Courtesy of Pixel This Via Etsy

Something has been bothering Techeye lately. Something new, anyway. All of the old stuff – cute animals, loud noises, soft noises, people who make animal noises (at any decibel-level), foam novelty items – these things continue to annoy us. But recently we’ve added something new to our list of “Things to Dip in Acid after the Revolution.”

The source of this ghastly new botheration? Techeye’s kitchen. For example, every time we drop some bacon into our toaster it emits noises eerily reminiscent of an angry Belgian. The refrigerator is leaking what might or might not be embalming fluid and a giant spider now rules the southeast corner of the room.

Worst of all, our dishwasher has somehow joined the Solidarity trade union. As a result, a heavily moustachioed chain-smoker named Zdziesława now spends eight hours a day in the kitchen, supervising its activities (minus three hours for lunch and two 40-minute rest breaks).

Courtesy of Kenwood

But the TTM021A overcomes its handicaps by offering such modern toasting solutions as a removable crumb tray, a warming rack and a peek & view function, so that you can inspect your bread “without stopping the toasting cycle.” Kenwood’s toaster costs zł.299 and has a two-year guarantee.

In addition, following a throaty request from Zdziesława, we now have to put up a clock in the kitchen. We’re free to choose the style, though, so we’ve settled on a “Clock made from a recycled Apple ibook G4 computer case” which we saw on online handcraft-goods bazaar Etsy.com.

The clock itself is fairly self-evident – much like a lady we briefly dated in Bangkok, its present form is a great improvement on the one it had at birth. And no, you can’t have it – Techeye bought the only one on Etsy, for $75. But its maker (Pixelthis) has a number of other geek-chic clocks for sale, made from old hard drives or magnetic tape reels. Both site and seller are worth a look-see for interesting gift ideas.