The “wierd hunter” Jen DeLeo over at PC Mag has a roundup of some home technologies that I kind of wish I didn’t know existed. Something like an HGTV round-up gone horribly wrong, some of these gadgets, like the Automatic Hot Dog Roller (pictured above) are out and out atrocious and are just begging to be that Father’s Day gift that gets tossed in the storage room and is forgotten about until it’s time to regift it to another unsuspecting soul.

Also among the roundup are a cieling fan with retractable blades so it’s not so…noticable, a motorized spray bottle (because if there’s anything I know we’re all tired of it’s pulling the trigger on a spray bottle), and a flashing light that emulates a TV in your window to keep thieves away.

Yikes. Catch Jen’s entire roundup over at PC Mag. You’ll feel better about dropping the extra cash on something that’s worthwhile.

[ PC Mag :: The Stupidest Technologies for Your Home ]

I stumbled on an article at PC Mag a couple of days ago that’s incrredibly relevant as more and more plain old point-and-shoots are turning up the image quality while turning down the price. That’s not to say there isn’t a market for DSLRs, and it’s not to say most serious photographers would still choose one of them over a regular point-and-shoot, but that’s no reason to believe that you can’t get great image quality out of the point-and-shoot digital camera that fits in your pocket as opposed to the DSLR that’s a weight around your neck.

The always-wise Molly McLaughlin has an incredible roundup of point-and-shoots from the top of the market to the most entry level camera, and if you read closely you’ll pick up some tips on how to make the most of your digital camera at the same time.

[ PC Mag :: The ABCs of Point-and-Shoot Digital Cameras ]

The best part of having a community like the one the fine folks at Lifehacker have is that you can source the crowd for an incredible amount of information. When the Lifehacker editors put out the call for the best mice they’ve ever used, the readers (myself included) answered in droves.

A number of those mice that made the list are ones that I’ve owned or own now. I can lend my voice behind the Logitech G5, MX518, and the MX Revolution; I currently use the MX Revolution at work, and I’ve used the MX 518 and the G5 religiously for gaming. In fact, I used the G5 up until I received a review unit of the Razer Lachesis a few months ago, which I currently use, and while I love the Lachesis, it has its own quirks and issues and I certainly miss my G5. (as an aside, the only issue I had with my G5 is that I had the old version with only one thumb button – Logitech has since fixed this by adding a second thumb button, much like on the MX 518, and it’s making me very tempted to go back and get a new G5)

Some of the other suggestions are very useful as well even though I can’t attest to their value – I had a good friend who used a Wacom tablet like the one described in the article as her exclusive mousing surface for both everyday and design tasks, and I know some people who still love their trackballs, no matter what you tell them and no matter how much you insinuate that 1999 wants its mousing device back.

Head over to see Lifehacker’s reader’s suggestions and see if they jive with your own. What’s your favorite mouse ever? Let us know in our comments or contribute to the discussion at Lifehacker!

[ Lifehacker :: The Best Mouse You've Ever Had ]

Frequent readers will know that I’m a huge World of Warcraft fan, and I’m very much looking forward to the upcoming release of the new expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. That being said, I was immensely entertained when I found out that to date, the game has cost Blizzard Entertainment approximately $200 million to maintain, and while the costs are rising, that’s an impressively low number considering the game has over 10 million subscribers each paying over a dozen dollars per month to play.

Blizzard must be making a huge profit off of the game, and justtifiably so considering the amount of money they’ve been re-investing into new content and expansion packs. They’ve gone on record saying they’re looking to release an expansion of the game every year or thereabouts so the players don’t feel lost for new content to experience and lore to explore.

For more of my thoughts and writing on the topic of World of Warcraft, head over to the Azeroth Metblog, where I’m a contributor.

[ Yahoo! News: World of Warcraft Costs Just $200 Million ]

Can You Run It? will tell you if your computer is beefy enough to handle the games you’re thinking about playing. For example, if you’re curious why everyone seems to be matching their new gaming rigs up against Crysis as a standard of high-powered gaming and want to know whether your computer could cut the mustard and play it, Can You Run It? will tell you.

The site will download an applet that will scan your system and report back whether the service’s benchmarks think you can handle the game you’re interested in playing. If Crysis isn’t your forte, you can select from a world of games, from Age of Conan to Age of Empires, Guild Wars to Tomb Raider: Legend, The Sims to World of Warcraft. It’s the perfect tool to find out if you’re system is ready for the gaming you want to do with it.

[ Can You Run It? ]

A site that’s apparently been around for a while that I’ve just been turned onto in a big way is the fine Ikea Hacker. From showing me a great way to make a bolted-on-desk headphone stand using a couple dozen dollars in parts that you can easily order from Ikea online to ways to use some of Ikea’s kitchen implements as coat hangers, Ikea Hacker can show you how to take the goodies you might get from one happy afternoon shopping at Ikea and turn them into something completely different from their intended purpose.

It’s glorious crafty-hacking, and it’s great – you can even see where you might be able to take the ideas a step further and create your own materials out of the stuff you see used! Maybe you an use Ikea like a hardware store for raw materials, or even cut them out entirely? Good idea maybe, but I know I love a good trip to Ikea, so I’m not complaining.

[ Ikea Hacker ]

Odd stuff blog Oddee sports an article that may not be terribly tech related, but I definitely think it’s worth sharing: 10 Homes, like the above, that simply defy gravity!

Okay, to be serious, they don’t ACTUALLY defy gravity, but they certainly appear to, and trust me, looking at some of the photos, the force diagrams for each of these homes would be relatively complicated should I try to draw them out on a whiteboard. Anyway, check out the article, complete with pictures like the one above of Montreal’s Habitat 67, over at Oddee.

[ Oddee :: 10 Homes that Defy Gravity ]