Remember the joy of owning audio cassettes? Tape unraveling everywhere as your tape deck tries to eat your music, questionable sound quality, the tape being too tight and requiring your finger to advance it…Mix tapes…Good times. Thank god it’s over.

Well, it’s back. But don’t worry, it’s better. The NVDRS Tape is a concept MP3 player that limits you to just 45 minutes of music, or 10 songs. And yes, it really channels the spirit of the cassette tape. You fast forward and rewind by sticking your finger in the cassette hole and twisting, just like you did decades ago.

This Acorn MP3 player, which they are calling the “Pine Cone MP3 Player” is to be purchased, buried in the backyard in a small hole that you have dug by hand, then dug up to help to get you through a harsh winter when music is scarce.

This MP3 player comes with 1GB of storage, and features a controller on the top so you can select your tracks easily. It goes with all of your other wood gadgets, like the Scrabble keyboard and your wooden earbuds.

Looks like our friends over at Tokyoflash got tired of making hard to decipher watches. And so the Tokyo Flash MP3 Tower was born. It features an integrated speaker on the base and a USB port to hook up USB flash drives with music files.

Red LEDs display the time straightforward for once, with volume and control buttons on top of the case. The device is powered by three AA batteries. And since the MP3 Tower is waterproof, so you take it with you in the shower. Just remember that you’ll need a waterproof USB flash drive too.

Let’s say you still have a huge library of cassette tapes for some reason. Maybe you just hate to part with them. Maybe you’re cheap and treat yard sales like your own private iTunes. Whatever. Here’s a quick way to digitize those old tapes into MP3 formats.

It’s the TapeLink from Alesis. The recorder will do more then just make a copy. It will virtually remove all hissing or other abnormalities in sound quality and convert them to MP3’s. Just plug it into the USB cable on your Mac or PC and you’re good to go. The bundled EZ Tape Converter makes transfer easy and convenient. The files can then be retrieved via USB on your computer to store on any device you want.

Yeah we know that there are tons of iPod docks available, but this one stands out as it serves several functions. It will keep your accessories all in one place, helping to clean up some desk clutter. The Tunelight MP3 Speaker System is part music system, part organizing helper.

It has a task light and some compartments to hold your belongings like paperclips,pens etc. And when you combine those features with an iPod dock and speakers, it’s actually useful. It will work with any MP3 player, which means you’ll always have music at your now cleaned up desk.

The I-Turtle is here to chew bubble gum and dance to your tunes. And he’s all out of bubble gum. It works pretty much in the same way as its predecessor, the I-Dog. It acts as an external speaker for your digital audio player.

Sure, it will respond to your tunes by moving it’s body and bobbing its head, but the I-Turtle is deeper then that. It’s also capable of expressing a wide range of “emotions” through the blinking of lights on it’s shell. That’s all well and good, but what I really want is a turtle that will mimic the turtle from the Comcast commercials. Something I can take to the movie theater, so it can shush loud people with sayings like, “We got a real talker over here. A real talker”. That’s just me.

Sometimes companies invent gadgets for for the hell of it. They might throw together a device with two or three things that do not belong together, throw it at the public like a gadget-making monkey flinging feces and see if it sticks or not. Hey, how about a new MP3 player with a breath analyzer?

It’s for people who like tunes and need immediate info about their funky breath. Oh, they also added a flashlight, a radio, a mosquito repeller (In case your breath is attracting them), all with an MP3 player. For no damn reason! Just because! They are gambling on a real long shot here. But if there should be a demand for such a device…Oh man. Someone will be in the money.

Look, I don’t care how rotten your kid has been. Nobody deserves these creepy MP3 dolls for children. Give them coal in their stocking if you must, but spare them the trauma that this wicked pair will cause. There’s not a whole lot of info about these unbalanced and obviously devious dolls, but their names are Man-Man and Niu Niu.

The controls are in the hands and feet, and they feature an automatic shutdown, you know, in case you catch them cornering your kid with a knife, while blasting the latest Britney Spears ear-rape. The MP3 players are hidden in the guts of the dolls. This fright-fest comes hot on the heels of H-Bouya, another creep-gadget that will have your kids shaking in the corner like a crack-addict and asking “Why daddy, why?”

