Drag that Speak-N-Spell out of storage, grab a soldering iron, and head to NYC in April! The Bent 2006 festival will showcase the fine art of circuit-bending, or “the creative short-circuiting of low voltage, battery-powered electronic audio devices such as guitar effects, children’s toys and small synthesizers to create new musical instruments and sound generators” [via Wikipedia]. There’ll be performances, installations, and hands-on workshops, so you can get a C-B guru to walk you through the process of getting that plastic kid’s piano you got at Target to sound like a psychadelic banshee in a food processor.Excellent circuit bent instruments are available from Pete Edwards at Casperelectronics (see photo) and Robotspeak in San Francisco.

My handwriting has been digitized for all the world to see… complete with international postmark! Pretty neat.[via JPOB]

We just added an entire spectrum of photovoltaic backpacks & messenger bags by Voltaic systems.
I’m thinking these would be *perfect* at something like Burning Man, Coachella, M3, Fuse-IN / Movement / DEMF, the Muteks, or any other outdoor festival where you need to keep your gadgets charged and there’s not an AC outlet in sight. And (at Burning Man, specifically), you could make all sorts of new friends with your excellent charging-powers as long as the sun’s out.

In honor of the Alcohol Appreciation Day, I would like to share my recipe for a nerdy drink:

NERD COCKTAIL
- 1 oz melon liqueur (Midori, DeKuyper etc)
- 1 oz Blue Curacao liqueur
- 1 oz lemonade or bar lemon mix

Fill a highball glass with ice cubes. Pour in the melon liqueur and Blue Curacao and then top it off with the lemonade. Garnish with a lemon flag–that’s a cherry skewered between two ends of a thinly-sliced lemon (like Lemonade-Coated Wild Cherry Nerds, get it?). Imbibe!