Today’s 12-Volt Wet/Dry Vac with Car Adapter makes a great deal of the day and all, but does it really represent the most advanced car-cleaning technology available to us?  Don’t get me wrong, my car is going to be a lot less filthy once I plug that sucker into the cigarette lighter and go to town with the “crevice tool,” but handy as this vac is, I think humanity could be doing better.  After all, I don’t vacuum my home anymore; friendly disc-shaped robots handle that for me now.  So why haven’t they produced a Roomba for my car?

Now, regular readers of this blog know that I’m no stranger to taking our electrical engineers and, uh, roboticists to task for what I see as a critical failure to transform our world into a reality resembling “The Jetsons.”  But think about it this way:  We have robot vacuums.  We have car vacuums.  Why, then, do we not have robot car vacuums?  Are robots really too stupid to figure out how to use an upholstery brush?  Please!  Let’s give robots a little credit.  They already wash the outside of our cars at every corner gas station.  I think it’s time we turn ‘em loose on the interior, don’t you?

Thanks to today’s daily deal, you can now have the power of 2 million candles in the palm of your hand for the low, low price of only $23.99.  I think we can all agree that that’s way less than what 2 million candles would cost you, so you’re coming out way ahead on this deal.  Plus, where would you even put two million candles?  It’s not as if any fire marshal in the country is going to allow 2 million lit candles inside any building anywhere.  Outdoors, then?  How do you propose to keep them all lit?  Screw the candles.  I’m getting the cordless rechargeable spotlight instead!

I have to say, I’m having a great time thinking of all the fun things I’m going to do with a two-million-candle power spotlight once it finally arrives.  Maybe I’ll build a makeshift stage in the basement, aim the spotlight at it, and pretend I’m Ted Nugent ripping out a solo on tour with Damn Yankees.  Better yet, maybe I’ll just stop paying my light bill and just use the spotlight to light my home after dark!

Heck, maybe I’ll just bring it on by the local candle-maker’s shop just to show off how obsolete he’s become.  Then I’ll hand him a spotlight of his own, all wrapped up in holographic paper because we’re living in the future now.  Sure, he’s a complete stranger and everything, but for $23.99, I can afford to give a few away!

We've had a few daily deals here on BuyersHQ.com featuring Ed Hardy designs by Christian Audigier now, and it got me wondering... Who the hell is Ed Hardy, and why do so many remote control toys come with Ed Hardy decals?  Does Ed Hardy even drive a Lamborgini Murcielago, and if he does drive one, is it covered in decals of snakes and stuff?

Well, I did a little Googling, and here's what I found.  Ed Hardy is a tattoo artist based out of Laguna Beach, Calif.  (Yes, THAT Laguna Beach.)  Turns out he was a pupil of another famous tattoo artist back in the day, Sailor Jerry Collins.  Thanks to his association with Sailor Jerry, Ed was invited to Japan to study that country's style of tattooing under a man named Horihide, who I assume is famous in his own right over there.  In any case, Ed came back to the States and started to incorporate some of the Japanese aesthetic into his tattoo designs, and fans of tattooing were pretty impressed.

Good as old Ed was, though, he didn't really make a dent in the popular consciousness until his tattoo designs were optioned by clothing designer Christian Audigier.  Seems ol' Christian had enjoyed some success designing and marketing the Von Dutch line of apparel, and I guess he saw some appeal in Ed Hardy's work, because he started marketing the Ed Hardy line to celebrities and opeing up shops in trendy shopping districts.  Pretty soon, every trend-jocking musclehead in your hometown was rocking t-shirts with loud Ed Hardy prints of tigers, snakes, skulls, and other designs in your favorite bars.  Eventually, the line got so popular that they started making radio-controlled Lamborghinis that came with Ed Hardy decals.  That, my friends, is saturation!

Sadly, I couldn't find any info on what kind of car Ed himself drives around, but I'm pretty sure Mr. Audigier drives around an armored car to carry the huge bags of money he's made off of freaking t-shirts.  God bless the American dream!

