As we approach the end of another busy week at Shiny Towers, we thought we'd earned ourselves a little back rub to soothe the muscles and ease the tension that only continuously blogging about gadgest and gizmos brings.

Here we take a look at the Home Creation's Electric Massage Chair, currently on a limited £149.99 offer from Aldi.

It boasts 6 different body points of massage, 10 levels of intensity, 10 massage modes and a heating function too, but is it really better than just sitting on the back of a bumpy bus ride?

Hit the video above to find out.

Tech Digest yesterday had a play around with the Philips Original Energy Light, and learnt a little about S.A.D (seasonal affective disorder, not to be confused with sexual anxiety disorder) in the process.

Blasting out 10,000 Lux of light intensity, it's designed to cheer up those have depression brought on by those dark winter months.

But did it make the Shiny team any happier? Check out the video review above for our thoughts.

Winter shadows loom, the nights are drawing in, Christmas is just around the corner and you've got a brand new copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops waiting to be fired up.

Beer in one hand, can of Pringles in the other, with your trusty control pad sitting in your lap, waiting to be caressed, there's only one thing missing from this geek idyll: the ultimate gaming chair!

What's the point in pulling off a killer headshot if you wake up the next day with a bad case dead-bum or spine-freeze? The solution to all your lethargy-induced woes? Tech Digest's run down of the top 10 gaming chairs!

Click below to get started.

God I want these. Being male, I'm not normally one for cushions on a sofa (they just get in the way of my reclining) but these have completely and utterly changed my mind.

They're 12" across - about the size of a pizza - and made of light grey and black felt. They're machine washable, and will cost you $60, plus $15 shipping. That's £50 or so, total. Only three sets left though, at the time of writing, so be quick!

Etsy (via Swiss-miss)

Whilst those of us in the tech world love everything shiny, perfect and aesthetically pleasing, there's something to be said about furnishings based on butt-ugly components from the recent past. Take these lamps handmade with galvanised iron, complete with authentic rust, dents from the tools used to create them and an angular retro charm.

Snakes don't have ears - they rely on vibrations to go about their snaky business, but if they did they'd surely appreciate these aesthetically pleasing "Serpent Speakers" by designer Ben Wahrich.

The debatably useful Microsoft Surface touch-sensitive computer table has finally hit the UK shores today. It's expected to cost a hefty £10,000 when anyone can work out where to actually buy it and I'll offer an even bigger prize when I'm wowed by a really important application of this gesture controlled display tech.

The real bonus of the machine is its ability to interact with objects placed on the surface and I may be hearing about hospitals using it for patients' medical records or hotels for self-check-in but no one seems to have, as yet, uncovered its real potential. And as far as Ballmer's claims of one in your home go, unconvinced doesn't even come close.

(via Reginald Hardware)

If the release of the mighty Street Fighter IV has taken over your brain then you're probably staring at this SNES sprite image of Ryu and Cammy through watery eyes and slavering chops, and the good news is that you can indeed buy them.

Yes, along with a host of Mario and Zelda characters and pretty much anything you ask for, Alborada's shop on Etsy will provide for the very reasonable price of 35 Yanky Dollar at the very most. They can stick them on fridge magnets, clothing or you can use them as bedroom door guardians. I guarantee no one will enter.

Etsy (via @jamesvdb)

I want one. Designer Mike Mak's Eyeclock tells the time with a pair of constantly rotating eyeballs. The left eye represents hours, and the right one the minutes. At 12 hours or 60 minutes, the eyeballs look up, at 6 hours or 30 minutes they look down, and so on.

It's just a concept design, sadly, but it's still awesome. It couldn't that hard to knock together yourself either, surely. Just take apart one of those clock kits and stick some big black circles to it, then mount it in a nice frame. I think I'll have a word with CraftCrafty.

Mike Mak (via Technabob)

Look, don't ask me what the practical applications of a light shaped like a sniper rifle is. I don't know. I don't think there is one, and, no, I don't think the bazooka, uzi or handgun make it any clearer. The fact is that these things just look good and, most of all, they're fun.

They're each made of lacquered metal and come in limited editions of eight which probably make what are already ludicrously expensive take a big jump and off into the realms of the absurd.

Got dark stairs? No. Nor do I. Nor does ANYONE. So "safety" can't be the real reason that these awesome stick-on lights were created. No, they were blatantly made because they'll make your stairs look like the spaceship in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

What would be even cooler is if you could rig these up with pressure pads so that they only turn on when you step on the relevant step, or perhaps turn off. You can bet your bottom dollar that someone's making a music video of that RIGHT NOW.

(via The Design Blog)

Who hasn't dreamt of temperature-sensitive glass brick tiles before? No, nor have I but it doesn't stop them looking great though.

