel good about a world full of science fiction and happiness.

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Just days after Adam Driver's appearance on Saturday Night Live, his sketch as Kylo Ren's alter-ego Matt, Radar Technician, has gone viral. Today we've been sent a couple of mock-ups of action figures based on the character - likely never hitting shelves, of course, but we're allowed to dream. Would that NBC were to see enough call for such a set of figures, we might see it happen. They'd both be essential additions to your collection, that much is true. UPDATE: Additional figures added.

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Believe it or not, BB-8 remains part of our everyday lives three months after we published our first review. This little guy sits charging next to my television - I'm just a few feet away from him right now. That's a real rarity when it comes to reviews of oddities. With a smartphone, sure - it's not unheard of that I might stick with a smartphone for months and months. But a toy? In this case, even though I've reviewed products galore in the meantime, this BB-8 by Sphero toy has remained in heavy circulation.

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Build-a-bears have appeared with Star Wars bodies on the same day the Motion Picture Association of America has released its rating for The Force Awakens. Coincidence? Well, yes. They really have not a lot to do with one another, other than the oddity that is the PG-13 rating for the film and the much younger intended audience for the bears. But we'll be participating in both, one way or another. We're going to get that stuffed BB-8. Just you wait.

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Today we're having a peek at a crossover between two of our most favorite media: big-name games and tiny interlocking block toys. Today we're preparing for Halo 5 by taking a closer look at several of this season's Halo-brand toy sets from the folks behind Mega Bloks. Just like the Halo video game franchise, these toys strike a place between childhood and adulthood - a pressure point in the body of the gamer. After your Master Chief experience but before Halo 5, here you'll find something very different.

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A simple laser light is a surefire way to entertain cats (and most dogs), but it gets tiresome for the human operator after a while. As with most thing in life, the old toy has received a modern "smart" update, this one in the form of Obi, a small cylindrical toy that sits on a mantle or shelf and zips a laser around on your behalf. If you want to get in on the action, there's an app to take control.

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People often ask, "Why would you do that?" when presented with odd fascinations and unusual exploits. The appropriate answer is and always will be, "Why not?" Perhaps that was the thought process behind one man's very unusual DIY creation -- Guitar Boy, a guitar instrument that is also a massive functional Game Boy. The device was created as a submission for a forum's 2015 Game Boy classic build off.

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Not interested in a smartwatch, but still desire something cool and unique for your wrist? Well, if you're into the look of leather, brass, and rivets that defines steampunk, you're definitely in luck today. ThinkGeek's new Tesla Watch not only features a winding key for setting the time, but two vacuum tubes on top with LEDs that can be activated with a switch. While these features may not add much functionality to a watch, the same could be argued about reading emails from your wrist.

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Items modeled after Star Wars characters are nothing new, and we've seen the number of gadgets grow as the next movie's premiere grows nearer (not that there was ever a shortage of such items). The newest one to surface is a bit of a misstep, though, at least if your fashion sense has reached the adult level: Chewbacca-themed Crocs. Yes, Crocs still exist, and these ones are toeing the line crossed by fuzzy Ugg boots, only with a side order of spongy and hole-filled foam.

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Kick-Varibike is a bicycle like no other -- in fact, it is more akin to a giant scooter than anything else (a "kickbike"), but with the addition of pedals placed near the handle bars, which also makes it a hand bike. You can ride it like a scooter if that's your preference, pushing off the ground with your foot to propel it forward; or, you can pedal with your arms and build some upper body strength while traveling around. The model managed to catch the public eye at Eurobike 2015 recently.

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