At Toy Fair this past February, one of the Hasbro offerings that I really liked was an odd and appealing new line called Room Tech Beingz. Hybrids of toys and appliances, the Mood Lamp and Alarm Clock not only perform their eponymous functions, they also communicate with each other. As in, when the Alarm Clock goes off in the morning and wakes you with music, it tells the Mood Lamp to go on too and give you a wake-up light show. The Lamp also can light up randomly or when touched, or pulse along to music, play their own steel-drum-sounding tunes.

Hasbro send us a Mood Lamp ($39.99, ages 8 and up) to try, and I wasted no time in irritating my coworkers by playing with it.

The Lamp's "head" can stay centered or tilt in 4 directions: front, back, left, and right. Each position provokes different functions. When it's centered or tilted to the left, the top responds to touches with light and musical tones, or pulses to music if left alone. The forward tilt--"Groovy Mood"--responds to a several-second touch by playing a soothing melody. A backward tilt causes 6 different light shows, which you can loop. And...

By tilting its head to the right, you can pick which color the Mood Lamp glows from underneath its mushroom-like head--red, amber, or green. If you hold your hand on top for a few seconds, it'll go into a light-changing mode among the three colors.

Though the word "tween" appears throughout the Beingz literature, I think these little guys are fun for anyone who likes whimsical design. As in, me. They're available now through Hasbro's site.