Dancing Preteens, Teenage Mutant Ninja Dogs and A Machine That Literally Kicks You In The Ass: The Daily Nooner!
Failed Gadget Roundup "Brilliant" Gadget #4: User-Operated Amusement Apparatus For Kicking The User's Buttocks Why, you might ask, would someone want a device designed "for self-infliction of repetitive blows to the user's buttocks"? I have no idea, but if anyone ever decides they want one, WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY. "The benefit of the present invention," the patent explains, "is as an amusement apparatus for entertainment and comic relief whereby the plurality of rotating arms rotate when the user rotates the hand crank." Well that doesn't really explain much, does it? Is this for lazy people who want to beat their children? Is it an overly-complicated way to break in new jeans, or maybe some kind of weird S&M thing? Maybe it's for people who have a spare corner in their basement and think to themselves, "You know what would be great right there? An apparatus to inflict repetitive blow to my buttocks." The patent was issued September 25, 2001 - just two weeks after 9/11. The folks at the patent office must have still been pretty shaken up when they gave this the thumbs-up. There is no other explanation. The terrorists may have gotten the Twin Towers, but we got the User-Operated Amusement Apparatus For Kicking The User's Buttocks. I'm gonna have to call this one a draw.