Farewell to Arms
A Surfboard with an Engine

Every once in a while, a great machine comes along and turns laziness into a virtue. Let’s review:

1885: The first internal combustion automobile makes walking far less necessary.

1955: The remote control makes getting up a thing of the past.

2011: This thing comes along to end the scourge of paddling.

Introducing WaveJet, a surfboard that takes care of the paddling for you, available for preorder and giddy wish list-ing Thursday.

Picture a surfboard. Now picture a small, flat engine on the bottom of it. There you have it. Just you, moving faster than everyone else, catching all of the choicest waves (and carefully avoiding eye contact with your increasingly jealous fellow surfers).

There’s not a whole lot to learn here. There’s a charger. There’s a board. (It comes in long-, short-, body- and stand-up paddleboard versions, and you can also mount one to a kayak.) And there’s a wristband. The wristband lets you control your speed (up to 20 mph in still water) and keep track of the battery. And if by some chance you wipe out, it’ll turn off automatically, lest your surfboard run away into the sunset without you.

So there you’ll be, out on the water, lying across the board. People all around you are getting knocked back despite textbook duck dives. They’re exhausted. And you gracefully float on by to a huge set of waves, no arms necessary.

Next: footballs that throw themselves.