Off-Kilter

Bizarre Products Department: Hammacher Schlemmer, the 150-year-old Chicago catalog company that brought us such technological marvels as electric heated socks (for hunters, not grooms with cold feet) and ropeless jump ropes, now offers a TV remote control that’s almost as big as a dictionary. The King Kong channel flipper sells for $39.95. But we have one question: If your vision is so bad that you need a remote control with silver-dollar-sized numbers, don’t you have to sit within arm’s length of the TV set anyway?

More Weird Products: British priests who are worried about a recent series of attacks on clergymen can now wear a “personal security crucifix” around their necks. When tugged, the battery-powered pendant emits an ear-shattering alarm that can be heard more than 150 yards away, according to U.S. News & World Report. The engraved crucifix, which is available in sterling silver or gold plate, costs $300 to $400.

Drive-Thru Confessions?: For years, the Catholic Church has tried to make confession less intimidating. First, the name was changed, then comfy chairs were installed for face-to-face discussions with priests. Next came the combination confessional/photo booth, which allowed sinners to pose for instant photos with cardboard cutouts of their favorite saints. OK, we made up that last part, but there have been some odd attempts to “modernize” the sacrament of reconciliation.

The latest, according to the Internet news service https://www.tabloid.net, is a computer program to help Catholics check their “sin quota” in preparation for confession.

Non-Catholics also seem drawn to high-tech repentance. A few years ago, a Phoenix company charged people $9.95 to beam their confessions directly into outer space to be “intercepted by God.”

Joke Patrol: Comedy writer Steve Voldseth, commenting on the New York-based Egyptologist who claims to have discovered proof--3,300 years after the fact--that King Tut was murdered: “Wow, 3,300 years. I guess ‘Egyptologist’ is Egyptian for ‘Boulder, Colo., policeman.’ ”

Void Where Prohibited: By special dispensation, Off-Kilter will appear on the front page of Life & Style on Thursday to announce the results of our Gillette Mach3 razor contest.

Best Supermarket Tabloid Story: “Man Sells ‘Panhandler’ Kits That Guarantee Beggars $40,000 a Year!” (Weekly World News)

The $200 kits come with a cane and a crutch, three sets of clothes that are “proven by market research to elicit maximum sympathy,” crude signs with such pleas as “Will work for food” and three pages of instruction on how to look so pitiful that drivers will be moved to tears.

If that method seems distasteful, you could instead follow the example of 80-year-old Sy Bondy of Miami, who hopes to collect $1 million--a penny at a time. According to Wireless Flash News Service, Bondy is asking everyone he meets for a penny. In two months, he reportedly has accumulated $50,000 from passersby. At this rate, he would be a millionaire in August 2001. He promises to donate half of the 250 tons of pennies to charity.

*

Roy Rivenburg can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].