Again on office toys, but this time, we're talking about (home) office toys that blend in more than the usual silly character of a somewhat funny idea transposed into a mass-produced gadget some would buy, while most wouldn't. The Finger Drum Mousepad is a funny and even useful piece of small gadgetry which could really sell: it's a mousepad, and that's the traditional, useful thing about it; yet it has something more to it: a drum pad with different zones, which allows you to play some drum tracks with your fingers.

If you feel that you're dramatically bored and want to make that spleen go away, just load a song and start practicing with your fingers.

And since the first time your performance will definitely be below terrible, there are only two ways to go: you'll either throw the Finger Drum Mousepad away or frown and take the beat track from the top, start practicing and become the rockstar in your office. The drum pad comes with no less than 8 separate zones, allowing you to play bass drum, snare, dual rack toms, a floor ton, hi-hat, a crash and a ride cymbal; that's pretty much everything any drummer would use in the first place.

Now, if you plan to do some death metal finger-drumming, you'll definitely need a "double bass pedal-something" which, by the way, does not exist for the Finger Drum Mousepad. Or you could train your fingers to tap very fast, and that would simply rock! You can use the six pre-programmed tracks or you can just hook up any of the portable music devices (read MP3 players or iPods) using the 3.5mm stereo jack and practice along songs of your own choice.

The Finger Drum Mousepad comes with volume and tempo controls for a complex drumming experience; no word on the metronome (which could have been quite fancy) though. And you can definitely use it in your office without annoying your colleagues because it comes with a very useful headphone jack. Power comes from four AAA batteries. All you have to do now is get it from this very interesting shop and pay a price that's a nickel short of $40.


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