In retrospect, this is most likely because it introduced most of the world to Pamela Anderson and Debbie Dunning (more than you can say for even “The Wire”), but it also had some memorable gags, a host of hilarious characters, and some truly standout episodes, including the infamous introduction of the man’s kitchen.

The first in a string of episodes where a common room is redesigned and “man-ified,” the man’s kitchen took the misogynist idea that the kitchen is only for women and presented one that was instead an almost cartoonish playground for the average man.

While absurd, with the gadget explosion that has occurred since, there are now enough devices available to truly craft a man’s kitchen. Some of these accessories are absurd and lavish, while others are common and accessible. But when combined, they create the ultimate real life man’s kitchen.

Grand Palais 180 Stove

Let’s start with the impossible shall we?

Your oven/stovetop is going to be the most important part of any kitchen, and if you really want something that will show off that idea, you need the king of all home ovens. Resembling a train car more than a stove, the Grand Palais wouldn’t be out of place in the home of an old world ruler or even steampunk baron. With its built in gas and electric ovens, as well as a variety of different stovetop grill and burner options, it also happens to work perfectly as the centerpiece of the man’s kitchen.

Sure they run around the $46,000 range depending on enhancements , but dammit we can do this thing cheap, or we can do it right.

Hot Dog Toaster

Of course it’s not all ovens worthy of the 1%, as some parts of the man’s kitchen are just down to earth essentials.

Since nothing is more essential than the need for a hotdog, instead of wasting your time with the stovetop or microwave methods, why not make the perfectly cooked hot dog and bun, as easy as you make a piece of toast? It’s possible with the pop-up hot dog toaster, which cooks hot dogs of your chosen consistency in mere minutes with the ease of the average toaster. It’s even got compartments enough for two hot dogs and buns and the design goes well with that $46,000 oven.

A steal at $19.99, this one even got the Barney Stinson seal of approval.

Crème Brule Torch

It’s the eternal question man has asked since the dawn of the caveman.

How can I use more fire doing this?

In the kitchen, the answer is simple thanks to the standard crème brule torch. Ideally used to brown that famous tricky desert, considering it’s nothing more than a small scale blow torch, feel free to use it to make anything where direct heat is required (like melting cheese over nachos) twice as bad ass, and ten times as manly.

Indoor Pressure Smoker

Without a proper outdoor set up, it’s not easy to make truly good meat, the most essential part of a man’s meal

You can ease the burden though with a good indoor pressure smoker like the one from Hammacher Schlemmer. Designed to impart that smoky flavor you want in your Bar-B-Que, the pressure smoker can hold up to four pounds of food (including sausage, ribs, chicken, and brisket) and cook it faster and better than any of the usual indoor methods. Just add a few wood chips, and you’ve got the perfect indoor BBQ substitute.

Also useful as the standard pressure cooker, this is one of the most versatile, and awesome, gadgets any man can have in their kitchen.

Butterball Deep Fryer

Of course even a pressure cooker can’t do everything, and for the things it can’t do, you need a deep fryer.

Why settle for some little tray device the kid at McDonalds uses when you can have a behemoth designed to soak and cook 14 pound turkeys in delicious oil. Supporting up to around 2 gallons of cooking oil, the Butterball laughs at your idea of modesty and instead challenges you to find something you can’t deep fry in its infinite depths. Surprisingly it’s also designed for efficiency as well as safety, and can be filled with water as well for healthier steaming and boiling options.

Though don’t feel bad if you use it to make enough deep fried Oreos to last you until the next state fair.

Meneghini La Cambusa Refrigerator

You may be wondering why we haven’t talked about the man’s refrigerator yet. Well mostly, I wanted everyone to get over the shock of that $46,000 stove first.

Because while an exact price is tricky, at around $20,000, this Italian import is going to make you reach deep. What you get though is an all wood beauty that would look like a particularly nice cupboard, were it not really an 8 foot long refrigerator with an 88 gallon fridge and pantry space compartment, to go along with its 22 gallon freezer. Much like the Grand Palais, it’s fully customizable and can be decked out with coffee maker, ice machine, steam oven, and more. Regardless of the options, it can still hold cases of your favorite beverages, mounds of food, and enough bottles of white wine to warrant an intervention.

Full size restaurants work off less. Hell for that matter, so does Sweedish royalty

Summit Kegerator

Sometimes even the world’s greatest fridge can’t fulfill all of your beverage needs, and for those instances, you need your own keg.

While there are actually several reasonable kegerator’s out there, for top of the line you want the ones from Summit. Of their available models, I like the built-in double tap unit, not just for it’s design superiority, but also because it allows you to keep your two favorite beers on hand and ready for draft pour perfection. Supporting two 5 gallon or 7.75 gallon kegs (or one 15.5 gallon), and doubling as a mini-fridge, it may just be the greatest gift a man could get, and around football season (or in combination with that smoker and deep fryer), is sure to become a monolith to all other men in the neighborhood.

