15minutesof.com has a sweet collection of Andy Warhol inspired timepieces for sale. As part of a joint venture with Seiko, the site is offering over 20 watches bearing the artwork of the eccentric New York artist. The watches consist of bold design and vivid colors, some of the most interesting coming in packs of three that, when put next to each other reveal some of Warhol’s most famous pieces like his Campbell’s Soup Cans. Very cool stuff.

It looks like Valve has something special up their sleeves for this one: as if the gravity gun from Half Life 2 wasn’t enough of a paradigm shift!

Arizona representative Jim Kolbe has introduced for a second time legislation to do away with the U.S. penny. It calls for the rounding off of all transactions to the nearest 5 cents. Transactions ending in 1, 2, 6, or 7 cents would be rounded down to the nearest 5 cents, while transactions ending in 3, 4, 8, or 9 cents would be rounded up. Turns out, the little Lincoln-headed coins have become more expensive to produce due to rising zinc costs (the main ingredient in pennies) driving the cost to produce each penny to 1.4 cents. The U.S. Treasury will spend $44 million creating pennies this year, up $14 million from 2005. Cutting costs for the U.S. Treasury may not be Kolbe’s (R-Arizona) only motivation though:

“Kolbe’s home state of Arizona is the largest copper producing state in the nation. Copper is the main material of the nickel which would benefit by becoming the lowest denomination of currency in circulation.”

What do you think? Is it time to be done with the penny?

From the “the feds are gonna love this” department:

This kid built a homemade rocket launcher from PVC, model rocket engines, balsa wood, and ice cream sugar cones as a rocket tip. God it must be nice to have summers off… More images and video accompany the link.

Homemade rocket launcher!