Hasta La Gadget!

As evil as Darth Vader was, he’s still one of the greatest characters ever on screen, and certainly worthy of a place in every geek’s home. If you like your coffee like your Dark Lords – black – have I got something for you.

The awesome Darth Vector Mug features a vectorized 3D line art version of Daddy Skywalker, printed onto the side of a bone china coffee cup. Actually, there’s nothing stopping you from drinking tea in it either – except maybe some force lightning. Only 100 of these limited-edition mugs are being made by artist London artist Kane Call, and each one even has a unique number emblazoned in the bottom of the cup.

They’re available over on Etsy for £12.50 ea (~$20 USD), but you’ll pay about the same to have them shipped unless you’re lucky enough to live in the U.K.

What’s not to love about birds? Many are beautiful to look at and even some of the tiny creatures flit around from flower-to-flower, pollinating the world and making it a prettier, greener place for all us humans to live in.

So why not lend a hand and provide them with some accommodations in exchange for their help in keeping our world a prettier place, as it should be? No worries if you’re not very handy with a hammer and therefore, find yourself unable to build your own birdhouse, because Klaas Kuiken’s ceramic birdhouse roof tiles are here!

They’re basically roof tiles with a small birdhouse built into the top of the tile itself. If you have a couple of shingles that are up for repair, then why not be a good neighbor to the birds in your neighborhood and replace them with these tiles instead?

Klaas first designed these quirky clay birdhouses in 2009, but now they’re finally available for purchase. You can check his site for ordering information, but you’d better hurry, because only 100 birdhouses have been produced so far.

[via Colossal]

Due to medical reasons, I’ve recently had to give up one of my favorite vices – caffeine – but I still like to drink the occasional cup of decaf and imagine that it’s the real thing. The next time I break my coffee mug, I know exactly which one I’m going to order.

This handmade, wheel-thrown ceramic mug is made from white stoneware clay, and is inspired by the classic 8-bit NES gamepad controller. It’s the perfect place for gamers to keep their joe in between rounds of Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. I just love the dimensional A/B buttons and D-Pad on the side of the mug. I think I’d be trying to push them whenever I picked it up to take a sip.

It was made by Danyelle Butler of ArtHaus Ceramics, with the design by her husband, Jared – a real family effort. If you want one, pop on over to Etsy now, where it can by yours for $24 (USD). I think Danyelle should make a whole series of mugs based on game controllers – though it might be hard to make one based on the Kinect.