Breakfast Sandwich Maker

Let’s not forget the importance of a good breakfast in designing your man’s kitchen, since it’s still the most important meal. For those mornings when you’re looking for a full breakfast, but don’t have time to eat it in anything other than sandwich form, you’ll be needing the breakfast sandwich maker from Hamilton Beach.

With its various compartments for your choice of bread, egg, meats, toppings, and cheeses, you simply load what you want into the machine, and in five minutes you have the perfectly cooked breakfast sandwich of your dreams ready to eat. Currently sold out, the breakfast sandwich maker usually runs you a modest $29.99 and takes the phrase “make me a sandwich” not as an insult, but a challenge.

Motor Engine Coffee and Expresso Maker

Of course what’s a breakfast sandwich without a little coffee to go with it? Nothing, that’s what.

Instead of getting it from some dorm room drip pot, or “oh-la-la” French machine, why not let the miracle of motor engine design pull double duty for your coffee dispenser as well. Coming in designs of V10 and V12 to match the number of spouts, little is known about the quality, functions, or even price of the machine. What is known is that it’s an engine that disperses coffee into oil filter mugs, which is really all you need.

There will only be a 500 model limited run of these coffee machines, and the website is down currently due to the interest, but if you’re constructing a true man’s kitchen, you can settle for nothing less.

Overly Manly Dinner Plates

When it’s all said and done you’ll need something to eat all of this food off of, so why settle for some floral plate number, or a generic selection from the Target aisle when you can have a plate worthy of the rest of your kitchen.

Designed after the manliest meme on the internet, these plates serve as a daily reminder of the general principles of manliness, and function as the perfect dish to eat your deep fried turkey breakfast sandwich with a toasted hot dog and cup of engine served coffee on the side.

Hell when you think about it, they may be the only plates that can support the weight of such a meal.

The post Building the Ultimate Man’s Kitchen appeared first on Gadget Teaser.

The Look

It’s thinner (the thinnest smartphone in the world according to Apple), it’s taller (a half an inch taller to be exact), it comes in black and white (though that doesn’t matter according to the late Michael Jackson), and of course it’s pretty sleek. Apple has had more than enough time in this business to know what works and what doesn’t and they aren’t messing with the formula now. The iPhone 5 looks like an iPhone, just better.

The Features

For the most part, all of the usual upgrades apply. The sound is better, the video is clearer, and everything is supposed to be faster. Of particular note, though, are the new 4G capabilities and Siri functions. The 4G is supposedly as quick as you need it to be, Siri is better than ever, and can perform an array of new tricks from pulling up apps on request, to providing sports scores. Also, the camera is supposed to work better in lowlight, and the battery life is cited as working up to 12-14 hours in some cases with normal usage, which would mean a great improvement over the previous models.  However, if you’re looking for the real new feature of the iPhone 5, you have to turn to the new iO6.

iO6

The biggest upgrade to i06 is the new Apple Maps features which opposes the popular Google Maps program. Reviews aren’t particularly flattering for the new app, as reviewers cite trouble using it practically in urban environments ,along with being generally behind Google Maps, but with things like Yelp integration, and Siri enabled GPS, a few updates could put the system on the right track. Otherwise, the new operating system is offering up increased Facebook functionality, Facetime compatibility, and a great all in one travelling app called Passbook that also works with some of your payment methods to help create a virtual wallet. Nice.

The Accessories

While it hasn’t taken long for some companies to jump on the new iPhone craze with cases and other accessories ready to go, the real flood of add-on’s probably won’t come for a couple of months. However, the biggest accessories belong to Apple themselves, who are rolling out new headphones and a new connector for the iPhone 5. The headphones feature an odd, but interesting, design and the early word is that they represent the best standard headphones Apple has released yet (though you are still better off going with high end models for true quality). The lightning connector is a different story, as early indications are not citing it as far superior to the supposedly “outdated style” of the classic connector. Even worse is if you want to use your new iPhone with any old iDevices you might have, it’s going to cost you $30 for an adapter. Ouch.

The Price

Base price for the iPhone models are $199 for a 16GB, $299 for a 32GB, and $399 for a 64 GB. Plus you must consider the data plans, which vary from provider. Verizon is the most expensive (but offers the best coverage) with their plans ranging from $80 a month for a 300MB plan, to $190 for the 20GB plan. AT&T offers less coverage (especially in major cities) but mostly cheaper plans as they go for $85.00 for the 1GB a month plan to a wallet humping $230 for 20 GB. Finally if you can deal with the far inferior 4G coverage they offer, Sprint is by far the cheapest for a plan as they range from $79.99 a month for unlimited text and data with 450 minutes to $109.99 for unlimited everything. Assuming you don’t require any add ons for the phone (yeah right), that’s about what you’re looking at.

