May 14 2008
Swiss Army Knife for the Office Warrior.
I still remember my first swiss army knife my older brother handed down to me as a kid. I was always jealous of this one guy in my fourth grade class because he had one, and I forever begged my mom to get one for me. Of course trying to convice your mom to buy her nine year old son a knife is pointless, anyways. I get that now. But boy, how I wanted one for myself. And who wouldn’t? A pocket knife alone carried an amount of coolness in itself, let alone the fact that you are also walking aorund with a pair of scissors, a corkscrew, and a plastic, reusable toothpick at your fingertips, just in case you needed any of those things. Talk about the boy scouts “being prepared”. Short of a nuclear holocoust, with one of these in your pocket you were ready to cut a piece of string, pick your teeth, and open a bottle of wine in the same motion. Everything a nine year old boy would need, right?
So leave it to the techies of today, bringing in something new into the world of old standards. How can one improve the already amazing swiss army knife, you might ask? Well, ThinkGeek is at it again. I know I knocked them a bit in my prior post for bringing useless retro-feel gadgets into today’s high tech market, but that’s what these guys get paid for. Besides, this is one gadget I think they did a pretty good job at.
Let’s take a look at the bells and whistles of this newly revamped knife, shall we? First, and the most useful addition to the Swiss Army Knife is the USB flash drive. At 1GB, you can transport all of your important documents. You also get instant protection carrying it around with a knife, so forget all of that encryption nonsense. Not a bad choice for the corckscrew replacement. It appears that the toothpick was replaced by a ball-point pen, which is probably a good move seeing as the germs on the toothpick were not so great to harvest in your pocket. Finally, a red laser pointer has been added to top off the new look for 2008. Overall, it looks like the carriers of this knife today will be armed and ready for accessing their computer files anywhere they go, while having the ability to give presenations and making notes on the go. Plus, all the great features that the knife and screwdriver/file (still included, thank God!) have to offer.
With the official manufacturer on board, you still also get the great quality you expect. My Swiss Army Knife has truly got me out of a few jams over the course of life. This one will surely come in handy for life as I know it today. Maybe I’ll get one and tourment the cat with the laser beam. Or I guess I could use it to cut things; after all, it is a knife….but where’s the fun in that?
