For those who had Lite Brite when they were kids know that the pegs were not actually tiny bulbs in and of themselves. I remember the commercial seemed to call it “magic”, but all it was a light bulb behind a plastic pegboard with black construction paper sandwiched in between.

This is different from Sketch Art. These are individual LEDs that will light up on their own. Of course, LEDs will always need power to light up, and the Sketch Art is powered by batteries, USB cable, car adapter, or AC wall adapter. I believe that all except the batteries come with the Sketch Art kit.

I’m a little “Sketchy” as far as what actually keeps the pegs on the board itself, but the kit comes with an LED Insertion Tool and LED Extraction Tool, so they must be in there by a force better than gravity. By the way, the kit comes with 100 3mm LEDs of assorted colors.

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Grown up on a diet of illusionists and magicians, that you want to emulate the careers of David Blaine and David Copperfield instead of taking the traditional engineer/doctor/lawyer route? The Freaky Body Illusions set ought to get you started on the right footing then, letting you perform seemingly “miracles” by stretching your ear to an inhuman length and levitating on the spot among others.

Perfect for scaring the local kids and giving elderly relatives a heart attack, the range of disgusting acts you can perform with this set is delightfully wide. All in all, you can take pleasure in making your audience (or just the cat if you can’t rustle one up) feel quite sick with these clever little tricks. You can snap bones in your neck, discover a disembodied hand, even tear someone else’s arm off – all with the help of the included instructional DVD. Of course, the Magic Circle might not approve of these secrets being divulged, but that won’t matter a jot when you’re merrily terrifying anyone watching you yank a blood-drenched and still-moving arm out of a box. Of course, the tricks are surprisingly simple and just require a little bit of acting (not method-acting) and rehearsal to make a convincing show. Included are all the props you could need for these illusions, such as a box (with one panel missing), a fake ear, a fake arm (with gore detail), a bone-click simulator, a fake hand and various other bits and pieces to create the impression that you’re doing yourself some irresponsible harm.

The Freaky Body Illusions will retail for £24.99 and ought to make for a really wacky gift set.

You got to admit that Ropid the robot looks like it should have been in the recently released Astro Boy movie. By the way, that movie is actually pretty good, just so you know.

Ropid is the creation of a Kyoto based group known as Robo Garage, and it has the ability to run and jump. By the way, the robot is programmed to jump with a vocal command. In other words, if you say “jump”, then the robot may not say “how high”, but it will jump as high as it can, which is 8 centimeters high.

That’s not bad considering Ropid measures 38 centimeters tall, and weighs 16 kilograms. The robot has 29 joints and four gyro-sensors, and is powered by a lithium-ion battery. By the way, the vocal commands will also run when you tell it to run, and stop when you say stop. Now if it could run and jump, perhaps it could beat the Olympic long jump record.

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Ah, Rubiks’ Cube, you just won’t die. Ever since your flash in the pan fad heyday in the early eighties, you still have a little glow left even today.

Perhaps this is why some designer made a Rubik’s Lamp. It is made of 26 smaller cube-like pieces that somehow fit together. The end result is some sort of multi-colored lighting experience that will only be un-trippy if you solve the puzzle.

The next Rubik’s Cube is tied into a franchise. I suppose that you could make a Rubik’s Cube out of anything with some stickers, and that is what was done with this special edition Transformers AllSpark.

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Looks like LEGO is the new gold standard – all you need to do to revive a video game or franchise would be to release it in the famous LEGO brick form, and you’re good to go. The Star Wars franchise isn’t new to the LEGO treatment, but this time round you can be a proud new owner of the LEGO Darth Vader TIE Fighter set that comes with a tiny minifig of the Dark Lord of the Sith himself, where he can plant his butt in the cockpit while attempting to get a lock on Luke Skywalker during an exciting reenactment of the Trench Run. $29.99 will net you 251 pieces, where even the Force won’t be able to help you put it together apart from your brains and a careful understanding of the chart.

I never had one of those slot car racers when I was a kid, and I don’t think I would buy one for my kids now.

These things always had track that would take up way too much real estate on the floor, and you’d have to take it apart to store it. Then pieces of track would get lost, and you’d have a shorter track, assuming you could get a complete track out of it.

However, the Race in a Case is a terrific alternative to traditional slot car racing, as it packs all the racetrack including the background into one case that folds up very neatly with a handle for carrying.

It also doesn’t require any electric power. Those controllers are hand-powered. This means the faster you crank, the faster the cars go.

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For those of you who are interested in that extra scare for this Halloween might want to invest in the i-Fly Vamp.

This is exactly what you think it is, a toy bat that can be remote-controlled. It is about 13 grams in weight and has a ten inch wingspan to fly like an ornithopter. The i-Fly Vamp comes with an extra pair of wings.

The Vamp has a lightweight rechargeable Lithium Polymer flight battery that is capable of ten minutes of flight time for every half hour’s worth of charging. The controller requires 6 AA batteries to operate.

It even has some eerie green LED eyes for a little extra shock value. Just imagine the trick or treaters coming to your house with this guy!

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I had a chance to try out the Leap Frog Leapster a while ago, and I finally got a chance to try out the Leapster2.

Those who might not be familiar with the Leapster should know it is a handheld gaming system with an educational focus, designed for kids ages 4-8. It would appear that very little has changed as far as the layout of the Leapster2 in comparison to the original Leapster.

What makes the Leapster2 different from the original is the ability to plug it in to the computer via USB. From there, a kid can download games, preview titles, and access the online rewards and bonus games that they have earned playing the cartridge games.

Another feature that is different that its predecessor is that it has space for an SD card. You can save programs like drawings or pictures to the cards, and thus print them out or view later, but the slot is in a very awkward place. The SD card slot is actually behind the battery pack, and removing the card after you are done is somewhat difficult.

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