My suburban childhood was marked by the Friday nights my parents would splurge and take us to a certain unnamed pizza chain for pipin’ hot pie. Those short trips out of the house also meant I’d again get to kick my sister’s ass at the tabletop PacMan game they had in the waiting area of the parlor, confirming my status as her superior (hey, I was 7 years old). Good times! All that came flooding back in a Coke wash when I checked out Surface Tension’s slick and super-awesome Arcade Coffee Table, which comes pre-loaded with any of 29 classic games, like Bubble Bobble or Space Invader. And, being that it’s 2007, Surface Tension’s made it multi-functional, installing an AirPort feature for streaming music to your stereo plus adding Internet capability, so when conversations come to a lull with guests, you can power up Firefox and show ‘em your MySpace page or all those pervy shots from last week’s party.

If everyone gets one of these, I don’t think we’ll need coffee table books anymore. Of course, with the price hovering at a pricey $5,000, I might hang onto a couple of my Taschens…

, Furniture, home, retro, table, video games

You know how every time you stop by a friend’s place, they always seem to have some interesting, offbeat desktop image on their computer? You want to ask where the heck they found it, but you’re worried that you’ll look like a total fool for not already knowing about that one site that’s the talk of the web (of course, it’s the part of the web you don’t read) or not knowing about that hip new artist that everyone else is talking about. Here enters Desktoptopia, a Mac-only app (exclusivity rears its ugly head again) that aims to make you the one with the interesting, offbeat desktop image. They’ve amassed a library of high-end, hi-res desktops by artists and designers around the world, and they’ll zap them to your computer whenever you’re looking to upgrade. It looks like you can also set up an automated process to switch your desktop image whenever you’d like (and you can pause that process if you stumble on an image that really floats your boat). All of their wallpapers are exclusive to Desktoptopia, so you don’t have to worry about seeing it on every other computer in the office.

The service costs $20/single use license but – infomercial moment – if you act this week, you can enjoy all of the benefits of Desktoptopia at just half the cost! That’s right, simply enter the coupon code “luckyme” at checkout, and you’ll get access to a huge library of exclusive desktop images, all for…half cost! Don’t wait, act now!

, deals, Design