Daily Desired: A High-Fidelity USB Interface You'll Actually Use [Desired]

One reason even sound nerds are abandoning high-fidelity audio gear is that its ugly. The appearance of these products doesn't always sing. This USB interface will improve the sound of your digital music, and it's handsome enough that you'll care.

The Duet2 is a digital to analog converter for Mac—it plugs into your USB port, sucks the raw digital files off your harddrive and processes the data super accurately. If you've got uncompressed music files, the Duet2 will spit perfection out of its headphone jack.

The Duet2 is also as pretty as an Apple product. It actually sort of looks like an iPhone, and provokes in me the same longing. That's important because audio quality can be elusive. if I'm going to buy an auxiliary sound product to put next to my computer, my eyes better be just as convinced as my ears that it's worth $600. My MacBook wasn't cheap, and there's no law that says accessories have to be. The Duet2 doesn't just play the part—it looks the part, too. [Apogee Electronics]

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Daily Desired: This Pot Will Make You a Better Cook [Desired]

I'm going to go Bobby Knight on the next person who serves me terrible black beans—especially now that there's a new Le Creuset bean pot.

You've probably seen Le Creuset cookware in a store window and thought, "Gee that's pretty, but I don't need it." Nonsense! This pot will make you a better cook for $100. I can't believe people blow recipes as simple as black beans. I guess there's some spices involved, but black beans are a cinch: beans and water in pot, very low heat, very long time. Use teflon and you're screwed. This pot is made of heavy-duty stoneware so it absorbs the heat off your burners and distributes it evenly throughout the pot so your beans won't burn and won't dry out. Now you know. Don't bone it next time. [Le Creuset]

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Daily Desired: The Toughest Backyard Grill In the World [Desired]

A Weber grill is just a glorified hunk of cheap metal. Don't believe me? Heat the grates up to 1000 degrees and watch the thing fall apart. This grill is for people who want to cook for real.

The Engelbrecht 1000 Series Braten Grill is a tank from top to bottom. Other grills look hardcore, but how many have cast iron wheels? A thousand degrees is nothing for the welded, heavy-gauge steel body. The designers paid meticulous attention to every detail down to the stainless steel caster mounts. This thing will survive a bomb blast. Oh yeah, and the grill is a serious cook's dream. That huge steel body? Also great for heat absorption and transfer. Maybe a $1900 weapons-grade grill isn't for you, but there's a six-week waiting list of people who want one real bad. [Engelbrecht Grills and Cookers]

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Daily Desired: Exercise Headphones Designed to Stay Put [Desired]

When it comes to headphones built to stay put when you're exercising there's plenty of products that look hardcore but are just annoying. Polk's new UltraFit3000 headphones might just be the the most thoughtfully designed I've seen.

Like other old school speaker companies Polk has decided to make the jump from wooden boxes to headphones. I like that idea, because Polk's awesome sound shouldn't be confined to home theaters and stereos. Detailed specs aren't yet available, but I'd expect these to sound amazing. What is really going to set these apart for exercise addicts is the attention to function. The over-ear hook is pliable and made of a moldable rubbery material so that they will sit securely on your ear. Polk makes it sound easy.

There's lots of little details from the length of cable extensions to the shock-resistant internal build that are impossible to evaluate until I get the headphones on. I'm psyched to try these if only because exercise is an inconvenience enough without crappy headphones making it worse. If these really fit well, and sound as good as Polk gear is supposed to, I might actually get in shape. That's worth $100 easily. [Polk Audio]

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Daily Desired: This Electric Motorcycle Concept Looks Vicious [Desired]

Here's what we know about the Husqvarna E-go concept motorcycle: It's electric, it looks awesome, and at 175 pounds, it weighs less than the average American male—it's prettier, too. Now let's start dreaming.

The best part about concept vehicles—well concept anything, I guess—is imagining the possibilities. Especially in the case of bikes like the E-go concept when we know nothing except that the bike won't be spewing carbon into the air behind it. (Seriously, we know nothing.) There's no clutch, the brakes look like those on a bicycle, and in fact the design looks simple enough that I could just jump on and go. That single-sided front shock is crazy-looking. The bike looks like it's built for off-road trails, but they'll need to put some knobby tires on there because those slicks aren't gonna cut it. If it's supposed to be a streamlined road bike, as Husqvarna seems to suggest, well, I hope they put a headlight on it because there's no way this thing is street legal.

Let's be fair, a lot about the E-go will change—if it ever becomes a reality at all—but I wish I could ride this baby just the way she looks right now. [Husqvarna]

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Daily Desired: These Lightweight Headphones are Walkman-Chic [Desired]

Simple on-ear heaphones—you know the ones with foam pads that came with your Walkman in 1988—have been abandoned since the late 90s. They're back with the beautiful Aiaiai Tracks, which are perfect for a long day of jams.

There is a middle ground between heavy full-sized headphones and in-ear/earbud headphones, both of which get uncomfortable after a few hours of use. Designed in Denmark, the Aiaiai Tracks have a super minimal build that's lightweight and unobtrusive. As for sound, the 40mm drivers are big enough to deliver convincing bass and a full tonal range, even if they don't do much to isolate your eardrums from outside noise. The headphones come with an iPhone-ready mic, as well as a volume remote that works with the whole iOS family—just in case you plan to take these out of the office and on to the street. If you do take them out, be prepared to catch some looks because the Aiaiai Tracks are pretty. Not bad for 550 Danish Krones, or you know, 100 American smackeroos. [Aiaiai]

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Daily Desired: The Blunt Umbrella Makes Other People Hate You Less [Desired]

Umbrellas are just another hateful piece of urban luggage that makes my commute unbearable. I mean, I'm more likely to leave one in a bar than to actually use it! The Blunt Umbrella's intelligent design might actually convert this hater.

