When your HAL 9000 tries to kill you on board your space ship, things are grim. But until your computer goes rogue, you would probably be dining at a table like this one. When you and your crew mates are finished, it transforms into an awesome little pod that matches your ship.

It’s called the Kure from Turkish designer Fatih Can Sarıöz. It features a nice column of light in the center that glows blue. It’s a concept that you may well see become a reality in homes of the future. It’s modern and a real space saving design. Just imagine reading the morning e-paper while you eat your robot made food. “Honey can you put the table and chairs away? I’m late for work.”

It’s the middle of the night. You’re lying in bed when you hear a prowler. Not a problem at all thanks to the Safe Bedside Table by James McAdam. Just jump up out of bed, wear your tabletop shield and grab your table leg club. You may want to shout something cool, like “This…is…Sparta!” then go do battle. The thief will be caught off guard and momentarily stunned to see somebody actually brandishing a club and shield. One quick hit to the head and it’s all over. The wife won’t be questioning “that stupid little table” anymore.

Some of us miss the days when you had to actually venture out of the house and head to the arcade to play games. Ah, brings back memories of poorly lit, smoke filled rooms filled with the beeps and blips of virtual deaths and level starts. Quarters flowed like wine, which we did not drink, but poured willingly down the slotted throats of our electronic masters. The Optime Strategies video gaming table will take you back in time my friend.

It’s powered by a built in PC and comes preloaded with over 1700 vintage games including all your favorites like Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and Frogger, all made possible by software developed by a group called MAME. It’s the real deal. The graphics and music files have been downloaded directly from the original arcade versions making them 100% authentic. The only way it gets more authentic is if you spill some beer on it and add a cigarette burn. The price is the only thing that is lame at $5,180.

I’m no pool shark, but the game of pool is all about angles, geometry and math. And taking the other’s guy money. So how does a game play on a round table? No more corner pockets for one thing. I guess you might have to call your shot using terms like “8 ball in the 12 o’clock pocket”.

I suppose it levels the playing field, making expert and novice alike learn the game for the first time. And where do you place the cue for the break? I have no answers, but the whole thing is customizable and you can even put a stripper pole in the middle for when you grow bored of pool. That way you can watch a stripper try to sink balls as she dances. You use a stick, she uses lucite heels. By then you’re so drunk you’re just glad to have something to bet on, because this round table hasn’t been winning you all the dough you thought..

Nixie clocks may be the best way to keep time that man has invented. So when you combine the Nixie clock with a table, the results are surely awesome right? Yes and no. The tubes look great on the antique table, the problem is that it is a very small table that will fit on a desk. What we need is to up the tube size and up the table size. Maybe make it mantle size to put on your fireplace mantle. Somebody needs to get on this right away.The nixie clock needs to go giant, and now! How about a giant nixie clock on a building? On top of a stadium. Yes, let’s go bigger people.

We’ve seen our share of bizarre furniture and if there’s one thing we know, it’s that furniture should be fun, not just functional. A good table should shock you or scare you. Even better, you should be able to play with your furniture, which is why we love Netherlands-based designer Tineke Beunders’ Marbelous.

It sports grooves cut into the tabletop, legs and supports, all so you can have hours of fun with marbles. The bonus is that you could roll peas and other round food out of your way and toward your dog. Hopefully your mom doesn’t see. Another bonus is that there is no marble cleanup and no one is going to break a hip stepping on them. It has cups built into the feet that that will catch most of them, and a long trough down the center, plus a box to store the marbles too. It’s an amazing piece of design and fun.

This is the creepy sequel to our original article on Aliens furniture. When we first told you about this weird taxiderm from Ripley’s dreams, the pieces didn’t look so polished and it would appear that a different person or persons are making these.

