Are you the type of person who starts to twitch when you notice that the towel in the bathroom is not straight on the rail, shoes are thrown higgledy piggledy under the stairs and those kitchen mats in the centre of the table have not been stacked symmetrically? Then you’re going to love The Brunch collection of kitchen product designs from Ivo Vos′s celebrating the mundane and the obsessive compulsive in one. Above is the Trebuchet Toaster, a novel take on the regular bread burner because this one launches the finished product to your plate. If it can get them across the room, we′ll invest. Apparently you can set the angle and the force of ejection so that it hits your plate from different distances. We love it already. There are lots more neurotic prototypes and photos after the jump.How about the Uniform Bread Slicer, which lets you set it to your preferred width and guarantees that each slice will be exactly the same. For those of you that cringe when people make your tea badly, there′s the special Milk and Sugar measurement device that guarantees not even those who hate you can get it wrong. Check out Placemat, which comes marked with the outlines of the plate and the exact placement and distances for the cutlery. We all know at least one person who would kill, or at least floss indefinitely, for some of these products. Here at Gizmodo UK HQ, our facial ticks have already kicked in big time.-Martin Lynch [Ivovos] design gadgets kitchen

‘Brits’ and ‘panic-buying′ go together like marmite and toast, though usually it’s the baked beans that are the first to go when we get wind of things like food shortages, petrol increases or a change in the weather. This time, rather bizarrely, it’s 100W light bulbs. The reason why is that these energy-sapping, brightness-of-a-small-star, mini-floodlights are being discontinued, at least in their original form. As part of a new European Union directive they are being replaced with the equivalent low-energy alternatives, which does seem like a sensible way to force people towards greener products. The EU is imposing an official ban on sales of 100W bulbs from September and once the word got out, supermarkets and DIY stores on the high street have been cleared of stock. You can still pick them up online, but even these are apparently flying off the virtual shelves. Exactly why people seem averse to replacing these with energy-savers we′re not sure, but if you’re sat bolt upright with a look of panic on your face right now, best shop around sharpish, then write in and let us know. - Paul Lester [Webuser] 100W light bulb energy

Fan of the old HomePlug adaptors as a solution for running a network across powerlines? They are certainly far more convenient than tripping people up with lengthy Ethernet cables but if your gadgets and starting to mount up and you need more than two they can become a bit cumbersome to manage. Luckily there’s a solution on the way from Solwise, who is offering a ‘three Ethernet port switch′ in the form of a mains adaptor plug that′ll support the 200Mbps bandwidth available over your powerlines. The stupidly-named PIGG΀ has six plug sockets to hook up multiple appliances and is filtered to prevent any faulty devices from affecting network performance. Just in case any vital data gets leaked anywhere unsavoury, the device also offers 128-bit AES encryption. It’s not available until the 16th of January, and will cost you £85.03, plus of course the price of any additional adaptors you decide to buy. - Paul Lester [Solwise] Homeplug network Ethernet

Tired of tasting chemicals in your water? Is your expensive mineral water habit under threat by the recession? Then watch out, the Canadians are coming. A bunch of eco-inventors at Element Four have created WaterMill, a product designed to make getting clean water from the air outside possible for everyone. Well, everyone with money, that is. Looking like a big smoke alarm, it sits outside and, powered by about the same amount of electricity as 3 light bulbs, it can make up to 12 litres of fresh, clean water a day. It works by sucking air through filters which remove dust and any other particles before cooling it to the below the point that dew forms. The condensed water is then cleaned up in a self-sterilisation chamber, complete with UV light, to kill-off any little nasties. It’s then filtered again and passed inside the house via a pipe to your fridge or tap. OK, 12 litres a day is hardly going take care of all your needs but the company hopes this will appeal to those with eco-friendly hearts who know that the bottled water industry costs tens of billions of pounds every year globally in plastic bottle creation and recycling. Eco-friendly it may be but recession-friendly it is not, as it will cost around £780 when it launches in the UK, US, Italy, Japan and Australia next Spring.-Martin Lynch [Element Four via Guardian] recycling environment gadget

