Marital aids.
Why is it, when you get a 'toy' that has a wire connecting the object to the controller, does the wire only ever last 1 or 2 uses before somehow detaching itself from some inaccessible point thus rendering the toy more of an ornament. Its not like im particularly violent with them.
(Freakmandu, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 14:46, 6 replies)

Matthew Broderick
Matthew Broderick again
(Darth Foxtrot A one-man army dedicated to making fetch happen, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 14:40, Reply)

A litany of electronic shitery.
Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) - when Richer Sounds had them down from £499 to £150, I should have realised...but no, I bought the fucking thing - ostensibly for home studio (4 track) music mastering, because it's digital = no tape noise, right? Shame it was a lossy format, which meant if you dubbed a DCC sourced tape onto it you were sampling a lossy sample, and it sounded like it was gargling water. And it kept chewing tapes.

In-Car DVD player - from China. £200, and I watched maybe 20 minutes of DVD on it, ever, waiting for a mate to show up. The screen needed to be pulled out of the slot because the motor was bollocks, it wasn't bright enough, and it didn't have EQ for audio - no bass or treble controls even. And it lost all the settings every 10 minutes. Overwhelmingly inadequate.

Minidisc - it's the future of in car entertainment! No it isn't - next.

DAB car stereo - brilliant when it works...which is everywhere except within a three mile radius of home, and especially big dead zones on the M3. Arse.

and way back in time...the VHS dubbing kit. Which turned out to be a set of cables - "first, borrow your neighbours' VHS machine." Bastards.
( Fathter Puddytat Kill Kill dat widdle boid is mine on, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 14:35, 8 replies)

As if...
in anticipation of this QOTW I've just purchased a "Sound Asleep" pillow for my fella who likes to listen to music as he's drifting off.

Could be good, could be shite... There's only one way to find out...
( e.m.m.y. foxtrot uniform charlie kilo india tango, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 14:35, 16 replies)

A mandolin...
you know, one of those kitchen things where you slide food across a sharp blade to cut it...
Bought one from a county show. It looked fucking fantastic, julienning, slicing, chipping like you wouldn't believe. It was razor sharp.
Well the one the bloke was demonstrating was. The one I paid £30 for you could ride bare-arsed to China on the blade and not cut yourself. The cunt won't even slice fucking cucumber.
( Sallyrsm, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 14:34, 3 replies)

Got an steam iron and ironing board as a wedding present. I’ve not used it once.
right fellas!
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Thu 29 Sep 2011, 14:25, 4 replies)

Condoms..
Yeah I know they stop AIDS and babies etc, but wearing one is like getting in the bath with yer socks on.
(frightfullybored, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 14:21, 26 replies)

Babyliss easy cut hair clipper
I had one of these until last night:

www.amazon.co.uk/BaByliss-Men-7435U-Easy-Clipper/dp/B002FGTIZU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1317301359&sr=8-2

It uses circular blades to give you a nice close trim....

Absolute bollocks. Unless you have a perfectly spherical head, it is impossible to get a "nice close trim" as it runs over the normal lumps and bumps of the skull leaving long bits and short bits. The perfect example of a product that is designed for form over function.

I actually stamped on it last night

Babyliss bastards
(penrose your dog's got tits, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 14:06, 7 replies)

TV antenna
Bought from a mail order catalogue back in the mid 90s when I was young and naïve.

It consisted of a wire where one end could be plugged into the TV. At the other end was a lump of plastic about the shape and size of present day Apple TVs. The claim was that it would offer excellent recption, like having a roof top antenna, but in your living room.

