My current command chair is a total embarrassment. I sit here in the Pleasure Dome (my office) surrounded by high technology. My tower computer boasts 32GB of DDR5 memory, 3TB of SSD storage, and an Intel multicore CPU so powerful that it makes my eyes water.

I’m facing two 34” curved screens forming a single ultra-high-resolution desktop, augmented with a high-res video camera and an awesome Yeti microphone mounted on a boom arm. On the desk to my left, I have a 4-channel oscilloscope to drool over—on the desk to my right I have a laser cutter and engraver. I also have a rather spiffy electric kettle. In fact, I think I’ll make myself a nice cup of tea.

I’m sorry, where were we? Oh yes, my office (in general) and my chair (in particular). My chair has seen better days. The hydraulics are shot, so if I didn’t do anything to address this I’d be sitting with my schnozzle resting on my desktop (the real desk top — not the one on my screens, of course).

When the hydraulics originally started to go south (yes, pun intended), I brought an old bed pillow from home to sit on and boost things up a bit. The hydraulics got worse, and the pillow got flatter, so I augmented it with a second. I now have three pillows and some sort of foam doohickey.

When I leave the office, the pillows and foam thingy slowly expand. The next morning, I have to take a running jump to land on top of them, after which we all commence a slow trip towards the floor. If you and I were on a Zoom call during that time, you’d see me occupying the top of your screen at the beginning of the call, and lurking around the bottom of your screen by the time we finished.

My wife (Gina the Gorgeous) says that she’s going to buy me a new office chair for Christmas. She wants me to tell her which one I want. I think I’ve discovered the chair of my dreams. My friend Jay Dowling just sent me a link to a column on The Verge: Volkswagen Built a Star Trek Captain’s Chair That Goes 12mph. Take a look at this video on YouTube.

I’m not sure if I really need a chair that can travel up to 12 kilometers at 20 kilometers per hour, although if I did decide to take a trip around my office building, I’m sure the 360-degree collision avoidance sensors and backup camera would come in handy, as would the party lights on my birthday.

I’m not sure if this is just a marketing stunt, and we wouldn’t be able to afford one even if it was real, but a boy can dream…