J.F. Sargent
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Geek dads are a relatively recent development: 50 years ago, fathers didn't care about collecting comics or playing video games, they cared about buying the perfect cardigan and drinking highballs in the family station wagon. Now, there's a whole generation of grown-up nerds who finally have the money and the authority to build giant toys for themselves ... um, we mean their kids. Yep, the following geek wet dreams were tooootally made with children in mind.
When Stuart Burr, an auto mechanic from England, noticed that his little daughter Scarlett was starting to show an interest in cars, he decided to encourage that interest and made her a little car she could ride in. And then another. And then another. Long story short, by now Scarlett has her own fully functional Ferrari 250 GTO ... at age 7.
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Meanwhile, you can't get a loan for a Kia without two co-signers.
Now, the thing's totally safe -- Burr describes the car as "more show than go," so she's not going to be vaulting across highways and plucking Michelle Rodriguez out of midair yet. But look at it this way: This little girl's first car is a hot rod custom built by her dad. That's pretty cool now, but it's gonna be a bit of a letdown when she turns 16 and her first actual car is a shitty 2003 Hyundai.
What probably started with a father trying to convince his son that the games of the '80s were much radder than today's resulted in a five-year project to build a fully functional arcade in their basement. Now it's finished, and the thing is so realistic that we've spontaneously grown a mullet just looking at it.
mertzlufft
Your pants are now acid washed.
On one hand, that does look totally "bad" ("bad" meant "good" in that backward, God-forsaken era). On the other, there's a plasma TV/Xbox 360 right in the corner, so it's likely that most of these machines won't get much action, not to mention the fact that every piece of software down there could easily fit on your smartphone.
mertzlufft
It's powered by three graphing calculators.
Anyway, we can only hope that the father-son team took the time to cover each cabinet in Dr. Pepper, popcorn butter, and just a trace amount of cocaine, because otherwise the whole experience would just feel empty.
Laurent Aigon of France always wanted to be a pilot just slightly less than he wanted to not go to piloting school, so he split the difference: Instead of learning how to fly a plane, he built a completely authentic 737 cockpit simulator. Who has space for such a thing in their house? Not Laurent Aigon, so he just crammed it in his kid's room.
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When asked where his kid would leave his clothes, Aigon said, "What clothes?"
To be fair, it's an easy trade-off for the kid: He can't really get to his bed anymore (check out the tiny space between the chair and the bed), but that doesn't matter, because he sleeps in an airplane now. It's gonna be a little awkward once he starts bringing girls over and his make-out sessions get interrupted by his dad making whooshing noises with his mouth, though.
Chris Weir really likes Batman. While most fans are content with spending hours debating who would win in a fight with Iron Man on the Internet, Weir instead spent $150,000 turning his basement into a Batman museum -- including thousands of comics, posters, statues, and a Shakespeare bust. What does Shakespeare have to do with Batman, you ask? Not much, until you push the bust's head back and press a button ...
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No Turkish Batman VHS? This guy isn't a real collector.
... which opens a bookcase ...
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By the way, that clock is frozen at the second Batman's parents died, which isn't morbid at all.
... revealing a "Batcave" equipped with Christian Bale's Batman outfit from The Dark Knight, recliners, and a flat screen TV that he, his wife, and his kids use "on a nightly basis to enjoy [their] favorite Batman movies and television shows."
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They had a daughter who was given up for adoption when she suggested watching The Avengers.
Yeah, you read that right: On a nightly basis. Those kids probably have more Christopher Nolan dialogue memorized than the human mind was built to withstand. There's a fine line between "lovably nerdy dad" and "psychotic Batman cult," and by God, this dude's gonna find it.
J.F. Sargent will someday make a list like this for naming his first kid "Cherno Alpha." Follow him on Twitter and read his free science fiction story about space mechanics!
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