Only Darth Vader could be so evil as to offer up a radio/CD player combo in the age of digital music. Such is the dark side. The crappy sound quality will make you suffer, suffering will lead to hate, hate will lead to anger and anger will lead to fear and before you know it you’re the latest Sith apprentice. Still, there’s always something cool about having Darth Vader’s helmet nearby.

And despite the fact that it plays CDs and offers the radio, it does have the option to connect your MP3 player so I guess it’s not all that bad. It’s got six buttons to control the music plus two apparently hidden inside the mouth for some reason. As an added bonus, when you play a CD you can see it spinning in Vader’s eyes with have red LEDs. Requires 6 x LR14 batteries. The price? $88 Yeah, Vader is evil. Am I gonna pay $88 for a CD player? I think not.

Whether you’re into the classics or just want it to look like you are, the Ode to Beethoven MP3 Player Speakers will bring a little Beethoven into your life. It is designed by UK artist Fiona Thomson, with the idea of combining classic artistic aesthetics with modern technology. More importantly, it lets you dock your mp3 player in a stone bust of Beethoven’s head, so you can look all classy while playing your AC/DC and Alice Cooper. Right now, it’s still just a concept, but hopefully it will be a reality soon and herald a new age of stone iPod docks.

For those of you who like Super hero statues sawed off at the waist or higher, this deal in Japan may be for you. If you’re in Japan. And a geek. On July 23, Japanese folks will get their chance to own Batman Begins on Blu-ray.

That’s about two weeks after release in the U.S. Our gift set edition comes with story boards, script pages and a $7.50 movie credit towards Dark Knight, but in Japan they will get a 25 cm tall bust. Which begs the question, why are we always getting left out on all the cool stuff? What’s the deal with that? The standard Blu-Ray will be around $47, the gift set edition is about $180.