eMachineShop

Perhaps as the last refuge of the dot com bubble of the 1990s, you can still buy crazy stuff online. For example, there is eMachineShop, a site where you can download CAD drawing software, create any shape the software will allow you to doodle, and you an then have that piece fabricated and mailed to you.

This is going to hurt me. Possibly physically, and almost certainly in the pocketbook. Reason being? OK, you remember that scene in Dead Ringers where Jeremy Irons's character started to lose his mind and said "I need to create new gynecological tools to handle mutant female anatomy like Genevieve Bujold's astonishing triple-cervix." ? Well, I find myself saying similar things from time to time.

Oh, not about gynecology. About plumbing. Or sewing. And I have an apartment and desk full of gizmos and twists of wire that I have warped in an attempt to fashion my own rudimentary homebrew scrapers, probes, and davits. I am a holy terror unto wire shirt hangers, shoelaces, sculptor's gear, eyedroppers, and forceps.

And now, the next time I'm buried under a sink wondering what I can break in order to make something new, all I have to do is download this software and click on the fastest shipping option.

I predict I'll be broke in a year.