If you're thinking about giving out any strange, or just plain wacky items, then here are some gift ideas that may inspire you to give your friend something that is more original than a shirt or necktie. Some of these items are not yet available in the market, but do check them out so you'd at least get an idea out of them.

Shock-Your-Friend Gadgets

We all know how much some people like to borrow things, and sometimes we can't help but wonder if we can do something to correct them if they tend to borrow too often. A bunch of "Shock-Your-Friend" items from online retailer Deal Extreme may help, and it may hopefully prove to be effective.

Basically, this Shock-Your-Friend gadgets look like innocent every day items, but don't be fooled: they're really not what they seem. Two of these items, the Chewing Gum and the MP3 player actually emits mild electric shock when handled.

The shocker chewing gum looks almost like a pack of Wrigley's Doublemint, but upon closer inspection the packaging actually reads as "Shock: Pull Here." Of course, the intended victim may just go ahead and attempt to get a piece of gum before they get a chance to read it, and they'll be treated to a dose of mild electrical shock instead of the expected chewy, minty treat.

Another clever Shock-Your-Friend Gadget is the MP3 Player, which looks like a nicely-made clone of the Apple iPod. As expected, this doesn't play music like how MP3 players are supposed to but emits a nice, solid shock.

They serve as good party gadgets, but since we're talking about zapping you should be careful not to use these on people with heart ailments, or people who use pacemakers.


Guitar Hero Air Guitar

Those who master any of the Guitar Hero games certainly look cool while they're doing their virtual riffs, but this contraption, the Guitar Hero Air Guitar by Jada Toys, will make you look even more cooler (or just make you look...odd). The package includes a guitar pick, a Guitar Hero belt buckle, and a wearable amplifier that allows you to unleash rockin' tunes anytime, anywhere.

For instant jamming all you need to do is wear the belt buckle, and wave the Guitar Hero Air Guitar pick. The detector will sense a guitar chord being "played" and the wearable amplifier will instantly belt out tunes from Van Halen, Motorhead, Black Sabbath, and other bands.

What's good about this contraption is that the tempo of the tune being played depends on how fast or slow the air guitarist waves the pick.

Here are some of the songs included in Guitar Hero Air Guitar:

• Black Sabbath - Iron Man
  
• Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water
• Motorhead - Ace of Spades
  
• Van Halen - You Really Got Me
  
• Boston - More Than a Feeling
  
• And 5 original Guitar Hero Air Guitar freestyle riffs

ZUSE Toast Printer

Breakfast is oftentimes a bland affair with the usual glass of milk, bowl of cereal, and slices of toast. But not when you have the Inseq Design's ZUSE, a bread toaster that prints out 12 by 12 pixel designs on your daily breakfast toast, giving you your dose of happy every morning.

Each ZUSE toaster has a several images stored in its memory chip, and designs will be randomly toasted/printed on each slice of bread. It's a rather nice spin on the archaic dot matrix printers, and we're wondering why this idea was thought of only now.

It's not specified just how many pixelated images are stored in a ZUSE toaster, but we spy in one of the images that it can print a Space Invader on your bread. Yes, we're sold. Here's a video embed so you can see the ZUSE in action:

We're not sure whether the ZUSE toaster is already out in the market, or if/when it's going to be released if it isn't yet. We suggest keeping an eye out for it though, you don't always get to see household appliances that actually make day-to-day stuff a bit...happier.

Sweety

If you find yourself always stressed out and there's no one to talk to about it, or if you ran out of breakable things to help you cope with life's daily let downs then you may want to turn to Sweety, a cute, cuddly desktop shrink.

Sweety (designed by Haishu Zhang) actually listens as you let out your rants for the day, and analyzes your troubles in its sweet, colorful way by displaying graphic patterns depending on your problems.

If the problem proves to be too much and you need to get physical about it, you can feel free to squeeze or beat the stuffing (well, not really) out of Sweety. See, Sweety will do anything to help you ease the pain!

Once you've calmed down a bit this desktop shrink will let you play games, too. Yes, Sweety is a friend who's willing to listen to your every problem, even those sordid secrets gone awry that you couldn't talk about with just about anyone.

It's not known when this cute little friend will hit the market, but when or if it does, we're definitely going to get one for ourselves and our friends.



Mix Tape USB Stick

Several years ago the most popular method of showing someone that you care is by giving them a mixed tape, a cassette tape recording of all the songs that you'd like to dedicate to that one very special person.

Yes, its a tad too sappy, but that's the way things were done back then. It's a good thing that the guys from SUCK UK Studio is bringing this sentimental custom back, with a little twist in the form of the Mix Tape USB Stick.

The Mix Tape USB Stick is a USB flash drive that snugly fits into a retro cassette tape-style casing. It's fitted with all sorts of accoutrements that you'd expect from a blank cassette, such as cover and the cassette tape labels where you can doodle all sorts of cheesy notes and declarations of love (if applicable). Even the USB stick has a retro cassette-style label slapped on it, which is nice.

Available in 64MB, the Mix Tape USB Stick is pretty much one of the best ways to show someone just how much you care.


Buy: [ Shock-You-Friend Chewing Gum ]
Buy: [ Shock-Your-Friend MP3 Player ]
Buy: [ Guitar Hero Air Guitar ]
Buy: [ Mix Tape USB Stick ]