The Blunt Umbrella gets its name from its snazzy-looking rounded tips, which unlike their pointy counterparts won't take out fellow pedestrians' eyes. One annoyance avoided already. It gets better: the Blunt Umbrella has smartly-engineered internal structure which makes it durable and wind-resistant. For example, the blunt tips aren't just there to help you avoid unfortunate street altercations, they also keep the the fast-drying polyester canopy super-tight. Sure, other umbrellas are wind resistant but the Blunt achieves this in a lightweight, practical design that doesn't turn the concept of an umbrella into a massive space-aged monstrosity—that's a damn feat.

It's going to rain all week on the east coast. For $70, the Blunt Umbrella will keep you not wet and less annoyed. If only it came with GPS-tracker for when I leave it at the bar—I'm still working on that. [Blunt Umbrella]

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Daily Desired: A Portable Grill Tough Enough for Football Season [Desired]

Don't let its classic, unpretentious looks and diminutive size fool you: The Char-Broil CB500X Portable Charcoal Grill is beefy and versatile. But whether you carry it to a tailgate party or stash it in the backyard is up to you.

The CB500X is just two feet long, so it's built to travel. But unlike most grills that will fit in the trunk of your car, the CB500X sports sturdy steel construction, which means you can use it as a grill or smoker. Inside, you've got 240 square inches of cooking surface on cast-iron grates to work with—that's good for a whole lot of weenies. If a long, slow smoke is more your style, the built-in thermometer, the front-loading firebox, and two adjustable dampers mean you'll be all over the temperature like Ray Lewis on the pass rush.

The weaklings out there might fret that the $155 CB500X weighs 38 pounds. But like the American gridiron, this grill is not for the weak of body or mind (or stomach). [Char-Broil via Uncrate]

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Daily Desired: Let the Force Protect Your iPad in this Case [Desired]

The iPad's a joy for reading, but you're screwed for writing anything longer than: "rad man, I'll see u ther. Excuse my brevity and any typos but touchscreens suck for typing, ok?" That's why I want a ClamCase. Star Wars-style.

The ClamCase is made of hard polycarbonate which protects your iPad on all sides. As the name suggests, the case opens up just like a laptop to reveal a Bluetooth keyboard. Shazzam. Blaster-proof Laptop-iPad. The ClamCase's center hinge rotates 360 degrees making it a flexible stand for watching video. The case weighs 1.7 pounds—ouch!—but it does come with a lithium-ion battery which the company claims will keep your iPad going for 90 hours of use. The force is with this one indeed!

We were excited about the ClamCase before, and we're positively stoked about the new limited-edition design called "The Trooper." The white design with black trim is supposedly based on a certain imperial cannon fodder from Star Wars. It's subtle, but we'll buy anything that smacks of Star Wars at all. Just don't tell George Lucas, because "The Trooper" looks to be completely unlicensed. The Trooper will cost you 150 clams. [ClamCase via Geeksugar]

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Daily Desired: Battle the Darkness with this Badass Pocket-Sized Torch [Desired]

What the lights go out, don't be screwed. You think that little drugstore flashlight is good enough? Give it an hour until it flickers dead and leaves you blind. The Solarforce M6, though—that's your pint-sized lifeline.

God created light on the first day because without light, it's impossible to do anything. When the lights go out—maybe because of, I don't know, a a hurricane—I want a mega-powerful, super-efficient LED flashlight in my sock drawer, not some cheap plastic piffle that'll dim out on me.

The six-inch Solarforce also weighs just five ounces, meaning it's small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and light enough to carry around in your pocket. At full power, it'll shine brighter than a 40-watt bulb for two hours. If you dial back the brightness, though, the batteries should last you through the night.

At $63, the Solar Force M6 costs more than a Mini Maglite, but unlike a Mag, the the M6 is housed in a tough aluminum alloy case that's completely waterproof. When the shit hits the fan—and water fills the basement—you'll be glad your flashlight is built for survival.

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Daily Desired: Ride Hurricane Swell on This $500k Longboard [Desired]

Roy Stuart builds longboards fit for—or at least expensive enough for kings. But what in holy heaven could make his Baron surfboard cost $528,000?

The 12-foot long, 45-pound Baron is modeled after the pre-colonial, "Olo" longboards—the boards reserved for royalty. Longer, heavier surfboards make for a sturdier, faster ride. When you really get going on some big swell it's supposed to feel like you're flying. Ride the same wave on Roy Stuart's Baron Surfboard, and now we're talking some stupor-inducing, transcendental, "I just saw god," shit. Hell, I just saw god looking at this thing, and I can't even surf.

The Baron looks beautiful, but from the outside it looks like more or less what you would expect. What make's Roy Stewart's boards "the most hydrodynamically advanced boards ever built" is his unique technique. All modern longboards are hollow, but Stewart's are built using "parallel profile" construction: Layers of wood (Paulowina wood, in the Baron's case) are laminated over a mold—much like layering fiberglass on the hull of a ship. The technique makes his boards thinner and more flexible than others. Stuart then hand-shapes the raw board to the exact specifications of the purchaser.

Sure, the Baron costs 500 times more than your average surfboard. But that's the price you pay for art. Roy Stewart: The Damien Hirst of surfboard shapers. [Roy Stewart Surfboards]

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