Hasta La Gadget!

I think we just made a huge discovery. Mars is made out of candy. It’s also apparently in a parallel universe where it is flat and in someone’s house, next to their stairs.

This geeky cake was made by Kevin Isacsson, head chef of the Athaneum, Caltech’s fancy private dining club in Pasadena. I guess that means you have to be a big deal to even lay eyes on this thing in person. Well, I don’t want to be a member of any place that wouldn’t have me. Please, please let me in! I promise not to touch it – especially not with my tongue!

This edible Mars Rover features pinwheel cookie wheels connected with black licorice, sugared LEGO “gears” and gumdrop and M&M “buttons.” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab even loaned Isacsson a model of Curiosity to help him get all of the details right. It took him about 10 days to finish. If you look closely, you’ll see one detail that the actual Curiosity hasn’t discovered yet – Martians.

[via That’s Nerdalicious]

I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something I loved from my childhood. Something that could never ever possibly destroy us…

This Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man is not here to demolish your city – in fact he’s here to help you save money, so you can start rebuilding it.

This 20-inch-tall (51cm) Stay-Puft piggy bank isn’t quite as tall as the one in Ghostbusters, but it is big enough to hold plenty of loose change and to stop around on your model railroad set. It’s actually not the first Stay-Puft bank ever made, but it’s substantially taller than the previous model, and when you’re dealing with marshmallow men, bigger is always better.

The Stay-Puft piggy bank is coming from Japan’s Blister Direct in May 2013, and will sell for ¥ 9,800 (~$119 USD). So start filling your current piggy bank now, so you can order this awesome new one to replace it with.

There has definitely been no shortage of vending machines as of late, especially of the strange variety. There was the vending machine that dished out dishes, the one that served up random reads, and the one that let you bypass unpleasant postal workers.

Now check out this vending machine that serves you gourmet food, a la carte!

These vending machines were installed by gourmet food supplier Beverly Hills Caviar in various malls in Los Angeles. Now shoppers who suddenly feel like getting a serving of caviar or escargot can just walk over to the machine and dine away.

When fully stocked, the vending machines carry about $50,000 worth of food products. You can expect to find over 24 varieties of caviar plus exotic food ingredients and dishes like black truffles, white truffle oil, blinis, and bottarga.

It wouldn’t seem appropriate to chow down on caviar using plastic spoons and forks from the food court, so the machine is also stocked with spoons and dishes crafted from mother of pearl.

[via Gizmag]

If you want to make an amazing gingerbread house for the holidays this year, forget about making one that you might find in the woods. Make one that you would normally find in space, like this Millennium Falcon gingerbread house.

This gingerbread Millennium Falcon was of the entries in Canada’s National Gingerbread Showcase 2012. This entry was named ‘Canoe Wars’ because it was made by the Canoe Brewpub. It features Han in a sled being pulled by a tauntaun, Chewbacca, and a bunch of candy canes. And the surface of Hoth appears to be made of shredded coconut.

I don’t know what they are drinking at that brewpub, but it is certainly working for them. They did an amazing job on this tasty treat. I’ll have whatever they are having.

[via That’s Nerdalicious]

Portal is one of the best puzzle-solving games of all time, IMHO. That said, I’ve played through every level of both Portal and Portal 2, and really am jonesing for some new Portal goodness. While it may be a while before Portal 3 gets made, I guess I’ll have to fill that empty place in my heart with some empty carbs. At least if they’re Portal cookies, that might cheer me up a little bit.

These fun cookie cutters were made by Athey Moravetz of WarpZone, and are designed to look like the guy on the warning posters in the games – you know, the little split-in-half dude. You can use them to serve up individual half-cookies, or if you’re feeling generous, you can stick two together using some blue and orange icing to reconstitute a full man-cookie.

If they weren’t cool enough already, they’re also made using 3D printing technology, for added geek cred. You can grab a pair over on Etsy for $5.50(USD).

The cake may have been a lie, but the cookies don’t have to be.