I love stumbling across good industrial design.  And when the industrial design involves a tool, it’s even better.  I follow several tool/gadget blogs and stumbled into this while reading one of my favorite tool blogs, Toolmonger.

It’s pretty amazing how much planning and effort goes into a little tool like this.  You may see a bucket of these tools for sale at the cash register in your local hardware store and never really pay much attention to it.  However, someone has put a lot of thought into this little gizmo.

If you like this sort of thing, you’ll probably enjoy these blogs I frequent about this sort of thing:

• Multi-Tool Museum
• MultiTool.org
• Toolmonger

ScrewPop keyring tool – (via Toolmonger and the Multi-Tool Museum)

Enjoy.

- Dave

If you’re wondering which side to butter…might I suggest The Dark Side.

(Sorry, the Star Wars puns are flying out of me tonight.)

Link (via Neatorama)

This classy nose-shaped shampoo & conditioner dispenser can be yours for a mere $18 bucks.

The idea of rubbing snot into your hair seems to be marketable product.

Who knew?

Product link (via boingboing)

- Dave

Friends south of the Mason-Dixon line will not truly understand the importance this wonderful device. However, all of my north eastern and mountain state pals will see just how awesome the Sno-Baller would be in a snowball fight.

I would venture a guess that three children with one Sno-Baller could easily defeat five children without one.

This winter gadget completely turns the tables on any snowball fight.

Is it fair? Who cares. It’s awesome.

- Dave

Link (via boing boing gadgets)

When nothing else seems to do the job, why not give this Hello Kitty Toilet Paper Dispenser a try?

The Hello Kitty toilet paper dispenser can be pre-program so that your exact favorite length of toilet paper will appear when pressing the button.

Hell yeah, that sounds fantastic to me! It’s a little pricey at $220 (24,000 yen), but well worth the convenience, I think.

I hope my family likes these. I think I’m giving these to everyone this year.

-Dave

Link (via Boing Boing Gadgets)

Link (via Treehugger)

Do people actually buy this stuff?

-Dave

Having come to the end of our current cell phone contract, Justine and I picked up a pair of Blackberry Curves to check our email, blog, take pictures, etc. My first impressions of the Blackberry Curve is that it does the following things very well: phone, email, mobile maps, calendar, tasks, contacts.

It does the following things very poorly: browsing the internet, mobile media (music, video, photos, etc)

I like the little navigation ball in the center of the phone. It took a little getting used to, but I like it a lot now. I ended up installing a 3rd party browser, Opera Mini, on the phone because the browser that comes standard is quite craptastic.  Theinstant messenger client is also craptastic.  I downloaded Ramble IM and Jive Talk.  I’m not sure which one I’ll keep, but so far, both are better than the one that comes standard with the phone.  The messaging isn’t quite as good as my old Treo.  I miss the conversation grouping the Treo used by default.

Speaking of the actual phone, the sounds quality is clear and the volume controls are easy to get to.

Overall I’d give it 7 0r 8 on a scale of 1 – 10.

- Dave

P.S. – I figured out quickly how to turn off the annoying chime and vibrate function when each email arrives.  Otherwise I would lose my mind.

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Now playing: Air – Electronic Performers
via FoxyTunes

Apple released a bunch of new iPods today.  They look pretty neat.  I wonder if the iPhone will lose any sales to the new “iPod Touch”?  They seem pretty similiar.  The iPod Classic (the name gives me flashbacks to Coke Classic) just got a huge bump in storage to 160GB and the iPod Nano is half the size and can now play video.

Oh, the shuffle’s got some new colors too.

- Dave

Link (via Technorati)

-Dave

Another part of me (the nerdy, gadget-loving part) wants one anyhow.

Will the iPhone revolutionize mobile communication as all of the commericals promise? Who knows. However, there are phones out today that can do all of the things the iPhone is rumored to do.

Will it be a status symbol, like iPods and Blackberrys and BMWs?

Most definitely.

-Dave

(UPDATE – my incorect spalling of the word “definately” has been corected above thanks to the dilligant eforts of my freind Tom.  This will make him cringe for sure.)