When we think of laminators, we usually think of those giant machines in the teacher’s lounge at our elementary school that were used to preserve alphabet charts, kitten posters, and other paper decorations.  Well, either that or fake IDs.  Home laminators like our deal of the day, the GBC Creative 9 Laminator Kit, can be used for so much more, though!  That’s why I’ve taken the time to compile this list of five handy and useful laminating projects:

1.     Concert ticket collection:  If you’re like me, you probably have a bunch of old concert ticket stubs stashed in the top drawer of your dresser, just sitting there for no apparent reason.  That Bush tour in ’96 sure brings back a lot of memories.  By laminating my tickets, my kids will have the pleasure of seeing the proof that their old man caught the Spin Doctors in their prime!
2.    Create your own dry erase board:  Perfect for making little notes to yourself or your family!  Just laminate some pretty paper, attach a magnet to the back, and voila—instant dry erase board for the fridge.  There’s one in my kitchen right now—at the moment, it reads “Urologist appointment Thursday.”  Handy!
3.    Rain-proof newspaper:  Tired of your newspaper getting impossibly soggy while you walk in the rain?  The solution is simple:  Laminate it!  Thanks to its new clear plastic coating, you can stroll for hours in a torrential downpour without fear of your paper disintegrating. 
4.    Vice Presidential Photo Collection:  There are few things more precious to me than my collection of photos of Vice President Joe Biden.  Thanks to my trusty laminator, I’m content in the knowledge that these powerful pieces of history will be preserved for future generations, thousands of years after I’m gone. 
5.    Compact discs:  My old CD collection isn’t aging quite as well as I was told it would.  Even optical media can’t last forever when the stupid discs scratch so easily!  Solution:  Laminating all my CDs!  Hey, plastic is clear… lasers can beam right through it, right?  Don’t forget to poke a hole in the center.

As you can see, there are nearly limitless fun projects that you can complete using your new laminator!  Heck, I’m thinking of new ones all the time.  What are some of your favorite laminator projects?

Ok, so you recognize what a fantastic bargain today’s deal of the day is and you want to go about building your own external hard drive.  The only problem is, you have no idea how.  Guess what—it’s easy!  Now, I’m not going to say it’s so easy a caveman could do it—cavemen may well have lacked the necessary fine motor skills.  Luckily, 50,000 years worth of evolution has made you many times better at everything than some jerk wearing an antelope skin, so let’s get started!

After your Airlink101 HDD enclosure arrives, your first step is going to be getting your hands on a hard drive.  I recommend pulling one out of an old desktop PC, but you can purchase a new one if you’d prefer.  Today’s daily deal is made for 3.5 in. hard discs, which is the standard size for desktop PCs.  Be sure that the hard disc you select is SATA compatible—that means it uses a newer flat interface connector instead of the old-school 40-pin connectors.  If you aren’t sure what you’ve got, run a Google image search for “SATA” and see if your disc matches the picture.

Now you’re ready to built this sucker.  Open the Airlink101 enclosure, connect the drive to the internal interface and power-supply plugs, and secure it using the provided screws.  The enclosure's instructions should walk you through the job no problem. 

Once everything is screwed into place, plug in the enclosure’s power cord into a wall outlet and plug its USB cable into your computer.  Unless you’re running Windows 98 or something, your computer should automatically detect the new drive.  Not bad, right?  If you are running Windows 98, please get back inside your time machine and leave us future folks alone.

Now it’s time to try to access the external drive.  If you’ve repurposed an old hard disc, it may be good to go.  Just click over to My Computer and see if it works.  If you can’t access the drive or if you’re using a brand new hard disc, you’ll need to format it.  If you’re running Windows XP, open the Start button, right-click My Computer, and click on “Manage.” Under the Storage section, click Disk Management, then look to the right-hand pane for your new drive—it should be the one with the black bar next to it. Right-click that bar, and select New Partition. This will launch the New Partition wizard, which will take you through formatting and partitioning the new drive. The process is the same in Windows Vista if you choose Classic View within Control Panel; otherwise, access the utility via Control Panel > "Create and format hard disk partitions."

Formatting a hard disc drive takes a while, so feel free to read “War and Peace” or watch “The Big Lebowski” again while your computer works.

Once the formatting is complete, congrats, you’ve got a new external hard drive!  Wasn’t even that hard was it?  And hey, assuming you used an old hard disc, it only cost you $17.99.  That’s why BuyersHQ.com ain’t to be messed with!

Ladies and gentlemen, Detroit has failed us.  Well, not just Detroit—all the automakers from Mercedes-Benz to Hyundai have dropped the ball.  Seriously, folks, it’s 2010… I have three electrical gadgets in my pocket as we speak, yet not one single automaker has seen fit to include grounded electrical sockets in its cars.  Can anyone explain that to me?

