Death becomes an avalanche

Mostly though, not dying is the best part. While taunting the Grim Reaper is perhaps not the wisest of pastimes, it is certainly one of the most amusing. Techeye has brushed up against (and/or massaged) Death on countless occasions, mainly because of our fondness for bathing with new gadgets. Our family has grown quite accustomed to our frequent nigh fatalities, so much so that there's a betting pool on which month will be our last. We've already got money on March and June of next year.

Recently though, Techeye nearly perished in an altogether novel and unpleasant fashion -  gadget avalanche. We made the mistake of opening the wrong closet door and, moreover, not moving aside when we first heard the rumbling. Only eight minutes passed between the avalanche and the time Grandma Techeye noticed our toes sticking out from under a new and unstable mountain of contraptions, but by that time we'd already burned our clothes to stay warm and staved off starvation by consuming poor Snuggles the dog.

After last week's terror, we've vowed to take precautions. There's no telling when or where an avalanche of some kind might occur, so we're investing in Snowpulse's Life Bag. This fashionable bit of gear is essentially a backpack-mounted airbag, apparently designed to raise the odds of surviving an avalanche, though it looks like it'll also come in handy when Grandma gets to whomping us about the head.

Snowpulse claims that "similarly to a life-jacket used in the sea, the Life Bag keeps you on your back and your head out of the snow." We're not sure if that'll be useful in an urban (or apartmental) environment, but the fact that it creates "an air pocket in case of burial" sounds vaguely useful. The backpack itself weighs only three kilograms and comes in a stylish black sure to go well with any of our smoking jackets. It runs around EUE800 (zł.2,930) and is available from www.snowpulse.ch.