If you’re wondering what to buy a tech-obsessed relative for Christmas then why not pick up a USB toaster so that they can prepare breakfast at their desk or via a notebook on the commute? Only one slice of bread can be done at a time and it′ll take between seven and nine minutes to toast it properly. It also supports Firewire 400 and 800 for Mac owners and you can remotely control toasting levels via the supplied software on your computer. It’s been named as Best Cooking Peripheral at the Golden Floppy awards, which is the gadget industries most prestigious cooking event. Seem like a genuinely useful invention to you? Of course it doesn’t, its ridiculous, and luckily nobody has really been paid to design and build such an absurd product (though we wouldn’t be that surprised if they had). The USB toaster is actually a joke present from US comedy website The Onion and in reality is an empty box that you can wrap up and put under the tree just to see the feigned delight on the face of the poor sap you bought it for. You still have to pay £5 for the privilege of owning an empty box, but if you’re that kind of prankster you might think it’s a good idea. - Paul Lester [RegHardware] USB toaster joke

Since we all love our gadgets and technology so much it’s a good idea to make sure they don′t run out of juice when we need them most. The latest in portable chargers is the PowerStar GO, which comes with a whole range of adaptors covering mobile phones, PDAs, iPods, portable games consoles, digital cameras and satnavs. It’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and holds enough power to fully charge a mobile phone five times, an iPod 15 times or a Nintendo DS up to three times. This is pretty impressive considering most rival devices are lucky to cover around half that, and if you only want to keep it for emergencies you can rest safe in the knowledge that it’ll retain its charge for up to a year. The PowerStar Go is available now for £50. Check out the official site below to make sure your particular make and model of gadget is covered. - Paul Lester [PowerStarGo] PowerStar battery charger

A good way to save money on gas and electric bills might be to give the consumer a bit more information and a bit more control, at least if you believe Ecobee, who will soon be releasing a WiFi thermostat designed to do just that. It’ll be a touchscreen device that can set a schedule to control the temperature at different times of the day, offer graphs and displays showing usage over time and will be able to send and receive alerts that you can pick up via a website from afar. This will also allow you to receive warnings if, for example, it suspects you left a window open (because it’s getting too cold) or, if you install an optional flood sensor, that your house is flooding. The EcoBee will connect to a thermostat through a regular HVAC interface and to the internet through your WiFi network to keep data synchronised. It’s not confirmed as a release for the UK yet but will retail for $385 plus installation (around another $100) in the US when it’s shipped in the first half of 2009. - Paul Lester [ArsTechinca] EcoBee wireless thermostat

If you haven’t seen the biOrb collection of fancy goldfish bowls then you′ve missed out on the Cadillac of modern aquariums. Its range is pretty extensive and has now been updated with the new biOrb Life Collection. The tanks take more of a rectangular approach to fish care and are available in three colours - chilli red, ice white or piano black. Each has a clear acrylic front and back and an advanced slimline intelligent LED light that illuminates the tank automatically and includes different shades to simulate a gradual sunrise, sunset and moonlight. The three sizes available are 30, 45 and 60 litre and these are available for £209, £239 and £269 respectively. You can check out the new range from the website link below. Scroll down to see some of the earlier models though as there are some pretty nice looking designs available. - Paul Lester [ReefOne] BiOrb fish aquarium

The Philips LivingColour range is a pretty popular way to jazz up a modern flat with funky lighting and has recently been upgraded (or should that be downgraded) with a ‘mini’ model that’s a bit more affordable. It’s basically a light that changes colour and as such can change the colour of any wall in the house to set a mood or spice things up a bit for parties.A colour wheel helps you switch between up to 256 variables which can also be cycled through automatically, though there is no remote control with this version so it’s more the sort of thing you’d set up and leave alone. You can connect up to six of these together for more widespread impact across large rooms and it’s available in either black or white depending what takes your fancy. You can pick one up now from Red5 for £85 and if you fancy seeing the thing in action check out the video link below. - Paul Lester [Red5] Philips LED livingcolour

Boxing champ turned cooking appliance king, George Foreman, thinks he can make deep fat fryers healthy. That’s like someone claiming they could make Simon Cowell less smug or Big Brother intelligent TV but that’s what he’s planning to do with his Lean Mean Fryer. Considering that it looks like a regular fryer and actually works like a regular fryer, how exactly does it ‘Knock out the fat? Technically speaking, it spins the shit out of the food before you get your greedy mitts on it. Like your washing machine, it has a Spin Cycle where, after regular deep fat frying, the basket is raised out of the oil and spun vigorously for up to 2 minutes. This, says George, removes up to 55% of the fat but, will probably still leave you more than enough for heart disease. For those of you who just can′t resist the finger-licking goodness of deep fried doughnuts and battered Mars bars, the Lean Mean Fryer will be out in the coming months and should add a year or two onto your Deep Fat life. Out now in the US for around £85-Martin Lynch [George Foreman] food cooking