11 Useful Products Too Embarrassing to Actually Use (Part 2)

11 Subs

There is a fine line with sagging trousers. They must hang low enough to upset your parents and impress the other 14-year-olds, but not so low that they'll fall down and reveal the thing you're attempting to compensate for. Regular belts just don't do the trick; what you need is a way to keep your saggy pants up where you say they belong, not where The Man with his fascist "belts" and "waists" wants them.

Enter Subs:

Subs buckle around the waist (but, you know, in a cool way; not in some lame "belt" way), and are clipped to the top of the pants to hold them in place. The website calls them "suspenders," but that's not quite right, is it? We already have a name for a piece of fabric that straps about the waist with little dangly clips to hold up the leg coverings below.

We call that a garter belt, G-Munnee.

10 Solar Face Shield

If you've suffered from skin cancer, have especially sensitive skin or have merely sworn a blood vendetta against the upper-worlders and their precious sunlight, the Solar Face Shield might be for you. It provides full-face, 50+ UPF protection, as well as a convenient Moleman-snout-concealing faceplate. It comes in black polka dot (for the guys), pink polka dot (for the ladies) and or Morlock polka dot (for the Morlocks).

Protecting yourself against skin cancer is important, but there are myriad better ways to do it -- sunblocks, hats, umbrellas -- that don't involve the caustic mockery of strangers and the occasional panicked call to the CDC. In a surprisingly honest (if somewhat ill-advised) marketing move, the website itself even admits that when the company owner wore it in public, "... the visor made her the object of many jokes." She went on to say, however, that "it was fine," because "their day of reckoning will come," right before burrowing beneath the Earth's crust in a giant drill tank.

9 Keyboard Quiet Cover

Are you concerned that your big, meaty fingers pounding away at the keyboard might be disturbing others? Well, we think you've got bigger problems, ugly.

But if you're still self-conscious about your keyboard racket, the Keyboard Quiet Cover is a fabric pouch that slides over your apparently solid-steel-and-wind-chime keyboard to dampen the deafening cacophony. There's even a plastic window for hunt-and-peck typists to see their fingers, or just so you can pretend your mouse is radioactive and you're the only man who can stop it before meltdown.

It's not a bad idea, but they make soft-key keyboards for this very reason, and that's a lot less stupid-looking than the forearm hazmat suit. Look at that thing: It's like somebody put your hands in quarantine (and honestly, probably rightfully so; they know what you did with them).

8 Portable Infrared Sauna

We can see the point of a sauna at home: all that rejuvenating steam without the perpetually nude human disease bags that make their homes exclusively in gym saunas. But who has the money to build a whole other special-purpose room onto their home just so they can lightly poach themselves in peace? At $399, the Fir-Real Sauna is substantially cheaper ... because it's essentially a tarp draped over a lawn chair and a wet space heater.

This isn't a symptom of the exponentially increasing stupidity of our modern world, however -- these things have actually been around for years, as seen in this Elle ad from 1964.

Apparently, looking like Baron Harkonnen from that Dune movie is the kind of sexy that transcends generations.

7 Grab It Pack/Syte Shirt

We're all basically hauling around a tiny robot army: We've got our smartphones, laptops, e-readers, iPods and Roombas-with-knives-taped-to-them (for self-defense). Unless you want to start carrying a backpack just for cyberwarfare, it's kind of a pain to lug that stuff around. The Grab It Pack finally fixes all that. It lets you haul all your gadgets around in a set of custom-designed, handy pouches that -- bonus -- make you look like a Han Solo/Malcolm Reynolds cosplayer.

Surely there has to be a better way to transport our electronics without opening oneself up to endless wounded ranting from crazy-eyed Browncoats. And there is! This is the Syte shirt:

It lets you carry your iPad like a kangaroo with a tastefully minimalist joey. The plastic window is also "touch-through," in case you just can't get enough of sarcastic strangers poking you in the chest and asking if you get Reddit on your tits.

6 Nubrella

Umbrellas are a pain in the ass. Sure, they protect your head and shoulders from the rain, but the second the slightest breeze kicks up, you suddenly find yourself the unwitting mast for an urban sail that, best case scenario, inverts itself in your hands, and worst case scenario, flies from your grip, whips down the street and spears the Pope in the neck.

Besides, you have to dedicate a whole hand just to umbrella maintenance: Who has an entire appendage to spare these days, what with the Twitters and the Pinterests and all? Wouldn't it be great to have some kind of hands-free umbrella that could stand up to a strong wind? Good news: You can buy one today!

