Does anyone else remember how videochatting just came into our lives without any fanfare? I mean really, that is some Jetsons-level futuristic tech. Infinite Jest hinged its entire perception of the future on our reaction to finally being able to do it, but at some point in college everyone seemed to have Skype and it was no big deal.
And yet we complain that we are too far in the past. Sure there are Google Glass and wristphones, but our musicians scream for jetpacks! We cry for hovercars! Where are our personal spaceships and household robots?
They’ve been in the Hammacher Schlemmer Catalog.
First I present the World’s Fastest Amphibious Car. Oh ho, we’ve moved far past just having amphibious cars, my friends. Why even get one if it’s not gonna reach at least 44mph in the water?
If cruising around your local lake on an amphibious car is just too showy, there’s also the privacy and peace a personal Killer Whale Submarine can offer. It “breaches and submerges just like the Orcinus orca after which it is designed,” so you know you can trust the craftsmanship. There is also a five person exploration submarine, if you have friends. Does the catalog offer friends? (no.)
I have never wanted something more than a golf cart hovercraft. Regular cars are too intimidating for me, but I can drive a mean golf cart. According to the designer, it was built to “improve some of the existing limitations of golf carts,” which just goes to show the difference between true genius and the rest of us–I didn’t even know there were golf cart limitations. But this maverick saw that perfectly fine golf cart and thought “but it doesn’t fly!” This video is the coolest.
What is a tranquility pod? Why is a tranquility pod? It at least has “a pulse sensor that synchronizes your heartrate with 50 LEDs housed in the pod’s inner perimeter that create ambient mood lighting for calming the mind,” as well as memory foam that covers a WATERBED. When I was a kid my aunt had a waterbed and it was the most fun thing to sleep on, so this definitely sounds like a good investment.
Wasn’t this Motorized Monocycle on South Park once? Again, the video to this is just too perfect. Look at this couple monocycling through the woods! I guess they’re there because it’s not technically “street legal” but neither are electric bikes in lots of places. Rules aren’t for monocyclists.
Hot Tub Boat. This makes perfect sense. I think people forget that the best part of water is just being able to sit in it and chill out. Swimming is fun but it is not relaxing, and that water is probably too cold anyway. Yes, fill your boat with warmer water and then take that water into the water.
Here we are, the perfect object. It’s a self-righting object, “unlike inhomogeneous self-righting novelties built with weighted bases.” Don’t even suggest bringing an inhomogeneous self-righting novelty into this conversation. Weighted bases? Maybe for suckers, but you deserve better than that. You deserve the Gömböc.
Anyway, please tell me why SkyMall gets all the attention when we have this.
Tags: a memory foam waterbed sounds pretty sweet though, business, catalog, hammacher schlemmer, hot tub boat, jaya saxena, killer whale submarine
Heh. Yes, I imagine that is the vehicle from South Park…
i will watch the video for every single one of these products because sometimes it leads to something majestic and beautiful like their 9 1/2 foot remote-controlled eagle. $500.
Oh man that eagle looks like it’d be so much fun to play with!
why aren’t there any reviews???
Everybody who owns one is outside being majestic!
There is no possible way George W Bush doesn’t own one of these.
Yo dawg, I heard you like water, so we put a pool in your boat so you can swim while you float.
Not gonna lie, I would LIVE in that thing.
When you get hungry you can just hop into your Barbecue Dining Boat
Jaya, this is such a baller way to start the week. The Hammacher Schlemmer catalog is amazing, and so is the company name (HAMMACHER SCHLEMMER).
HAMMACHER SCHLEMMER is an anagram for SKYNET, though, so be careful.
That pod thing reminds me of Mitchell’s boss on Modern Family who had a special egg to meditate in that reversed his age somehow.
It looks absurd but I would probably live in it in the winter if I could rig it up to also be a sun replacement pod. Memory foam plus waterbed!
I would so have one of these if I had $30,000 extra dollars and a bigger apartment.
I MUST HAVE A TRANQUILITY POD. You guys, “the pod’s ellipsoid exterior blocks 90% of outside noise while its interior foci ameliorate music played from the integrated 80-watt, four-speaker sound system”. So ellipsoid. Much tranquil. Wow.
Such ameliorating foci (???)
Schlemmer you sons of bitches, that Gömböc is clearly just a $500 metal Weeble.
it wobbles but will not fall down, but because of BEAUTY IN ENGINEERING NOT WEIGHTED BASE GIMMICKRY
The description is SO GREAT. “Mathematically impossible in two dimensions, the Gömböc barely exists in three-dimensional space, the only known nondegenerate object to possess exactly one stable and exactly one unstable point of equilibrium.”
WHAMMO
Plus they will help you keep your new engineering marvel in peak condition: “the Gömböc comes in a protective case to prevent dust from affecting its performance.”
the Gömböc is a v. sensitive instrument
That’s my favoritest part of the whole thing.