You can find a good round up of the data plan information here.

The Verdict

All said and done how is the new iPhone 5? Well the reviews just started today, and while it’s hard to nail down a cheap general statement, for the most part the reviews are ranging from glowing to solid but unspectacular. It sounds like some Apple purists are calling this the best iPhone yet because of how all the new feature add up to make a better complete experience, but in general it’s hard to find anyone who isn’t calling it a good buy for anyone that really wants one, even if some features aren’t as great as others. For a few sample reviews, check out the following links:

New York Times

Cnet

The Guardian

The Parodies

Finally it wouldn’t be an Apple product without the detractors being as vocal as the supporters, and sure enough, Apple hater number one (Samsung) has already released a parody video mocking the cult of Apple to go along with their ad campaign:

Comedian John Elerick has released an appropriate, and slightly NSFW, parody of the iPhone 5 promo:

And of course, Ellen Degeneres has a thought on the new iPhone 5 as represented in these photos courtesy of The Chive:

The post Everything You Wanted to Know About the iPhone 5 But Were Too Afraid to Ask appeared first on Gadget Teaser.

For a company all about upselling (just try to leave an Apple Store without being sold a case for your iPhone) Apple themselves haven’t done a great job of providing an accessory to fix the iPad keyboard dilemma.

See as beautiful a device as the iPad is, its on screen keyboard doesn’t exactly lend itself to any use more urgent than internet browsing. This severely hinders many of the features the wonder tablet can offer. Apple, along with several other companies, offer Bluetooth keyboard accessories, but the results of trying to use one are often awkward and make enjoying using your iPad more burdensome than need be. Some companies like Belkin, Zagg, and Kensington have tried to get around this problem with keyboard/case hybrids that turns your iPad into something that closer resembles a laptop. Reactions and results are mixed on those hybrids, with many of them still coming off as awkward, causing severe limitations in mobility, or worse just plain cheap.

Where others have failed in resolving this problem, though, an unlikely savior, with an unlikely name for a savior, may have emerged from the funding fields of Kickstarter.

It’s called the CruxSKUNK (what?) and it may succeed where other, similar products have failed by using some of the same product synergy Apple is so fond of themselves. That’s because, when you put your iPad into the case, the entire unit is made to resemble a Macbook Air in weight, looks, and feel. The metamorphosis is genuinely impressive, as is the keyboard itself which features nice large type-face, full keyboard set-up and range, and a nicely thin base (6mm). Aesthetically, it is the most immediately pleasing case of its kind on the market.

But the CruxSKUNK isn’t trying to get by on its looks. Instead the real beauty of this case is its hinge that lets the user place their iPad in a variety of positions to suit their needs. The idea is to provide the perfect set up for watching movies, working on documents, or playing games all without having to remove the case. After seeing the video of the CruxSKUNK in action, its hard to believe that they haven’t achieved just that. If you do need to remove your iPad, however, the Crux also allows you to do so without much in the way of hindrance.

Currently the CruxSKUNK has already well exceeded its revamped $90,000 goal, with over $191,000 dollars earned and 20 days still left to go for funding.  The only available backing options left range from $155 for a CruxSKUNK and nice leather carrying sleeve, to $1500 plus for 10 cases and 10 sleeves. Obviously, that’s not cheap when compared to some of the competitors on the market. However, since the main complaint of those competitors is how cheap their actual products are, you ultimately have to ask yourself if your need for an iPad keyboard case is truly great enough to warrant going for the top of the line. If it is, even in its pre-production phase, the CruxSKUNk appears to be just that.

The post The CruxSKUNK Might Provide the Perfect iPad Keyboard appeared first on Gadget Teaser.

I’ve always been impressed with the quality of Joby products and the Gorilla Mobile is no exception. The joints hold up well, even under constant use (I used mine to entertain an 18-month old for a couple hours). Joby has also added extra functionality by including interchangeable mounts for different devices. There’s the standard camera mount – which is perfect for your point and shoot or a Flip video – an adhesive mount for anything without a camera bracket, and a suction cup which is for anything with a smooth surface (yeah, it’s pretty much for the iPhone, though your Blackberry might be alright there).

There’s really nothing bad to say about this little tripod. It’s functional, fits most any device, and can be tucked into a pocket. My only hang up was getting the suction cup to fit the phone, but a quick cleaning and little spit gave it a solid hold. My one piece of advice is to make sure the interchangeable lock is in place before setting your camera anywhere. If you don’t have the locking ring in place, any kind of tilt could send your camera/phone sliding to its death.

You can get the Gorilla Mobile direct from Joby for $30.

The post Accessory review: Joby Gorilla Mobile appeared first on Gadget Teaser.