Oh sure, we’ve got the cigarette lighters.  When was the last time you saw someone light up with one of those things, by the way?  But guess what—my laptop computer doesn’t have a cord that plugs into cigarette lighters, my electric razor doesn’t have a cord that plugs into cigarette lighters, and my George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine doesn’t have a cable that plugs into cigarette lighters!  If I want to use practically any electrical device in my truck or RV, I’m kind of out of luck, aren’t I?  All because the automakers can’t figure out how to stick a single grounded AC outlet into their vehicles!

Now naturally, all hope is not lost.  Thanks to our deal of the day today, I can use the RoadPro 300/600 Watt DC to AC Power Inverter to plug any electrical tool or appliance I may need into my car’s cigarette lighter.  It only costs $18.99, so it’s not like I’m breaking the bank for the privilege, either.  But you know what?  I shouldn’t NEED an inverter.  It’s 2010, for God’s sake.  If Detroit can’t build a flying car, they should at least be able to manage one with a power strip inside.    

I like the idea of my iPod having a little home of its own.  Today's deal of the day reminds me of the plush bed I bought for my dog, except it plays MP3s and doesn't smell awful.  Still, it's nice to be able to tuck my iPod in at night, content in the knowledge that's it's recharging while I sleep, relaxing me with its digital lullabies.  It makes my iPod seem almost like a pet.

You’d think I’d be a little uncomfortable with that notion.  After all, iPods are unfeeling machines who can’t show affection the way a dog or kitty could, and when they die, you can’t get a new one free at the pound.  I guess people are already treating their MP3 players like pets, though, what with buying them new clothes and ringtones and playing with them all the time to the detriment of their human relationships.  I’m sure Steve Jobs is working on a furry model as we speak.

I'll admit, I was extrememly skeptical about the Snuggie at first.  Buying anything off of TV is a great way to get ripped off, for one thing, and secondly... it's a freaking blanket with sleeves.  Kinda hard to look cool in a blanket with sleeves, don't you think?

But my girlfriend wanted one.  She BEGGED to get one.  So for Christmas, I relented.  And do you know what I discovered?  Turns out her Snuggie was the softest, warmest, most coziest sleeve-blanket ever invented.  And I wanted it for my own!  Oh, the screaming matches that ensued.  Our neighbors must think we're insane.  Heck, *I* think we're insane!  Two people in love should not be fighting over a fleecy backwards-robe blanket.  All I can say is, when your Snuggie arrives, you'll understand.

Friends, don't make the same mistake I did.  If you're buying this Snuggie as a gift, pick up one for yourself, too.  And if you're buying it for yourself, make sure to get one for the family member who's most capable of taking you out.  Snuggies are precious commodities that can sow discord between the best of friends, especially during Winter.  Stock up.  You'll thank me for my advice later.

As many of you are aware, we have had some issues with our site due to problems with our hosting company. We have finally completed the move and in doing so, we will have a more stable and functional site. We would like to thank all of our valuable customers for their patience while the transition took place.

Many have expressed dissapointment that they were unable to order the wireless headphones while our site was down, so we have extended the listing through midnight Saturday (Central Time) and will begin new listings at 12:01 am Sunday.

I happen to believe that headphones are one of the best things that ever happened to music.  When I was a kid, my parents weren’t super-cool with the idea of my listening to rock and roll (I don’t know what they’d have preferred… gospel?).  If I wanted to hear what was inside that Black Sabbath album I borrowed from my friend’s sister, I had to be covert about it.  There could be no blasting it on the stereo in my room.  Instead, I disappeared into the magical strains of “War Pigs” thanks to a trusty set of old-school headphones.  The cord was pretty short, so I couldn’t lie on my bed and trip out to Pink Floyd, but headphones enabled me to fall in love with heavy rock without fighting about it with my parents every day.

These days, headphones are even better.  Thanks to devices like today’s deal of the day, kids discovering the heavy stuff in the 21st century can plug their headphones into their computer and listen to Mastodon anywhere in the house without disturbing anyone.  I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied by earbuds; they lack the heft and fidelity needed to really zone out on King Crimson or Rush. 

It’s all about those cans, baby.