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R2-D2 tape measure is cute, but it can't measure parsecs

Here's your Star Wars fan stocking stuffer of the year, and it even knows metric.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Gael Cooper
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I suggest a new strategy, let the droid measure.

 ThinkGeek

Sure, BB-8 is cute and all, but the title of most adorable Star Wars droid, always and forever, belongs to R2-D2.

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Just look at him. The silver, white and blue gleam and glow together like an NFL team that's never had to wear those lame Color Rush uniforms. The rounded shape makes you want to pet him. Even the bleep-bloop voice is a huge win, especially in a universe where Jar-Jar exists.

So this new R2-D2 tape measure from ThinkGeek, brought to our attention by Gizmodo, is an appealing little stocking stuffer. He ain't cheap ($24.99, £19.82, AU$33.45), but as C-3P0 said when trying the hard sell on Luke Skywalker, Artoo "is in prime condition, a real bargain."

The tape measure calculates inches and centimeters, but as ThinkGeek notes, "not light-years." And, we might add, "not parsecs," which certain folks (Han Solo, cough) think is a measure of time anyway.

You can put this guy in the shelf right next to your R2-D2 coffee press, which will certainly be the best part of waking up -- in this galaxy, anyway.