It doesn’t make them any less creepy and most wives would kill you for decorating with something that looks so evil at night. Each piece is hand crafted from used car and bike parts, tools and other recycled metal objects, so each one is unique. The coffee table stands 32 inches high and is 27.5 inches in diameter and costs about $500. One can only hope that these creative people set their sights on making Terminators soon as well. That way the aliens will have something to fight.

My aunt has a table built into a sewing room in her home that is just for cutting fabric and wrapping gifts. I always thought it was a goofy idea to have a table dedicated to such a use. Then, a couple years ago at Christmas I was wrapping a gift for my wife on our kitchen table and deftly hacked one of her new placemats in half while cutting the wrapping paper. Let me warn you guys, that is a big deal to a woman. That is when I saw the brilliance in a table solely for cutting stuff.

Evidently, lots of people see the validity of a table of that sort. If your home does not have a table for the purpose fret not, Birkiland has your fix. The company offers a product it calls Cutting Table No. 1, which is basically a cardboard table specifically made for cutting stuff. The table features three drawers under the top for storing junk.

If you’re the kind of gamer that looks more like an evil super villain while sitting in your chair with all of your screens and peripherals, then here’s something to complete the theme. This gaming table from Digital Edge should help you clean up your act and keep your gaming in one central location.

It was designed specifically with CH Products controllers in mind, with three levels of shelf space for all your stuff and room enough for three monitors. You’ll only need a chair. And the female in your life will be more then happy with this $379 purchase since you are actually cleaning up your act for once instead of making a mess. Am I right guys?

You’re having a bad trip dude. No, not really. Maybe. Is it real or is it memorex? This table is really freaking me out. It’s a design by John Nouanesing, who must have hung out with the Beatles during their psychedelic days. I want to quickly get some towels and clean it up. Needless to say, we want one. It looks extra strange and even creepy in red with the white background, which is why I think it should be called the redrum table. You know, as in the Shining.

I guess watches are scheduled for extinction at some point. We can get the time from any of our gadgets after all. So, with that in mind, why not honor the watch by letting it take other forms. Like a large table for instance.

Oh, it will still give you the time and date, never fear. But now you can also put stuff on it and feel important. It measures 80cm x 230cm and runs on 240 volts. Just like a real watch it comes in more then one color, either silver, chrome or gold.

The only way this table could possibly get any better would be if it were black. That way it would actually look like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you forget about the legs anyway. Cinimod Studio’s Illuminating Table combines three dimensional arrays of interactive color movement controlled in real time by its environment.

You won’t have to use illegal substances to see pretty colors anymore, though I suppose if you do, you’ll just see more, maybe even freak out thinking you’re trapped inside the thing. Me, being the geek that I am, would put Star Trek ships on the table and pretend they’re getting sucked into a wormhole. Oh, and you could lay on it and thrash around, recreating several classic Sci-Fi scenes. Like Buck Rogers getting sucked into the future for instance.

If you really want to impress your poker buddies, get rid of that old table and spend a small fortune on this, the big daddy of all poker tables. It’s fully automated, electronic, and it even sports touchscreens. That’s because cards are no longer necessary. It’s got 10 12.1-inch displays and a 27-inch display at the center of the table.

The cards are dealt by an invisible dealer, and to look at your hand, just touch your display. Thing is, you better be a card shark if you want this table. The X10 will cost you $29,950 of your previous winnings. You gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em and know when to walk away when the price is that damn high.

Pong has taken many strange twists and turns through our culture since the 70s and has somehow endured, despite it’s simple nature. Well, it’s back again and this time the game takes place on a table, allowing you to play and then dine. Or dine and then play a game for dessert. It’s from the mind of Moritz Waldemeyer. The table uses 2400 LEDs for display and has 2 trackpads.

Turned on, the trackpads let users control the paddles. Turn it off and it’s just a plain table again. It was part of MOMA’s Elastic Mind exhibit. I for one would love to see it go into production, but somehow I doubt it will. For one thing, it would force you to clear the table everytime you want a game and that’s just a bit too much if you love Pong and dining.