What better way to celebrate the 60th anniversary of a country that seems to have a, um, problem with all forms of open media than with a, um, camera? Oh but what a camera it is! Leica has taken it upon themselves to create this beauty. It’s gold-plated(24 carat), and as you can see, comes in colors to celebrate the People’s Republic of China. Not bad. Limited to just 60 units, each hallmarked with a year between 1949 and 2009, the Golden Camera is encased in red calfskin, bears an inscription of Mao Zedong’s favorite slogan and includes the Leica Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 Gold lens. It also costs a whopping $30,000. Wait, now China also has more expensive limited edition cameras than the Western World?! Why, I never.
Wow. Soccer players are smart. Manchester United player Gary Neville is putting his eco-money where his eco-mouth is by helping to design this luxury ec0-bunker. Wait out the coming in apocalypse in style, and all without increasing your carbon footprint!
Neville teamed up with Make Architects to create this 8,000-sq-ft multi-million-pound luxury eco-bunker. It has been likened to a Neolithic settlement and will be built in the grounds of Gary Neville’s £8 million ($13m) estate in Lancashire.
The building will have solar panels, a ground source heat pump and a wind turbine. Energy produced from the wind turbine will power his neighboring property with extra energy being supplied to the national grid, helping to reduce his family’s carbon footprint. There’s one potential snag, however. The government has yet to approve the bunker.
Oh Swarovski. You multiply faster than Gremlins after midnight. This time on a guitar! But not just any guitar, a Gibson Bulls Eye. And not just any Gibson Bulls Eye, but a Zakk Wylde branded edition. Got all that?
To be fair, it’s not all Swarovski. There be gold gems on that thar guitar as well. Commissioned by an anonymous Monaco-based British celebrity, this limited edition Gibson guitar is encrusted with 4,000 individual Swarovski crystals - each measuring exactly 4mm in diameter and covered in 24-carat gold. Kim Webber and Gold2u worked in tandem to design this beast. The strings are also 24 carat gold and imported from Germany. And, that’s not all. 24 carat gold frets! Wow. I’m going to stop now before I also turn into gold. Is this guitar King Midas? Spend $24,200 and find out.
If you’ve ever wanted a helicopter but saw it as a pipe dream akin to wanting to be a fireman as a kid, then have we got something to show you. Aviation company Yuneec have released their Electric Sport Airplane. All of the fun of a helicopter but without any of the hassle! No carbon emissions, no outright danger. The Yuneec ESA E430 hopes to be mass released by 2011. The company is currently cranking them out in China. The plane holds two passengers, and only costs $2 per hour of flight fuelwise. Not bad. The nifty air gadget costs around $89,000. Oh, and, buy me one.
Do you like being clean and fresh so you can face the world with a smile? Of course you do! Would you like to not ruin the planet while doing so? Unless you are the nemesis of Captain Planet, you want to do that as well. Enter Lucedentro and their elegant, and green, bathroom top.
Fabricated from sandwich glass, the top has photo-luminescent PVC film in between the glasses that accumulates daylight and gives back the light accumulated in the dark through three colors: “Aqua-marina,” “Yellow green” and “Ocean blue.” They’ll also decorate it any way you like, but come on, it looks great as is. Why mess with perfection?
In order to commemorate the 20th anniversary of SIHH (Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie), Panerai has decided to reissue it’s classic Mare Nostrum watch. It is not available yet as they are waiting for the official 2010 SIHH event. The watch is purported to sell for around $36,000. The Mare Nostrum features a monstrous 52mm dial and is reported as being based on a hand-wound Minerva chronograph movement, dubbed the Panerai OP XXV caliber. In short, this watch is a looker and is sure to capture the attention of any onlookers.
That age old question returns. Fire or television? Do we want warmth for our hearths and home or do we want the latest episode of LOST? Well now, thanks to French furniture company Mobilier DeFrance, we can have both. Introducing their Fontana TV stand and fireplace. Two-in-one! Look at them, standing side-by-side like two proud peacocks. Start a fire. Watch TV. Do both. No big deal. Why make a choice when we can have both? Isn’t that the way of the Western world? The unit is available now on the company’s website.
Ah. The bright blue nostalgia of the Cold War. Hiding under tables during school. Sylvester Stallone blowing up tons of stuff. Good times. Let’s relive them! How? Well, by purchasing a Cold War era jet of course. These bad boys are revamped, so fly like a dream and will take out the commie bastards you want. These $5 million Russian Sukhoi SU-27 Flanker jets have a top speed of Mach 1.8. It also has a thrust ratio greater than 1:1. That means you can increase speed even if you are flying straight up. Great for bone-chilling and violent maneuvers! These revamped jets also feature some modern accouterments, including GPS and a training program for newbies. At a cost of just $5 million each, they are the perfect gift for any Cold War obsessive. Win one for the gipper!
This recession is digging it’s hells into even the most venerable of institutions! NASA, the space people, have begun selling off their unused space shuttles. Most of these spaceships were manufactured in the 1970s. They are going for about half of “retail” price. This puts a shuttle at anywhere fro m$28 million to $42 million. There’s a bonus, however. NASA will throw in the engine for free. These shuttle engines alone can cost a cool million so it’s not a bad deal. Now when you say “One of these days, BANG, to the moon!” you can actually mean it!
Put a stop to endless tech-clutter with the Evoline Port Lounge Table! This convenient cutie provides a discreet and elegant way to organize connections for power, networks, data and multi-media. The table contains two power sockets and two Ethernet ports to make organizing a breeze. Seems great for tech heavy living rooms or busy office environments. The table itself is nice, too. It’s double-aluminum and the composite covers are available in silver, black or stainless steel. This table is available now at the bargain price of $1470.
