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RSS feedsIt's 7am on Christmas morning. The kids have already eaten their first selection box. And either you had far too much mulled wine last night and you're still drunk, or that really is the 800-year-old hero of the Battle of Naboo initiating you into the mysteries of the Jedi: "He who drinks too much will have a head like the Death Star."
The electronic, talking Yoda (£34.97 from www.toysrus.co.uk) will be in the stocking of every Star Wars fan this Christmas. Star Wars fans are notoriously devotional, and the chance to listen to the croaky wisdom of the shrivelled Yoda will make their Christmas.
You have to pass through four levels to graduate as a Jedi Knight, which all things considered is an easier task than surviving kids and relatives on Christmas Day.
But with all the hi-tech gizmos and interactive gadgets on offer this Christmas, there will be plenty of distractions from the burnt turkey and Uncle Joe's singing toupee.
The truth is out there
You want to know who slurped all the bubbly on Christmas morning? Try the Truth Machine. At £59 from www.boystuff.co.uk it measures the frequency changes which apparently appear in the voice when a person is under stress. An 18-bar LCD display reacts when people lie.
The perennial Christmas warning that a pet isn't just for Christmas may soon become a thing of the past. If the kids are desperate for a dog and you don't fancy having to dodge the little presents left on the carpet by the adorable new addition, get them a robot dog.
The robot pooch has come down in price. Poo-Chi (£22.87 from www.toysrus.co.uk) is an all-barking, bone-eating and singing electronic version of man's best friend. Poo-chi has light, sound and touch sensors which interact with the environment. He can sit, stand and dance and, best of all, comes toilet-trained.
If Poo-Chi seems bit too much of a mongrel to enter into Crufts you could try Dog-E (£59.97 from toysrus.co.uk), who not only chomps his food but also apparently features a Room Guard function. Handy if you're threatened by a robot burglar.
Build your own pet
But if you are feeling adventurous you could probably just go and build your own pet with The Lego Mindstorms Robotic Discovery Set (£124.99 from toysrus.co.uk) robotics system.
Remember when Lego was just a bunch of bricks and interactive meant being able to choke on them? Now Lego allows you to design and program robots. Each Lego Mindstorms product has a microcomputer that you program on your PC and then download to the robot. It's got light and touch sensors and if you are really clever, program it to carve the turkey and slice the ham.
But if those love handles are getting a bit too luvvy and you're not sure about that extra slice of ham, try the food pilot (£99.98 from www.alt-gifts.com). It will weigh food and identify the fat, protein, calories and cholesterol of more than 400 different foods. It can interface with a PC.
And if you're not worried about the calories, why not chew the fat with a mate on your Nokia 7110 Wap phone. This tasty little number with a snap down flap will lighten your wallet at £199.99 with a Virgin OVP tariff from www.etccomms.co.uk. Or from the same place you can have an Orange Talkplan and pay nothing.
A whopper of a TV
If the boss has been flagrantly generous with the Christmas bonus, you might want to watch the Queen's speech on a Pioneer 50in Plasma screen TV. Thinner than a supermodel, for £9005.93 from www.qed-uk.com, the whole family can sit round and watch the misery unfold in the Queen Vic, and have a perfect view from any angle.
Or maybe the office party didn't go so well when you snogged the boss and he didn't appreciate the beard rash. In which case better go for the cheaper Bush ITV8402 internet TV (www.dixons.co.uk at £169).
What else could you plug into your Plasma screen TV other than the long-awaited PlayStation 2. For about £300 you get a faster processor and bigger memory than the original, so game play is quicker. And because you can play DVDs and CDs on it means that the Utopian home entertainment system has finally arrived.
Though most of the original PlayStation games can be used, there are a range of releases set to coincide with the launch such as Theme Park World, Fifa 2001 and Disney's Dinosaur.
However, unless you've pre-ordered one already, you'll either have to wait until the new year and console yourself with the fact you'll have heard all the cheats by the time you get to play.
DVD players
If you weren't smart enough to pre-order a PlayStation 2 the next best thing is really a DVD. With a DVD player/recorder being available within a few years make sure you buy cheap. The Samsung DVD-511 (£167.99 from www.unbeatable.co.uk) will also, with a few cables and a gizmo, allow you to play MP3.
And if you are thinking of MP3s for Christmas you could do worse than the Creative Jukebox digital audio player which, if you are worried about format obsolescence also plays Wav and WMA files.
It's not smallest or cheapest MP3 player available at around at £399, but has a 6Gb hard drive. That equals well over 100 albums, or two Marillion albums, a Fatboy Slim remix and Bohemian Rhapsody.
If think that's too bulky why not try having MP3 on your wrist. The Casio WMP1UV1UR Internet Hi-Fi watch (dixons.co.uk at £199.99) is the first watch that allows to you store and play digital music.
But the sexiest thing you can have in your hand this Christmas, other than George Clooney's stubbled chin, is the Visor handheld. Like a cross between a Palm PC and a iMac, modules start from £99 and are available direct from www.handspring.co.uk.
The basic Visor handheld is a great investment in organisation and will make sure your Christmas Day runs as smoothly as a bottle of baby oil on George's chest.
Power struggle
As far as mobile phones are concerned the biggest attraction this Christmas is not the phones themselves but the accessories. You know how the one time you really need your mobile is the moment when you realise there's no power left?
Log on to www.carphonewarehouse.com and buy a portable charger for £19.99. And for those of us sick of hearing mobiles ring like the Teletubbies playing Mozart, you can buy your own ringtones for £4.99 or £19.99 for five.
And when you get sick of their relentless tinny tunes you can throw your keyboard at the phone's owner. For £37.95 (www.iwantoneofthose.com) the waterproof, bendy portable Flexi Keyboard makes spilling coffee a pleasure.
It's Christmas evening and your boyfriend or girlfriend is asleep. You want to go for a spin in your new toy. Parked in the driveway is your shiny new L39 Albatross Russian Air Force Jet.
For about £150,000 (iwantoneofthose.com) it's faster than a reindeer and reaches 16,400 feet in less than five minutes. The mileage isn't great at around four miles a gallon, but you'll be first in town for the sales on Boxing Day.
See also:
Handheld PC maker Handspring, which designs devices that look and work like Palm Pilots, has launched its first colour-enabled machine. 16 Oct 2000All Portable
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