iPod

Well, when it comes to cool stuff that is really unnecessary, the "i's" have it.  And with iPod, Apple has it in spades.  The iPod is available in several iterations which can easily be arranged in a Darwinesque mockup of the famous Evolution of Man diagram.  Interestingly, however, as the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle came after the original iPod, the device seems to be evolving in reverse.  The iPod has a certain degree of cool and more than a few uses.  However many bajillion people got suckered in - I mean, bought one - can't be wrong, right? 

The iPod Nano is a little less cool and less useful. The iPod Shuffle is really not very cool at all and no more useful than a generic $40 MP3 player.  The iPod has 80GB storage, plays music, videos, games, and has an entire web phenomenon named after it (the podcast, just in case you never knew what that meant).  It'll run ya about $250.  The iPod Nano was designed for those who were willing to give up a ton of functionality to save a hundred bucks.  In 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB varieties it only plays music and displays images and starts at about $150.  The iPod Shuffle is the red-headed stepchild of the bunch.  It only costs about $80, but boasts only 1GB storage and only plays music.  It's also always on "shuffle."  Lame.

Zune

Microsoft may have been first to the table when it comes to next-generation game consoles, but they slept for a few years while Apple let loose their iPod.  If they hadn't, maybe these entries would have come in reverse order.  Zune is Microsoft's answer to the iPod and, as such, it does pretty much everything the iPod can do, but offers only 30GB storage. There is one that comes in a nifty Halo design, however, since Microsoft likes to cash in on that Halo license as much as it can. 

Zune interfaces with Windows Media Center PCs rather well and has MS software backing it up.  Of course the Zune software is pretty much the same as Windows Media Player and still can't do as much as Winamp can, but that's all just ancillary.  Zune is cool, looks a little more sleek and hip than iPod, but just doesn't seem to be catching on.  If you don't need an iPod you don't need a Zune and if you already have an iPod you don't need a Zune.  You probably also don't want one - no one else seems to.

Xbox 360 Accessories

Some of the items available for use with the Xbox 360 are things that you just may actually need - if you own an Xbox 360, anyway.  Whether anyone needs an Xbox 360 is a separate debate (no one does... and everyone does...  this is a gaming site, after all), but if you've got one you may want or need a number of the add-ons that Microsoft will be more than happy to sell you.  The real issue with a lot of the available Xbox 360 stuff is not its usefulness or lack thereof, it's the price tag. 

While the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player is reasonably priced (recently dropped to $179 - compare that to the approximately $800 that players from companies like Toshiba are fetching), but a number of others are on the costly side.  $180 for a 120 GB hard drive?  You can get about 500 GB for less than that price when you're buying one for your PC.  Why not just get a good ol' Maxtor or Western Digital hard drive and hook that up to your 360?  Oh.  Yeah - you can't.  Thanks, Microsoft.  

Even the seemingly innocuously priced Xbox Live Vision Camera - a kind of web cam for the Xbox 360 - looks like a rip off when you realize that it's no more impressive than the most simplistic Logitech web cam and costs about twice as much (about $40).  Then there's the nifty wireless headset ($60 and completely unnecessary), the very cool keyboard attachment for the 360 controller (called the Xbox 360 Messenger kit - it's only $30.00 and pretty cool, but useless considering that you can connect a USB keyboard to the 360 instead) and a dozen or so other gizmos and you'll see that there's a lot of useless but kinda cool crap available for the Xbox 360.

R2-D2 Interactive Droid

My inner Star Wars geek shudders at including this little goodie on this list, but when I found it  (at the website of The Sharper Image - a bastion of seemingly cool crap), I knew I'd just have to.  I was nine years old when Star Wars Episode IV: A new Hope (of course we all just called it Star Wars) was released and I'd have given my frontal lobe to have my own fully functional Astromech droid. 

This little guy isn't quite that, but it is a robotic version of the real hero of the Star Wars saga that you can take home with you.  This Artoo will respond to thirty voice commands, has three functioning modes, and recognizes the names of Star Wars characters like Darth Vader and Princess Leia (the former makes him shake in fear while the latter prompts a wolf whistle). He's also got an extendable claw arm that will hold a drink.  It runs about $120 and is equal parts cool and useless.  And somehow, I still want one.