You Would Expect to Pay...

But, wait, there’s more. Once upon a time, back with the Ghost of Christmas past, we had Ronco (I really miss Ronco – that’s how I knew it was getting close to Christmas, when we saw the latest Ronco gadgets and gimmicks advertised). We had the Veg-o-Matic, the Pocket Fisherman, the Inside the Shell Egg Scrambler, and much, much more.

Now, Ronco’s gone (more or less), but its spirit lives on. Here are few samplings of high-tech gifts, past and present, mundane and insane. Some of these fine products may no longer be with us, having ridden the Extinction Train to that Great Electronic Bone Yard. And, some I might just have made up myself. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone. I might want to invent one:

Wireless Karaoke Machine. Yep, now we can all sing bad songs badly without wires. Uh, isn’t that just Mr. Microphone? “Hey, good lookin’... we’ll be back to pick you up later”.

Get ready, folks! The new Furby is out. Be prepared to talk to it in its native language (Furbish – rhymes with rubbish). I checked out one of the sites for some updated Furby info, and it seems the little fur-ball is capable of expressing several annoying emotions, including angry. Angry? Yeah, that’s what I want in my house, an angry Furby. Nuh uh. I’ve seen Gremlins and also those horror movies with the satan-possessed dolls. Nope, no sir, no thank you.

Here’s one for ya. It’s a memory stick. No! It’s a lighter. Yup, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought, Man! I sure wish someone would invent a lighter/memory stick. Well, now we’ve got one. Stuck on what to get the nicotine-aholic/cyber-junkie in your family? Ta-daaaa! Just one question. When the lighter runs out of fuel, does the memory go bye-bye? www.memlite.com

Probably a really good thing this one went away. Back in 2004, before we were blindly walking across eight lanes of traffic while texting, a company called Eyetop came out with... drum roll, please...a DVD player and sunglasses combo. Yup, the way it was supposed to work was you looked through the left eyepiece (the sunglasses part) and with your right eye you watch the video in the right eyepiece. Yeah, I could do that and drive. Sure, why not?

Man, I sure miss Ronco.