Skymall

You really have no choice. Whenever you fly on an airplane, it is always in the seat pocket in front of you. You've read (well, looked) through the safety card that has illuminating ideas like "run away from fire" or "use the slide." The airline magazine crossword has already been done (like the previous person actually knew all of the answers without turning to page 114!). What else is left?

Skymall.

The magazine of luxurious excess. A few items that I noticed on my last flight, conveniently found on the interweb tubes as well:

Gravity Defyer Dress Shoes

Not only is this the first printed instance of the word "defyer" I've ever seen, it's also a ludicrous product. In my simpleton mind, Gravity Defyer means FLYING. What do these dress shoes do?

As your weight changes to the balls of your feet, the hidden shock absorber generated upward pressure pushing your body upward. This mechanism give you the feeling of jumping like a kangaroo (or some say feel like flying) each time you step with the Gravity Defyer Shoe.

Have a more Active Lifestyle

Appear 2" Taller

Ease Joint Pain and Pressure on Your Spine

Look like a Million Dollars

If you managed to get past the incorrect verb tense in the first sentence, you probably realized that this shoe doesn't really do anything. I have little dress shoe experience, but I don't know of many people who would look like a million dollars jumping around (or FLYING) like a kangaroo all day.

How about the Voice-Activated Grocery List Organizer? Tired of using a simple pen or pencil? Now you can watch your list flow out of this elegant Star Trek-prop without the hassle of basic writing skills! OK, so maybe this could be kind of cool. But for $149.99? That would buy you about 300 BIC pens and several trees to write lists on for the rest of your life. Does anyone actually sit there and go, "You know, I am so SICK of WRITING down these grocery lists! I just want to go and shop!" For me, the creation of the grocery list is a great way of procrastinating the actual dreadful task itself.

Or the Instant Screened-In Room! What better way to enjoy the outdoors than to go outside to go inside? Did the guy who invented this think, "You know, I really like being outside, but sometimes I just want to go inside." Now you can sit outside in your inside and look at your home and go, "Oh yeah! That place!"

The only thing left in the seat-pocket is a vomit bag.