The best thing about these ones is that you can actually buy them, as in now, here, for $15 a go - a lot less than I thought they'd be. The downside is that I can't think of many of uses for them, other than the excellent one over the jump...

Though given that it looks like they're made out of solid plastic, I suspect comfort's taking a back seat here. Would you buy these? No, not as a joke, for real? Let us know in the comments.

Collection LOUIS DIXMIL (via Technabob)

More geeky furniture: Be the hostess with the mostess with an airline food trolley | Atari 2600 lamp will light up your life

Frequent flyer? Want the airline experience in your home? Then you might fancy a "Vintage Airline Food Cart". It's got 'authentic dents and scratches', as well as a retractable serving tray, 14 tracks for drawers or shelves (which cost extra) and a magnetic latch closure. There's also pedal-operated wheel locks.

It measures 41" x 12" x 15" and costs a rather mighty $1450. Shipping to the UK will be even more. What would you do with it, though? Indulge your air hostess fantasies? Ideas in the comments.

(via @emimusicpubuk)

More furniture and furnishings: Nottage Design G1 - the transparent glass pool table in the boozer of your dreams | Lightbulb/speaker mashups suddenly all over the web

What do you get for the man who has everything? Why, the Nottage Design G1 glass top pool table, of course, to replace his other one which costs a little less than the AU $39,900 (£17,585) you'd have to pay for this.

Final year student at the University of South Australia, Craig Nottage, has shown us all that baize is for losers by fitting the top of the table with a patented resin material called Vitrik which allows the balls to travel across its service with the exact same amount of friction but with the added bonus of being entirely transparent. Awesome vid this way...

Okay, 'all over the web' is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but just the other day, we spotted the Soundbulb over at Yanko Design. Today, I spotted this concept Bulb-Sound-Speaker over at Crunchgear. Two lamp-speakers in a week? I'm calling that a trend. Before the end of the month, we'll be swimming in the things.

Silliness aside, it's quite a cool concept, and could prove useful in public places - restaurants, elevators, etc. Of the two, only the Soundbulb works as a light as well, but they both rely on Bluetooth to ferry the music around the place wirelessly. Would I use one of these? No. Do I think they'd sell? Most definitely.

(via Yanko Design and Crunchgear)

Related posts: Lightbulbs to replace Wi-Fi? | Greenpeace launches range of dimmable energy-efficient lightbulbs

The Atari 2600 defined a generation of videogames - from Pacman to Pitfall. From Atlantis to Adventure. And now you can remember it by lighting your room with a supersize joystick.

It's been created by Instructables member Seamster, and although I'm a little too young to have owned a 2600 myself, I can appreciate the lamp's best feature - the big red button will turn it on and off. Awe-inspiring. Now to craft a lampshade shaped liked a Pac-man ghost...

Giant Atari 2600 Joystick Lamp (via Kotaku)

Related posts: CES 2009: Thrustmaster T.16000M joystick | "Hang and Play" joystick coathooks

Here's how you can be even more ironic than your ironic mate who does nothing but ironically play ironic 1970s children's TV programme theme tunes all day - buy yourself a set of the deeply ironic posters based around 3.5" discs.

Ironically imagining what it would've been like had iTunes or Photoshop launched in the 1980s and been distributed on floppy disks, these ironic posters will ironically enhance any ironic modern living space. They also feature the right number of discs required to fit today's modern apps - iTunes 8.02 would've required 42 floppies, were it to have launched for the Amiga in 1986, for example.

I'm only bitter because I didn't have the idea first. Maker Mehmet Gozetlik is promising to have full-size prints available soon from his shop, for a relatively unreasonable $120. He'll then be retiring to a private island off the proceeds, as long as everyone doesn't just nick the idea and knock up their own.

(Via Behance)

Related posts: Ironic Battlestar Galactia poster | Ironic floppy disc gift tags

Remember the Star Trek command chair that Gary lusted over back in August? It's now shipping!

It can be yours for a paltry $2,717.01 (£1,880 or so) plus $400 (£280) of shipping and handling. Just in case we need to remind you, it's fully licensed, has a 'working swivel design', light-up controls and sound effects from the original TV series. Tribbles not included.

SkyMall (via CrunchGear)

Related posts: Star Trek Command Chair - Get your little clipboard and come sit on my lap, Uhura | Star Trek Classic Communicator

Eight dollars is a seriously small amount of money for something that can bad up rather dull light switches to such a high level as the Cubic Switchplate from Design Glut.

It does, of course, rather depend on you having exactly the right shape switches and not taking the idea yourself and doing it with some card for virtually nothing. Presumably these correspond to some kind of standardised fitting in the US. It would certainly be the case for the power socket version which probably looks best of all. Let me know if anyone manages to DIY some Brit-friendly ones.

Designglut (via Core77)

Related posts: Lightbulb-shaped, er, lightbulb | bedside lights for bookworms