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Chugulug Drinks Factory: If Rube Goldberg Were an Underage Girl You Wanted to Get Drunk
Posted by Mark Wilson at 1:15 AM on November 16, 2008
Any old idiot can use a shaker to mix his drink of choice, but it takes a supreme idiot to assemble and operate the Chugulug Drinks Factory. A series of interchangeable tubes connect a variety of specialised compartments (such as the Ice Chamber and Vortex Funnel) to mix and chill your drink through a 10-or-so step process that looks utterly impossible to clean. Then again, at just $US38, it wouldn't make the worst self-deprecating centerpiece for your next soiree. [BoyStuff via Nerd Approved]
Similar to other drunk-calculating iPhone apps, Last Call determines how smashed you are by your weight and how many drinks you've knocked back. However, unlike all those other apps, it's free, it also calculates your drunkenness by the specific type of alcoholic beverage you've consumed, and it gives you options on what to do next now that you're super drunk. If you've had a few too many drinks to drive, you can press a button on the app that'll call a taxi for you. And if you've disregarded the taxi button, there's another button that'll help you to find a local lawyer for when you get that DUI, tsk tsk. [
Due to a new EU trade rule, wineries can't use the word "port" on their label unless the wine was actually made in Portugal. California's Peltier Station Winery, however, discovered (or should I say invented?) a loophole: they called their new dessert wine "USB" and put a tree with USB roots on the label. And that's just the beginning of the geekery.
This, my friends, is what you call asking for trouble: the new arcade driving cabinet Octane 120, from Dream Arcades, comes with a built-in keg-o-rator, with the beer tap placed conveniently on the dash next to the steering wheel. You know, so you can accurately practice your drunk driving in a safe environment before busting out your sloppy skills on Saturday night.
The beer phone isn't the most full-featured phone available, what with its lack of a screen making everything from texting to emailing to web surfing impossible, but it is shaped like a beer bottle. And that's more than you can say for your precious Blackberry or iPhone. Also, it's only $US12 because it's actually just a landline phone. So if you've still got a landline for some reason and also like to have normal household objects remind you of your dependence on alcohol, you really can't go wrong. [
My new favourite Googler Jon Perlow has used his 20% time (that portion of it he doesn't spend hammered, apparently) to write Gmail Goggles, an official Labs add-on that makes sure you really want to send that 3AM email to your ex-girlfriend. Goggles employs five arithmetic problems that appear after pressing send (you choose the difficulty level!) that must be answered correctly in a limited time before your overly passionate and typo-ridden message can be on its way. It can also be scheduled to be active only on your party nights. Thanks big G! [
Six beers on my belt.
DIY builder Mikhail Levchenko's homemade backyard observatory once made a drunken Russian give up the sauce for good after revealing Saturn's rings to him one fateful night. Now, the telescope, which has been dormant for years, is getting a push to be restored and brought back online in time for a full solar eclipse which will be viewable from Levchenko's hometown of Barnaul in Siberia. And, of course, to cure more Russian alkies.
A team of Welsh scientists have spent long nights camped out in a busy nightlife neighbourhood of Cardiff from 11pm to 3am with one goal--studying the way Welshmen stagger when they're shitfaced in order to build an accurate computer model of the phenomenon. They aim to use their data to help city planners design streets that are safer for late night revellers. Now this is some research I can get behind.
If popping open a box of Franzia and drinking until you pass out is your idea of a sophisticated evening, you will have no use for the SoWine Bar. Believe it or not, there are people out there that prefer to enjoy a bottle of wine over an extended period of time. SoWine allows those users to store two bottles, bring them to the correct drinking temperature, and keep them fresh when opened for up to 10 days (according to the manufacturer) using two separate air-tight refrigerated storage units. Most of the other preservation methods out there only get you an extra few days, so this represents a significant improvement. SoWine is available for around US$600. [
