I got a bread maker for Christmas a few years ago.
I use it regularly.
(Kitty Fantastico "Dwarf, Anorexic and In a Fight ", Tue 4 Oct 2011, 9:16, Reply)

someone at work was giving away a breadmaker.
i took it off them and never used it. it went to the tip. TRUE STORY, MOTHERFUCKERS. YEAAAAH.
( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Tue 4 Oct 2011, 8:48, Reply)

Has anyone mentioned breadmakers yet?

( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Tue 4 Oct 2011, 8:45, Reply)

Breadmakers
Has anyone ever bought one and used it after that obsessive phase when you're baking every day, or does everyone put it away after a month, never to be used again like I did?
(ElGranto, Tue 4 Oct 2011, 2:14, 5 replies)

Purely for toffs
I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, which you might remember has suffered a few bad earthquakes in the last year. As a result, practically every chimney in the city has either come down or been torn down. Some industrious sort has begun marketing fake chimneys, which seem to be a plastic-ish shell painted to look like an old-fashioned red-brick-white-mortar job, apparently designed for those who can't live without the aesthetic value of an archaic chimney but aren't prepared to risk death from falling masonry.

Personally they look a bit crap to me, but I'm not middle class so what do I know?
(ElGranto, Tue 4 Oct 2011, 2:09, Reply)

Sony products
Every Sony product I have owned has failed almost immediately after the warranty ran out, it was like it was programmed in! Microchips set to burn out, one week after it is a year old. I bet they do it on purpose.

Examples as follows.

Portable Minidisk player. the chip that controls compression burned out five days after it was a year old. Repair was not possible. I had saved up for three months to buy said device.

Sony Midi Hifi. Lasted thirteen months. Amplifier circuit went tits up.

Sony separates Hifi. Mini Disk could play previous players disks. Unit died. Radio worked brilliantly, was unable to get the sound out through both speakers though. CD player would not play CDR CDs, even if burned from I-tunes, then died. Replaced by new Cd player which gets stuck if CD left in tray for more than thirty seconds after end of play, requires turning off and on again! Replaced by Multi disk player which jammed, causing damage to CD. Finally amplifier packed up.

Replaced by Technics amplifier, still working fine after five years of use, even with home cinema plugged into it. Only Sony piece I have left is the tape deck. This works, but I have not used tapes for years.

Sony phone. Select button failed. Phone replaced. Select button failed. Different model of phone. Failed after 18 months. Replaced with Samsung, failed when sat on! Oops... Replaced with Nokia, tying hard to keep this one safe, it has games on it... Woo
( Rev. Jayneflakes Buy my book, I need the cash for drugs and hookers, Tue 4 Oct 2011, 0:35, 9 replies)

I once bought this massive telly...
I mean MASSIVE, it had a THX sound system its' own curtains that opened when you turned it on, and these mad flip down seats! It was only £7.50 and totally rad to the power of sick. It even had space men on the cover! Only trouble was the fucker didn't change channel! I tried to ask the owner, (who to be perfectly honest was a bit of a dick for a 14 year old with a telly like this) if I could have my money back, and the drunken fuck was making himself some popcorn in a fish tank!!!! He was obviously on some MASSIVE drugs! Just serves him right. I ended up taking the telly home, now it doesnt work at all. What a rip off. Sorry for length, someone should report these c*nts to Trading Standards.
( skeltonator Needs some new daps., Tue 4 Oct 2011, 0:06, Reply)

Every single thing that ran on electricity that I have ever touched.
That is all.
(SonofRojBlake, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 23:28, 2 replies)

Old men and Yachts
I know of several that committed a rather large fortune to a boat that was too large to be fun and to small to be comfortable. One trip out past the breakwater and they are scared shitless but too vain to admit it. There they sit rotting away by the pier.
(the other guy not the one that gave you coochie warts, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 23:14, 2 replies)

Aaaah bra
I've bought about 3 AaaahBras and I haven't even got any tits.

Imagine the egg on my face when asking for a refund.
(Colonel Buff Getting ripped to the tits since, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 22:18, 11 replies)

Shoulder Massager
Talking of inventions. You know those catalogues you get through the post, mostly aimed at the older generation, often full of dubious labour saving devices/gadgets. You know, the type that would get laughed out of Dragon's Den in about a nano-second. Next time one plops on the mat, check out the Shoulder Massagers.

