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You've got your Super Mario Brothers sneakers just in time for your Super Mario wedding, but aren't you lacking in the Super Mario kitchen department?

Online retailer Prairie Oak Studios has come to your rescue. Run by Jim Van Winkle, the Iowa-based crafts producer turns out beautiful cutting boards with all manner of designs.

Prairie Oak's Super Mario end grain cutting board is about 11 by 13 inches and shows your favorite 8-bit character with various varieties of wood that look like pixels.

It's put together with FDA-approved adhesives, smoothed with a seven-step process, and rubbed down with beeswax and grapeseed oil. … Read more

The concept of an illuminated piece of wood might seem hard to visualize, but Japanese designer Ryosuke Fukusada created a surreal wooden light bulb that would make anyone do a double take.

Fukusada, who previously worked with Sharp, designed the "still under development" lamp with a "mix of modern design and traditional craft technique," as noted on his Web site. … Read more

What's your favorite doomsday scenario? Epidemic? Nuclear fallout? The Rapture redux? How about the Mayan apocalypse?

None of these will ruin your day if you live in Survival Condo, a converted nuclear ballistic missile silo in Kansas. With supplies of food, air, and water, you can wait out Armageddon underground.

For years, developer Larry Hall, a former software engineer, has been working on a 1960s-era Atlas F missile silo in north-central Kansas, turning it into luxury lockdown residences in preparation for inevitable end-times (see cleanup photos here). He says all units in the complex sold out this month, and there's even a waiting list. … Read more

The Buffalo AirStation WZR-D1800H is the first 802.11ac (aka 5G Wi-Fi) router on the market, and Buffalo's WLI-H4-D1300 wireless media bridge is the first 802.11ac client. Since those are currently the only two 5G Wi-Fi devices, it was impossible to get a complete picture of the 802.11ac standard itself by testing them.

However, I was able to quite easily pair them together and experience the 802.11ac connection. Unfortunately, while the connection was very fast, it wasn't close to what the 802.11ac standard has to offer.… Read more

Now that you can actually buy the first wireless networking products that use 802.11ac, Buffalo's router and media bridge, it's time you learned about the this new wireless standard. While the "ac" designation definitely does not mean "air conditioning," I can say for sure that 802.11ac is cool.

And by cool, I mean fast. That's the biggest difference about 802.11ac compared with previous wireless standards. But first let's see how similar it is.

802.11ac supplements 802.11n

802.11ac (aka 5G Wi-Fi) is the next step after 802.… Read more

Etsy seller JamesBit is encouraging video game fans to warm their cockles in front of a Zelda fireplace insert. This fire is old-school Zelda, full of blocky bits of red, orange, and white.

The fireplace art piece is acrylic on your choice of canvas or wood. Just remember that either of those materials is flammable. Be sure to remove your Zelda fire to a safe distance before lighting a real fire in your fireplace.

JamesBit suggests placing the painting in a non-working or decorative fireplace, but don't let that limit you. It could be just as geeky hanging on your wall or warming your unused Wii console. … Read more

We've all had moments when we heard a mysterious shuffling in the dark. Or we got news that the in-laws were showing up unannounced. Or the Roomba finally became sentient and set out for revenge. Those moments call for a panic button.

The Panic Button Light Switch Replacement Kit from ThinkGeek will at least make you feel a little better in those moments before your Roomba sucks you into its robotic rotors of oblivion. … Read more

How far can the term "cloud" be stretched? Here's the latest: the DIR-605L Cloud Router from D-Link.

In this case, "cloud" means that the router can be associated with a Mydlink account and hence be easily accessible via the Internet, either with a browser or a mobile app.… Read more

We all crave more interactive, slightly frightening robots, right? It's kinda thrilling. Thank the maker, then, that Sharp is coming out with pricey floor-cleaning droids that can jabber away in three languages.

The voice-controlled Cocorobo can kibitz in English, Chinese, and Japanese, even in the latter's Kansai dialect associated with the city of Osaka. It's the choice of standup comics, so this robot could come across as slightly funnier than, say, a HAL 9000.

Imagine Roomba replying to you with a bit of Texas slang. … Read more