NOT DUST! How can it be probable in multiple dimensions if there’s DUST on it! Get your damn cat away from here, it’ll force my Gömböc to fully exist in three dimensions!
I just got sucked into the Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue now and I will work no more today. Look at this thing.
http://www.hammacher.com/Product/Default.aspx?sku…
Isn’t that headwear just dying for someone to come along and decorate/vandalize it with a black sharpie pen whilst being worn? Or is that just me? I would so put a Dali moustache on it.
Guys, The Climbing Wall Treadmill ($9000).
Goes great with The Low-Impact Fitness Trampoline ($130, a bargain)
I bet SkyMall would sell an inhomogeneous self-righting novelty with a weighted base. Philistines.
The company owners at my place of employment get the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog. They have it delivered to the office and leave it lying around, where I resist the distraction until I can no longer stand not knowing what the ridiculous thing on the cover is.
For those who haven’t seen the physical catalog: Here’s an example of a thing that was on the cover once. I think it was a picture without a phone.
Who among us has not been torn between going out on our boat, or relaxing in our hot tub? Now we don’t have to choose!
Oh my god I didn’t even see the mind-controlled UFO http://www.hammacher.com/Product/Default.aspx?sku…
The mind controlled UFOs were supposed to be OUR SECRET
We used to get this catalog at my house and I remember always being PISSED because every single product name starts with “the.” Like, yes, you’re probably the only people selling The Killer Whale Submarine, but it’s not some radical, aggressive statement you’re making.
They are also weird about usually not putting in the brand name of anything.
I found one that breaks the pattern, but it’s “Her Majesty’s Umbrella” or something like that so the The would’ve been even more ridiculous than usual, maybe?
“Oh, yes, I just purchased a The Her Majesty’s Royal Umbrella” for only $299.99!”
My new life goal is to become the person who writes these product descriptions. I think 10 years of writing in US Government Proposalspeak has actually prepared me quite well.
The third-best part of going to my gramma’s house (after Gramma herself and her neverending supply of Mother’s Iced Oatmeal Cookies) was paging through her Hammacher Schlemmer catalog. She also got Miles Kimball which was definitely like, Old People Stuff, INCLUDING a very escandalo spread of “marital aids” that always made me giggle. Man now I want some of those cookies to go with checking this stuff out!
Ah yes, the “personal massagers” that always appear in catalogs for women over 50…
WHAT? http://www.hammacher.com/Product/Default.aspx?sku…
I’ve seen one of those in public! A group of happy arseholes pedaling through Golden Gate Park (of course). It was both ridiculous and majestic.
In Bavaria, they basically have one of these, but it has a table in the middle and you drink beer the whole time you are pedaling through the park. It is a sight to behold.
Hammacher Schlemmer calls that one “The Pedal Pub.”
Jesus CHRIST, of course they do.
AHH “Of course they do” is right!
One of those can also be found in Seattle. You know, in case you need to partake in such a thing.
Bier bikes!
haaaaa holy shit
I hope it’s free shipping! (HA HA GET IT)
one MIIIIILLLION DOLLARS
really though what is the point of having such a thing in stock at all? Do they expect people to buy it? Is the profit margin so high they will make a killing if it does ever sell? What the fuck is late capitalism anyway?
$30K is too expensive for a bed, but not too expensive for a house, which is the function the Tranquility Pod would serve if I had one.
The music for the orca submarine video is A LOT as is the style sense of the man driving it.
Basically, I am purchasing it now
For some reason, I didn’t watch this until now.
My favourite part is where it displays the text “When you dive below snorkel depth, the vacuum pressure pops your ears.” It gives the impression that they believe that this is a feature. And also that they are suggesting you go farther away from shore than you are willing to swim, with no PFD, sealed into a watercraft that was made by people who think that when you submerge a thing it is subject to “vacuum pressure.”
My family has an informal contest every month when get the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog. We take bets on the answers to: a) What is the thing on the cover? and b) How much does it cost? (because HS insists on maintaining some kind of air of Bond-like mystery by not labeling what the strange object is, and leaving you a clue as to which page it is on in the catalog).
It is usually some kind of artistic air purifier, or a desktop model of a F-1 racecar engine, or a magic hovercraft (as mentioned above) or something like that, and it ALWAYS costs at least double what you could conceivably estimate it costs.
Misread one item above as “Motorized Monocle” (not completely unrealistic given steampunk), and was hoping for a tiny pull-cord lawnmower-type thing that would speed my reading time and comprehension. Failing that I’m definitely due for a nap in the pod.
Misread one item above as "Motorized Monocle" (not completely unrealistic given steampunk), and was hoping for a tiny pull-cord lawnmower-type thing that would speed my reading time and comprehension. Failing that I'm definitely due for a nap in the pod.
I’ll be working from the Tranquility Pod for the rest of the month.
The Helicycle! http://www.hammacher.com/Product/Default.aspx?sku…
(How else can someone be expectedp to jaunt from The Hamptons to The Martha’s Vinyard? I mean really!)