I love all of the weird and wonderful gadgets on offer at the  Think Geek website. Just the other day, for example, I ran across the "Thingamagoop" and "Thinkamakit"  Audio Synthesizers , which are really tempting me at the moment.

The Thingamagoop is a small, light-controlled synthesizer. You control the speed with which it flashes a LED. In turn, the LED is used to control a photocell that is used to control an oscillator. The end result is a cacophony of blips and bleeps and other strange sound effects. The Thingamagoop is prebuilt, which makes it rather expensive. By comparison, the Thinkamakit is a more sophisticated (yet much cheaper) unit that you have to assemble yourself.

As I say, I'm really tempted by these little scamps, especially the Thingamakit, but... it isn’t quite what I'm looking for. What I really I want is something that can generate these types of analog sound effects, but also something that can be supervised (controlled) digitally so that I can "direct" it with my PICAXE microcontroller ... do you have any ideas?

Meanwhile, I've been blundering my way around some mega-amazing websites. For example, my old chum Alan Winstanley pointed me at something called  Dreaming Architecture . This involves 3D images being projected onto a building in Hamburg, Germany. The result is absolutely incredible...

Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, I also ran across a video of a lady whose laugh sounds like a car horn . I know this sounds silly, but when you watch it you can’t help grinning. And if you really want to laugh (or cry), you should check out the  Don’t Judge My Hair site (these images have certainly made me feel much better about myself). Until next time, have a good one!