Cowon will be launching the Cowon S9 MP3 player in Korea on December 16th. This MP3 player features a 3.3-inch AMOLED capacitive touch panel display that provides 16 million colors on 480 x 272 pixels resolution. The player is powered by a 500MHz dual-core CPU, and supports T-DMB digital television tuner, Bluetooth, FM radio, text/photo viewer, electronic dictionary function, TV-out, and G-Sensor accelerometer.

The S9 also supports a touchscreen user interface, gravity sensor, zoom in and out flash menu and video clip preview function. The battery will give you up to 55 hours of music playback, 11 hours of video playback, and up to 350 hours of standby time. The Cowon S9 will be available in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB storage sizes. The DMB model will be released next year.

This MP3 player is Living Solutions Colossal MP3 Player and it’s just gotten an upgrade. It’s even bigger. Now at 1GB. It’s exclusively at Walgreens. It comes in several different colors like green and blue, has a tiny monochrome display, and huge controls fit for your grandmother. It also sports built in speakers. Another upgrade to this huge device is that the controls are clearer now.

So if you’re looking for a great gag gift, head to your local Walgreens and pick one up for $19.99. It may not even fit in a Christmas stocking. This would be a really funny gift to give to the kid that wants a nice tiny iPod. He’ll be like wtf?

Sometimes you just get the urge to dance. Problem is, last time you had that urge you came out of your Saturday Night Fever daydream and found all of your cubicle mates staring at you. Now you’re known as “that guy who shakes his ass”. There’s a better way my friends.

Now you can let the iBoogie do the dancing for you. It’s a small speaker that connects to your MP3 player via the headphone jack.The iBoogie includes an LED stick figure who will do the dancing for you, along with the music you’re playing. Your new little buddy has over 50 choreographed dance moves, and it’s powered by 3 AA batteries. It will only cost you $19.95 to live out your dance fantasies on your desktop.

The new Luxe MP3 player is the latest addition to the Philips GoGear line. It features Bluetooth 2.1 functionality so you can use the the audio device with your cell phone. It will allow you to pause your tunes so you can answer a call. It also features 10-hours of playback time and 100-hours in standby. The Philips Luxe comes with 2GB of storage space and a built-in FM radio. The sparkling and prism-like outside is different and available in red or white, priced at about $95 when it’s released in Singapore next month.

XM Radio’s XMp3 handheld is available and shipping, but some of you have no doubt been waiting for some video before jumping in and buying, so have a look. xzitony managed to get his hands on one of the devices and made this six minute clip that shows off the user interface. Looks like it boots up super quick, sports a new menu system and lots more. Check out the video below.

The Shiro SQ-S MP3 player is one the finalists for the HKEIA Award for Outstanding Innovation & Technology Products. It features a 1.8″ 65K color LCD display that will display all the usual stuff like track lists, Images, Video, eBooks and supports MP3/ WMA/ WAV/ FLAC/ APE/ OGG music formats. You’ll even get an integrated FM tuner and voice recorder, which will let you record the song you hear right from the station.

The player also sports 16GB of built-in memory, and will play music for up to 35 hours or 7 hours of video. The interesting thing here is the Solar cell in the back of the player. It allows for more charging, around 4 hours, giving you nearly unlimited music time. As long as you have sun anyway. The player will be available in three flavors. Silver/ Red/ Blue, and also four different patterns in its circular keypad. No word on price or availability.

How many times have you been in the bottom of the pool and wished you had some Led Zeppelin, or maybe some aquatic themed music to accompany you? The Freestyle Soundwave waterproof MP3 player makes it happen, whether you want Neil Diamond, Tenacious D or the soundtrack to The Little Mermaid. It’s good in up to 10 feet of water.

The shock resistant Soundwave will store up to 2GB, which should be enough for your non Olympic sized pool. Features include MP3, WMA and DRM protected file support, integrated FM tuner and a blue OLED display. It even floats, in case you lose hold of it. The included earbuds are also waterproof. It will retail for $90 in blue and $10 more for the camouflaged variety.