Crisis averted for now

Name for the last decade: The kooky glasses era

via flickr.com

Makers of novelty eyewear have had to be more inventive than usual this year because of the missing double-aughts in the middle of the year. I predict that next year the available strategems will prove to be too strained to come up with a viable marketable product.

Posted via web from Poor Poor Thing

With this ring I thee hex

I would take this pincushion ring one step further and make the cushion in the shape of a tiny person, thus making it a Voodoo Ring. I would then market it to ladies unlucky in love and with certain hurt feelings to work out. It would be sized appropriately for the ring finger rather than the thumb. Perhaps if the wearer has a diamond engagement ring, the voodoo ring could be made to fit around it with the stone occupying an anatomical region of some importance, thus making the whole thing that much more pointed.

The novelty eyewear crisis of 2010

We have had a decade now of years with the digits 00 in the middle, providing a boon to manufacturers of novelty eyeglasses as they provide a convenient place to put the eye holes to peer through. No more! The next several decades all have a numeral in the tens digit shaped to stymie any attempts to see through it. What will a reveler be able to do in the way of ridiculously topical fake spectacles this time next year? In order of increasing outlandishness (which, in this context, is not construed as a bad thing):

• Go off-center. Make novelty eyeglasses which use the two zeroes for the eye holes, with the "1" falling roughly over the bridge of the nose. Perhaps one could tack an exclamation point on the end to balance out the "2" on the other end.
• Cyclopeanism. Maybe one could concoct a novelty monocle using just one of the zeroes.
• Classical antiquity. The Roman numerals "MMX" are even less hole-y than the conventional ones, but their angularity is always nice looking. Maybe they can sit up atop the top of the frame, looking like a set of spiky glittery eyebrows. Or if you stack them vertically, the "X" could work well as the nosepiece in a futuristic design.
• Throw technology at the problem. Forget about making actual physical numerals altogether and mount a scrolling LED marquee atop a sturdy set of specs. It could be pricey, but it is to be hoped that we shall all have pockets stuffed with cash by that time anyway.

I pose this question now so that designers can have a good twelve months to look at the looming crisis and implement the best solution (possible with Federal funding), assuring that confidence will not be shaken among the fashionable/silly New Year's reveler segment of our citizenry, both human and other.

Update: Various stratagems came to the rescue.

Wrist reactor

I'll be very disappointed if the PU on this item does not stand for Plutonium.

And I think all the apparel by this manufacturer should have at least a gram or two of deuterated or tritiated moisture, for truth in advertising.

As befits the name

I feel a little bad for people who stumble on this blog searching for things like sf fashion heavy water and heavy water clothing only to find a almost complete lack of deuterium or tritium oxide content. No doubt they leave in disgust, never to return again. So I have decided to put up one modest heavy water posting by way of appeasement.

You can buy jewelry that contains ordinary water (broken link) or holy water. From the right sources, it is possible to buy D₂O, at least in bulk, so by adapting the instructions on how to make a DNA necklace of your own, it should be possible to make a isotopically correct heavy water jewelry, the perfect gift for your own physics geek. Caution, deuterium oxide is reported to be poisonous in large quantities, so don't be swilling the stuff in mixed drinks, despite anything I may have written in the past. As for tritiated water, you will have to work a little harder because the world demand, the radioactivity, and the proliferation aspects limit worldwide shipments to only about 100 grams annually, so one would be hard-pressed to obtain enough T₂O to supply a good-sized jewelry operation. I am not sure it would be a good idea to encapsulate the stuff in a thin layer of glass, because it is something you probably do not want to ingest, any more than one would go around wearing mercury-filled jewelry

---

This may be the second scifaiku I ever wrote, back in 1998:

to impress
they spike cocktails with
heavy water

And so the circle is completed.

A hack for a Harry Harrison fan

A brass rat
+
Liquid stainless steel
=
A stainless steel rat

Edgy

Razor
Originally uploaded by Daffodilious.

Today, Otilius was posting about how he'd miss the razorwire if he ever left Brooklyn, and I commented about how nobody seems to have come up with the idea of razorwire jewelry. (Barbed wire jewelry is, by contrast, not hard to come by.) Hardcore urbanites could have a brooch, necklace, or bracelet with the pointy parts intact, while those who just like the look but do not want to risk the scars might want the edges filed down a bit. I think if one made a pair of dangling razorwire earrings, one would have to be careful not to poke one's own carotids inadvertently.

Fashion decrepitude

The New York Times had an article about fashion hearing aids yesterday, which led me to remark about why it took so long for somebody to come up with this idea. Eyeglasses (and reading glasses) have received the jewelry treatment for a long time now, so why not the aural analogue? One explanation is that now is the time when we self-absorbed Baby Boomers are catching up with mortality finally, so as we go gently into that good night it now starts to collide with the desire to look good while doing so.

So, with this in mind, allow me to propose a few more products that might find an eager market out there:

• Herman Miller streamlined Aeron walkers


• Hummer H-0.2 wheelchairs


• iPod white pill cases


• Hugo Boss orthopedic oxfords


• Motorola RAZR blood glucose monitors