Alas, the reception was horrible and I soon harbored the nagging suspicion that the massive lump of plastic was just that, a lump of plastic encapsulating a wire. For some reason they had not designed any way to open the lump using a screwdriver so I would instead assault said lump with various tools. Eventually I gave up and threw it away.
(spinoza, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 14:06, 1 reply)

Titan Peeler
Long time lurker, first time poster. During a solo night in of wine drinking and channel surfing, I ended up watching one of Sky's 8000 shopping channels. In my stupor I became transfixed as a gruff, elderly Yorkshire man expertly demonstrated the myriad chopping, slicing, dicing and grating applications of the Titan Peeler. My excited drunken purchase ultimately resulted in pain and bloodshed as, within minutes of the damn thing arriving, I sliced off the tip of my index finger trying to use the 'mandolin' attachment to speed-shave a courgette.
(coyston_vasey definitely ain't the wack, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:56, 2 replies)

I'm not going to say 'pearoast', that's for cunts.
b3ta.com/questions/betamax/post958048
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:51, 11 replies)

minidisc player
pile of junk

and don't get me started on walkie talkies... (although awesome when you are 10)
( zulu eh?, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:50, 8 replies)

an electric toilet
do you see?
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:44, Reply)

Hot coffee
I have a gigantic coffee mug, which holds at least two normal-sized cups' worth. I like to drink my coffee slowly over the course of the morning, which unfortunately often results in it going cold. Since tepid coffee is the juice of Satan's socks, I ordered one of those heating elements that you plug into your USB port and dunk in your drink. It even clips handily onto the lip of the mug.

Unhandily, it doesn't heat your drink in the slightest. I'm convinced it actually leeches heat from the liquid in which it is immersed. Maybe I should get one of those old-fashioned kettle-elements-on-a-cord that people used to take on holiday with them in order to boil water in hotel rooms.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:40, 11 replies)

I had a keyboard that had a row of rubberised "internet" buttons on it,
one of them labelled "refresh" was directly above the F5 button.
( Undulating Tentacles of Love getting fun down to acceptable levels, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:31, 2 replies)

I bought a gadget...

That promised to alert me in advance of any impending QOTW, with a guarantee that I would get the first post.

fucksocks
(Mr Twisty Cheeky The worst kept secret in B3ta..., Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:29, 2 replies)

Cheap eBay PCs
My boss thought he was being really clever by buying these at 150GBP each, coming as they were with Windows XP Pro pre-installed.

The fact that all six of them froze, crashed and in one case blew up, and I then had to play find the fault for the next week and cannibalise the working parts to make a single working PC that wasn't very high spec and effecively cost 900GBP plus a bit more for some memory that wasn't made from margerine, not to mention a week of my wages? That seemed to pass him by.
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:26, Reply)

Stick-on speaker
"seriously loud" they said. It was basically a tiny amplifier with a small speaker attached to the flanged end of a sink plunger, you were supposed to attach it to any reverbrant surface (table, window, picture on wall, box) and it provided a room-filling wave of sound.

Aha! thought I! An end to amplifier carrying misery. Just turn up to the back room of the pub with the jam session, keyboard in one hand and this magical box in the other, and a fond farewell to cadging lifts.

It wasn't. It sounded like a small speaker left on a table. Never used it again.

Apologies for length, but it was flanged at the end and would stick to pretty much anything.
(nordelius, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:24, 4 replies)

A tenuous pearoast, you say? Oh alright, then:
My dad is a warchild, and thus resents having to replace absolutely anything.

He's a keen and celebrated scientist, and his office at the university when he was there was an original professor's combination of a desk surrounded by piles of books, batterered armchairs, and mechanical devices. Some of my first toys as a child were jigsaws for the undergraduates of the current working knowledge of DNA structures, and animal skulls, with which I'd play when he'd bring me into work with him. He made his coffee in a beaker on a tripod & gauze, over a bunsen burner on a blue flame. It took all of a minute and a half to make, as a result.

His current single bedroom flat is like a Heath Robinson cartoon designed by a graphophile: books line all the walls to the high ceilings, and everything nearly works. The cooker has a wedge with which to close the door, the fridge is leaning backwards slightly so that the door doesn't fly open when you open it, and the chest of drawers in the hallway fits so into the alcove so well it's supported by the skirting board.

