Adidas cordless shoe/drill

[Robatoy]

Our kid is off to basketball camp soon, forcing my wife and I to shop around for a couple of pairs of sneakers for her, because: "you can't show up with last year's models"... even though they haven't been worn and are on sale. I avoid malls when possible but there I was, looking at floor-to-ceiling displays of hundreds of gym-shoes.

The thought struck me, these 'shoes' are looking very much like some of the tools at the local Borg. Multi-coloured, multi-durometer rubberized plastics, odd shapes, and the same smell. The glossy gel-pads on the top/sides/bottom/fronts/backs of a B&D sander must have come from the same designers as a lot of those sneakers. Is any of this crap actually functional? After my work-bench confession that I do, in fact, pet my Fein vacuum, I have spent some time paying extra attention to the 'Tool Aesthetic'. I have 5 quality routers now, why the urge to to buy a Porter Cable Model

100 Classic router? Cuz I love the 'look' of it, that's why. As a router, its performance and features are not state of the art.

A tool for reliability and helpful features..and a tool to polish and pet. I guess I am getting some insight why the idea of having a mistress as well as a wife is so popular in some countries.

An Adidas 28v cordless can't be far off. But I ask you: WTF???

[Swingman]

Around here something like that comes out of the kid's _fixed_ monthly budget. After the first one or two don't-need-but-gotta-have purchases busted her budget early on, it was amazing at how fast they were replaced with prudent sale purchases, using last year's models, and a screw you if you don't like it attitude toward any kind of peer pressure.

... turned her into a girl after my own heart. Amazing how that works.

[Leon]

I noticed Hitachi and B&D going for that tennis shoe look. Functional? Probably functionaly in selling the product to the beginner but probably not for any other reason.

[Robatoy]

I hear ya! Quality girls' basketball sneaks are hard to find. She ended up settling for function rather than looking like a Manilla Taxi. She knows when it is 'stupid money' for most of the 'fad' things. She shows remarkably maturity for an 11 year old.

[bridger]

My take is that the latest round or two of tool engineering has been about user comfort & ergonomics, weight reduction and yes, flash.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

My kids could have any sneakers they wanted. New a new pair? Here is $30. Oh, you want those? Just put YOUR money towards them you can have what you want.

Amazing how that works.

[Robatoy]

There was a run of cordless drills which had the battery packs inside the actual grip. They were thick, clumsy and uncomfortable. Now that they dangle most packs off the bottom of the grip, the comfort is there again with the added bonus of the battery pack acting as a counter weight, easing the torque twisting of the drill. Nice when using a cordless as a screwdriver. My 14.4 Milwaukee even lets me shift the balance front-to-back by flipping the pack. Nice touch.

But that paisley/mandala rubberized crap all over some of those tools is not conducive to comfort in my hands. I hate the feel of that rubber stuff. The leather grip on my Estwing hammer feels good to me. The identical hammer with rubber handle feels awful to me. I want another leather Estwing. A good hickory handle feels pretty good too.

Seems that the designers are catering more to the visual interface than the tactile one...like fishing lures. What a laugh those things can be.