*taps side of nose*

Just sayin.
(Nitrous Nitrous, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 21:21, 2 replies)

USB Missile launcher
In the office war stakes, I found a trebuchet or onager to be most effective. Certainly more effective than a bloody missile launcher hooked to a USB port.
A missile launcher that drew too much current from the USB port.
The USB port on the motherboard, which fried the USB controller.
The concept is nice, but the execution was shoddy as a shoddy thing, wrapped in a blanket made of shoddy. It worked for half a dozen firings before the disappointed owner fired the missiles by hand using an elastic band. Actually, that was quite effective. Far more so than the pile of coelacanth droppings of a launcher.
( moonbadger Doesn't judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 20:50, 2 replies)

No me, but school friend
Back in 1969, a classmate by the name of Alan Clacker saw an advertisement for the "Magic Hypno Coin" on the inside back page of a Marvel or DC comic book - I'm sure you all remember those ads, filled with tat like "Sea Monkeys" and other great cons. He was so excited, going on for weeks that his hypno coin would soon be arriving, and how he would use it to hypnotize the rest of us into impersonating chickens, have one of us rush up to give Margaret Shields a big hug and kiss on the lips, and equally embarrassing acts.

Low and behold, the much anticipated day arrived. We all congregated in the library, and Alan pulled out the (sadly) bend piece of cardboard with some spiral black and white markings on it. He tried to hypnotize us - all to no avail. It was absolute crap - he was so disappointed.
(Maclir, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 19:38, Reply)

i LIKE EGGS

(PERSONALITY HORSE Graham Tapes - free download album - coming soon, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 19:17, 15 replies)

Bread maker...
A lot of people have complained about Bread Makers for whatever reason...so I thought I'd add another to the list.

I love making bread, but from scratch. I find it therapeutic to warm the water and/or milk up to the right temperature, combine it with the flour, salt, and oil/butter/lard, and kneed for a good 10 minutes. Then, leave it somewhere for an hour or two and do something else while it rises. Come back, knock it back, add some extra ingredients if desired, form a loaf or rolls, and leave somewhere to rise again for 30 minutes. Then pop in the oven, and bake. Bearing in mind you don't have to do anything while it rises or cooks, it takes the best part of 20 minutes of actual work. And of those 20 minutes, I can be completely switched off from work or troubles...just working some dough.

This is to say, I enjoy making bread.

So after a few years of experimentation, I got the technique nailed. I didn't need to measure anything; I could do it all by feel and intuition alone. It was about this time that my family, very generously, bought me a bread maker, on account of how much I like baking bread.

I literally used it once, then went back to making bread the normal way straight after. It took every bit of fun out of it, and genuinely wasn't much of a time saver. It's like giving Michelangelo an automatic ceiling painter...
( guffguff fuckes your gradeds balls!, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 18:11, 4 replies)

My mum used to buy useless gadgets
Including (but not restricted to):

The kebab maker : insert slices of vegetable and meat into a plastic tube then simply push a skewer through them! Differing from making a kebab by hand only in the additional expense and time spent washing it up after.

The device for holding a whole leg of ham for easy carving/slicing: a traditional item this, but of no real use unless you get through an awful lot of ham, say, if you own a butchery or delicatessen, which she didn't.

A vacuum packing machine: in the days before sous vide became trendy this meant we had the 'luxury' of vacuum sealed sandwiches at school. The fillings were still bloody awful (Shippams crab paste, cheese so mild it wouldn't offend the most fundamental of religions etc.) but boy were they fresh!

Devices for cleaning the outside of windows using sponges with powerful magnets in to match ones on the inside of the window: genius apart from the fact that it merely moved the dirt to a different part of the window as it had no squeegee function.

An aerial booster to pick up French TV transmissions: I imagine this was designed to encourage us kids to speak French but really, French TV is atrociously bad, except for Canal+ which of course was a subscription channel anyway and certainly would not have helped with my linguistic skills as the opportunities for using the phrases "My what a big tool you have!" and "Excuse me while I bend over" are fairly limited.
( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Mon 3 Oct 2011, 18:02, Reply)

Infomercial sucker.
I am a tad gullible when it comes to the highly polished, 30 minute advert that sells Wonder Product^tm. I need help.
I have a seven month old and need to start making sludge more frequently to feed him.
I have been drawn towards the MagicBullet. Please, somebody, talk me out of spending my hard earned cash on more tat.
( Holly Would long wheel based tranny, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 17:42, 12 replies)

Yoghurt maker
We've heard about bread makers and ice-cream makers, but surely these are nothing when compared to the yoghurt maker.

A device which you put special stuff into, along with your fruit or whatever, and which makes yoghurt overnight. Which begs the question, if I have to go and buy the special stuff, WHY DON'T I JUST BUY FRICKING YOGHURT?

It's now at the back of the cupboard, next to the pancake mix ("just add milk and eggs!")
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 17:06, 3 replies)

Hot wheels
They dont look like they do in the adverts

I dont have a desert sand valley to show them off in

They dont rapidly change colour in hot/cold water....slowly perhaps. But not a sudden change

They are made out of the thinnist plastic immagniable, meaning the weight of a toy car bends the road.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 16:39, 2 replies)

as an adult
anything that resembles a toy for adults...

toy helicopters
Dry Sand
Magic gloop (shatters when hit with a hammer, yet feels like blue tack)
C64 joystick (with all the games inside)

Basically anything that you find near the til at Next, or John Lewis.