Enter the Nubrella, an umbrella that you strap on and wear around your head and shoulders, thus freeing your hands and completely protecting you from rain, wind, cold and the love and respect of your fellow man.

5 Trongs

Nothing better than a big ol' plate of saucy ribs, right, Stereotypical Southern Gentleman? (Our recent demographic survey revealed some surprising things.)

But what do you do if your phone rings, or you need to shake hands, or you require sudden access to your duel-slappin' glove? Sure, you could grab some napkins or a wet wipe, but by the time you desauce your fingers, that roguish dandy will have escaped entirely and you'll never get your satisfaction.

But now there's Trongs! Trongs (or, less embarrassingly, tri-tongs), fit over your index finger, middle finger and thumb and let you eat messy food while keeping those all-important trigger digits clean and ready. Why, it's almost worth the goggle-eyed stares and hushed whispers as all the other patrons gape at the man who brought bright red prosthetic chicken-claws to dinner. And what does that say about you as a person -- that you're so into ribs, you bring your own special utensils everywhere you go?

It says you're a fatty, is what it says.

And if that's true, and you are a bit more Tubbs than Crockett, there's something else you might like ...

4 BeltzBib

We get that there are times when you absolutely have to eat in the car, and you certainly don't want to spill food all over your clothes.

But most people's solution is something like "use a napkin" or "be more careful," not "engineer a special inverse food cape that Velcros to my seat belt." But that's why the inventor of the BeltzBib makes the big, grease-stained bucks, we guess.

The website tries to pass it off as something parents can use: "Let your kids eat without the worry of drips and spills." But the product photo proudly features a full-grown man attempting to shove an entire double cheeseburger through his dislocated jaw like a jungle snake.

And hey, look, it even matches your Trongs! For extra-special fun, try slowly turning to the horrified, staring children in the back of the minivan next to you with your food-claws and neck-apron, then hiss; they'll never forget the Pork Monster from Freeway 12.

3 Head Massager

We won't knock 'em -- head massages are the bomb. You ever tried one of those flexy little claw things they sell at Brookstone? Shit's like a thousand tiny geishas giving handjobs to each and every individual follicle.

But there's a point at which your desire for hairjobs tips from "harmless fetish" into "extra who gets thrown off the set of Tron," and that point is the HeadSpa Head Massager:

OK, so it looks like you're trying to augment your own latent psychic abilities -- but it's not like you're going to be wearing it out in public, right? Wait, what's that you say, helpful website? "Use it at your desk at work, or on your morning commute in traffic."

"Use it to psi-blast those men in white coats your boss is pointing your way -- they'll never take you alive!"

2 Rufus Roo

Tired of those rat bastard airlines nickel-and-diming you to death? Having trouble cramming all your crap into a carry-on small enough to avoid the baggage fee? Strike a blow with the Rufus Roo!

A blow to your own personal dignity, that is -- the airlines are probably cool with it; they get at least $25 worth of laughs at your expense.

The Rufus Roo is a ridiculously unsubtle hoarder-poncho with a billion pockets for you to stuff your dirty underwear and old cereal boxes into. Sure, you might get one over on Big Airplane by using one, but just take a look at your son's face:

You crossed a line when you made him your souvenir mule. He'll never love you again.

1 Hands-Free Headset

There are all sorts of reasons to want hands-free calling. Whether you're worried about cellphone radiation tainting your precious brainmeats or just trying to drive without murdering your fellow commuters, it's practically a necessity in our society. So what are you supposed to do? Buy one of the increasingly prevalent, incredibly cheap Bluetooth headsets? What are you, a RoboCop? You're sick of fancy gadgets! Doesn't anybody manufacture headbands with suction cups attached to them anymore?!

The GoJo Hands Free Headset has your back! When your phone rings, simply slap it onto the suction cup, pop the headband on and you're ready to go ... straight onto your jerky friend's Facebook wall with the caption "Hello, future? Yes, this is Ron."

But nobody's saying you have to strap your laptop to your face every time you make a Skype call. Most smartphones are tiny, and the end result is much less obtrusive: With a smaller cellphone stuck to your face, you only look like Magneto losing control of your powers.

Now for some items you definitely don't need put probably want in 7 Items You Won't Believe Are Actually Legal and The 5 Most Ridiculous SkyMall Products Money Can Buy.