In my usual hunt for an interesting and unique bit of technology news to share with you, I must admit that I came up blank. Technology is always shifting and moving, but unfortunately, some days it does so like sand in the wind, and on others like a glacier at sea. This would be a glacier day.

In fact, the most interesting thing I stumbled across was actually… a new coffee mug.

This isn’t just any normal mug, though, but a mug that has an LED indicator on the side in the form of a battery charge icon. If you pour in a beverage above 96.8 Fahrenheit, about the temp of a typical cup of coffee, then the indicator fills up to the top as you pour, and then goes back down as you drink. The gag of course being that as your energy depletes, so does the mugs.

Some are already calling this the coolest nerd mug on the market. I honestly wasn’t going to dispute this opinion until I did some research and found that the field of novelty coffee mugs is surprisingly strong. In an effort to try to lend some finality to this debate then, I found some of the best novelty cups I could and measured them against the battery mug.

The Toilet Mug

Maybe the original “Outside the Box” mug. This is for the guy who may have left the frat house, but refuses to abandon the cheap laugh now that he has to be “grown up” or…pffft whatever.

It may be a classic gag, but once the novelty of letting coworkers believe that you are drinking from a toilet ends, so does the use of the cup. Since I put that timeframe at anywhere from an hour to a day depending on the size of your office, I give the battery mug the edge.

The Cookie Holder

From the “Why didn’t they think of this before?” field comes a cup with a small hollow enclave at the base that lets you store some of your favorite cookies or other small treats and make them instantly accessible for all your dipping needs.

It’s a great idea, but my only concern is what if you don’t have any cookies? That’s a situation that’s sad enough as is without having to be stuck with an obscure empty mug. Then of course you will be reminded throughout the day that you have no cookies by everyone who wonders what the deal with the mug is. So unless you’re prepared to eat cookies every day and risk diabetes just to make sense of your mug, the battery cup wins.

Mustache Mug

Speaking for those group of people that are unable to grow their own mustache (Don’t look at me!), I can’t help but admire the thought put into this mug. Now finally I can have my cup of coffee and not be mocked for my clean shaven look. With just a tip of the mug I now have a moustache…and it’s glorious.

But then of course I drop the mug down and reveal my shameful baby face to a suddenly disappointed audience. It’s a cool mug, but it’s also a hideous lie that somehow represents all of the goals I’ll never achieve. Maybe there is some comedic value to it if you actually have a moustache and can give people the old double take, but even that seems superfluous. Plus I can’t encourage products for people with a fine stache’ as they have enough going for them already. Battery mug wins.

On/Off Mug

This employs the same basic technology as the battery mug. As you pour your very hot or very cold beverage into the cup, it slowly fades from a dreary, black “off”, to an optimistic, white “on”.

While it’s basically the same idea as the battery mug, the subtle fading of the entire cup gives it more of an artistic feel with a more eye catching effect. And that’s why I hate it. After all, at a certain point this is a coffee cup, and you don’t need it taking the attention away from number one (which oddly enough those novelty #1 Dad, #1 Son, etc., don’t do). It’s like on “The Simpsons” how Homer found himself constantly upstaged by an inanimate carbon rod. You just don’t need that kind of extra competition at work. Battery mug wins.

Self Stirring Mug

It’s a mug… that stirs itself. Am I the only one that can hear the “2001: A Space Odyssey” theme with that description? This mug combines the practically of previous entries with the style of others. Yet it doesn’t define your image like the mustache mug, or threaten to take over a conversation like the on/off mug, but rather simply changes the game of coffee and mugs.

It’s a shame they don’t give out Nobel Prize awards for these kind of inventions, but that doesn’t matter. Besides, those things have been political ever since Kuhn, Butenandt, Domagk were denied nominations just because of WWII. Sure there are a few numerous complaints that this item doesn’t function over long periods of time, or at all, but that’s really irrelevant considering the potential unlimited joy this creation can provide.

WINNER: Self Stirring Mug