Theyre really exciting on Xmas day. yet you find at the bottom of the wardrobe along with a lot of FCUK soap and xmas socks when you do a tidy up in October.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 16:26, Reply)

Commodore +4
I too wanted a Commodore 64 and ended up with one of these dog turds of computers. They have 64k of memory the salesman eagerly gushed to my Dad who had the same amount of computer savvy as Genghis Khan had of whale juggling in the outer Hebrides so that obviously meant they were the same computer. They were certainly around the same price.
I remember some of the games fondly such as icicle works and treasure Island and it DID play C16 games which were... well crap (mission mars was a particular none highlight).
Being vaguely aware as a little pieman that my computer was really not all that awesome compared to its better brother or even a ZX Spectrum i committed the cardinal sin of persuading a couple of friends to purchase one to share games along with the misery. This as you can imagine went down particularly badly when they discovered the awful truth.
Mine ended up gathering dust when the dedicated Commodore cassette player packed up
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 16:06, 3 replies)

Urban myths #147: My mate's friend's dad's uncle's friend's brother
My dad, being from The Dayes Of Yore^(TM) would regularly take his car to his trusted mechanic, who told him of a little old lady who had complained of her new car that it didn't start well if at all, and would he come out and look at it. It seemed fine on initial inspection, so he asked her to drive it for him, and when she'd got in, had said "One of the things I like about it is that it's got somewhere to hold your handbag", pulling out the choke.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 15:35, 6 replies)

The SNES 'Scope'
Surely the worst console peripheral ever devised. What genius at Nintendo decided that the perfect follow-up to the NES Zapper should be a clunky, shoulder-mounted drainpipe?
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 15:23, 5 replies)

Gadgets for crap.
We have a 15 month old sprog, who defiles anything up to 8 or 9 nappies a day.

We have special bags for stowing the used nappies. They are 'delicately perfumed'.

To be honest the smell of them before the nappy goes in is pretty vile. Now instead of the smell of shit, we get the smell of shit plus a rather overpowering bouquet of synthetic flowers.

Not unlike a Parisien taxi, in fact.
(username failed moderation, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 15:07, Reply)

Video Schmideo
Currently I work from home (saving much spondoolies) and so therefore have a work laptop and a home desktop PC. Few months ago, I wanted to get a KVM switch. So did so, hooked it all up and saw that the video resolution for my laptop was crap, desktop was fine. Anyway, returned the cable and was told it was something to do with signals and what not, so decided to get another one (about 60 quid!!) that had DVI connections on it.
Got it home, hooked up the desktop with one DVI, and then went to the laptop to connect the other. Mmmmmmmmm no DVI on the laptop.....DOH!
(McPhisto, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 14:40, 3 replies)

Voice operated bike intercom
To be fair, I only bought this because it was cheap at a car boot sale - and the fact that it was still in its original box should have been a clue. But I had visions of casually chatting with the GF as we cruised along, rather than the shouting matches and sign-language we were usually forced into.

So, you clip the earphones and mics into the helmets with velcro, connect them to the belt units, and away you go. But there's a subtle flaw in a system which switches to transmit via voice activation, when you're riding a noisy motorcycle and generating a lot of wind noise: the noise was enough to trip the transmit all the time. And if you turn the gain down, you end up having to shout to make them work, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Used once, dumped in drawer and forgotten.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 14:31, Reply)

x-ray specs
they didn't work :(
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 14:12, 5 replies)

Scented dog bags.
Got a pack of these as a joke christmas present. They're doo bags which smell. I guess it's supposed to mean that you can't smell the crap when you're looking for a bin...

Nope. You just end up with a bag that smells like floral crap. People must have thought I was feeding the dog pot pourri or something. Also, he kinda liked the smell of them, so he kept trying to lick the damn things!
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 13:39, Reply)

Sandwich maker...
Bought for £15 from T.J.Hughes, used quite a bit until the novelty wore off (this coincided with me being fed up of burning my mouth on jam hotter than the surface of the moon). Currently sits at the back of the cupboard near the oven (just in case anyone wants to break in and steal it from me). Probably won't use it again. Or throw it out...
( Ya What Skiddlyboop, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 13:24, 30 replies)

I bought a Rowing Machine / Bike
With all the intentions of wanting to looks like an adonis within 6 months. I had been told Rowing was the best excersise.

I collected it for £60 from some guy on Gumtree. I ended up using it twice, as I realised it knackered me out, plus it made ALOT of noise.

t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSWy5qabw0XdTD65JQ0anf62hOio8qVan1DrJYh97t0gqin24klcbcNyhc

BUT

It did became a wonderful clothes horse. Infact I often wonder why clothes horses arent shaped this way in general.

It had lots of hooks to hang coats and coat hangers, lots of surfaces to drape clothes over without them getting creased.

Any yet, after moving house and having to cart it round there too. (it weighed a ton) I still managed to sellit for £80 on Gumtree.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Mon 3 Oct 2011, 13:24, Reply)