Actually, why the hell are you even snowboarding on one of these things in the first place? The designers, students studying industrial design and visual communication (and bling) at the University of Art and Design Lausanne (ECAL), don't mention pricing on these one-of-a-kind snowboards, so you know what that means. Right, not good with numbers. But aside from that, these boards are inlaid with crystals, which means "expensive."

And lastly, if any one of you rides into town for Snowmodo on one of these things you should seriously take a hard, serious look into kicking your own ass. [Nideker via Born Rich]

Offered through Goldgenie (read: not Apple), Elton's personalized iPod nanos complete with his Rocket Man: The Definitive Hits CD pre-installed can be yours for $565 (8GB) or $640 (16GB). We realize that sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that 12.5% of each purchase goes back to the the Elton John AIDS Foundation—or $45 (8GB) and $51 (16GB). Only 100 of each color will be puked on with a mixture of crystals and adhesive.

Like most of the reasonable public, I'd pay 50 or so bucks not to carry one of these iPods, so maybe I should just mail in my check and have it done with. [Goldgenie via ShinyShiny]

With Valentine's Day a little over a month away, we're all scratching our heads as to how to get our loved ones jewelry that we can actually play with. Luckily, the $33 USB Thumb Drive Bracelet showed up just in time to ship from overseas. Hiding a discreet 8GB of fold-out USB flash storage behind two dazzling lines of glued-on "decorative crystals," your girlfriend will just think you're cheap. But you'll know the truth.

(Well, you are cheap, and the bracelet has a hidden USB drive). [Brando]

And new Chemical Vapor Deposition method means they
Are also more defect free-ee.

OK...I'll stop and explain properly. A team at the Carnegie Institution have come up with a way of improving the artificial diamonds that are used in numerous applications, from surgical cutting edges to quantum computing. Artificial diamonds have been grown for ages, but can possess in-grown defects that have to be removed by annealing. To avoid "graphitising" and de-sparkling the diamonds, this high-temperature process has to be done at high pressures, which makes it expensive and limits diamond sizes.

The new process however uses chemical vapor deposition to grow the synthetic diamonds at low pressure (which results in "dirty" brown diamonds), and then the gems are annealed using a microwave plasma technique that heats them to around 2000K at pressures below atmospheric...turning them clear or pinky.

The result is rapidly-grown, low-defect, optical quality diamonds. Why should we care? Well for one thing one team member notes the technique may allow "kilocarat diamonds of high optical quality". Which is just cool. And for another: diamonds are used in many more applications than you may realize. [Physorg]

Like other faux-luxury items, these Crystal Roc items aren't cheap (well, they are cheap, just not inexpensive), with the Retro Mike, the microphone I gather, costing somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,770 when it comes before the end of the year. – Nicholas Deleon

Crystal Roc Home Page [Crystal Roc via Gadget Candy]

Kiss MP3 Player [MPNavi]

If Paris had to have an Xbox 360, she'd want this one. This Xbox 360 is covered in gorgeous—and garish—Swarovski crystals in white and blue to form a blue flame and radioactive symbol on the front. This bling is custom made, so don't go by your local K-Mart looking for the 360: Swarovski Edition. Not happening, girlie.

Swarovski Gallery [Crystal Icing]