Why are we still fighting wars and shooting down alien spacecraft with boring old bullets and missiles? Exploding gunpowder is so Industrial Revolution. Check the calendar, Military-Industrial Complex: it's 2006. We coulda sworn we’d be using lasers for that kind of stuff by now, the kind that shoot bright dayglo bolts and make a cool zapping sound even in the airless void of outer space. Or at least using them to fill our enemies’ homes with delicious, suffocating popcorn, a la Real Genius. Instead, you guys keep thinking up new ways to make lasers boring, like curing astigmatics and erasing tattoos and now, wonder of wonders, lining up picture frames.

Yes, today’s lucky purchasers will receive two of these Laser Straight levels, but don’t plan any light-saber battles or raygun shootouts. The most they’ll do is project a perfectly straight 50-foot line, rendering that bulky old metal level of yours obsolete except perhaps as a crude weapon of last resort. Whether you’re hanging shelves, posters, curtain rods, or towel bars, the Laser Straight level will impose a level of order and unity that will satisfy even your most obsessive compulsions. No, you may not be able to bring your enemies to their knees with an awesome display of lethal laser power, but you can awe them with your flawlessly aligned towel bars.

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