The living room ceiling has an increasing amount of dents in it - he regularly drives to France to stock up on booze, and has a taste for champagne, and whenever he opens a bottle he likes to pop the cork with aplomb. Wherever the cork falls it stays, for another visitor to find, that he can regale them with the story of who that bottle was drunk with and what was discussed.

Without doubt my favourite mechanism is for the shower door, which requires the "magic paperclip" as the door does not quite fit flush to the bath. This is a clip bent in a manner just so, that, when hooked over there and then tucked into there, holds the door shut.

Gadjets? You can keep your gadjets - he makes his own.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:23, 1 reply)

An iMac
'Back in the day' I bought one as it was pretty, and was more expensive, so using male logic it must be better, than my HP PC.
I was wrong.
(robneymcplum spiced up his life on, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:18, 11 replies)

A Yakumo car stereo...
Great fun, as it was not so obviously broken that it was worth returning immediately. It just gradually became apparent that every single feature was subtly (or not-so-subtly) flawed. Some lowlights:

- It switched to absolute maximum volume occasionally. The only way to stop it was to turn it off unit as the volume control now did not work. This was actively dangerous, especially if it happened in heavy traffic.

- It often "forgot" it has a CD drive. The only way out of this was to do a complete reset, which removes all of your radio stations and EQ settings also. This happened approximately once every 10-15 minutes of playback.

- It does not remember position in a track if it is more than about 5 minutes into the track.

- When playing tracks in Ogg Vorbis format (like mp3 but not evil), the first and last second of the track is truncated. This a particular problem with audio books.

- Display backlight was at first infuriatingly bright, and then both bright and faulty. Flashes at irregular rate, which is distracting when driving at night.

It by this point being out of warranty, it went to a car boot sale and was sold for £5. I replaced it by one from LIDL, of all places, and that's been as good as gold.
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:14, Reply)

Aerobie
First try - lenth of the field, over the trees, into the woods, never seen again.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:14, 4 replies)

Mobile Phone
A few years ago I was discovering the joys of online shopping and as such spent much time on Ebay. I like a good deal so when I saw someone flogging a fairly decent looking LG phone for £20 I figured I'd look into it. The seller declared they had no charger for the phone, and any buyer had to pay for recorded deliver. I wasn't bothered so put in a bid and got the phone for £27ish.

A week passes and an a4 envelope arrives.... with a picture of the sodding phone.
(Cydonija well it sure as shit ain't sad, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:12, 1 reply)

Big Trak
It was fucking quicker to grow the apple from seed than it was to programme Big Trak to fetch it for me.

And then it couldn't get over the kitchen step anyway. My Mum got fed up with lifting it over, putting the apple in and then sending it back. I got fed up with going to rescue it when it came up two metres short of the door and turned left into the dog.

The cat seemed to like sleeping in the trailer though, so it wasn't a dead loss.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:05, 7 replies)

*something about a Simpsons-themed beer cooler*

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:01, Reply)

iphone

I bought an iphone to watch flash movies.
(BlueFlyer, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:00, Reply)

Matthew Broderick

( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 13:00, 1 reply)

bollocks
Answer in the reply.
( The Mock Turtle ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 12:55, 1 reply)

2nd

(Schumann makes awesome quiches., Thu 29 Sep 2011, 12:55, Reply)

1st
When the iPod came out I was keen on getting a MP3 player but because I'm so desperately twatish I decided that I didn't want to 'be a sheep' and get an iPod I would get something else.

So I bought the Sony one. It had exactly the same functionality as an iPod except it was
1 not as good
2 not as pretty
3 a fucking huge bag of shit that had been pissed on

It also came with 'Soundforge' a bundled software package that managed to actually be more cumbersome, & crapper than iTunes and full of more bugs than an aardvarks breakfast
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Thu 29 Sep 2011, 12:54, 12 replies)