Love it or hate it, it’s old skool time! Wondering what to wear? What to write in? How to carry stuff? Here’s our top five recommendations for BTS time:

1. High Voltage Laptop Bag
Carry your school gear in this shockingly original, roomy laptop bag that announces your electric personality. It’s got two spacious pockets under the main flap where you can stuff things like cellphones, game systems, school IDs, and snacks. The main compartment has a padded sleeve for your laptop and enough extra room to fit your gym clothes and sneakers, lunch, and more.

2. Circuit Board Composition Notebook
This is a pretty big notebook featuring 100 8.5″ x 11″ college-ruled pages held together with the familiar spiral binding common to most regular notebooks. Actual circuit boards serve as the front and back covers, keeping your pages secure and crush-free. Pretty cool.

3. Caffiene Earrings
Ah, caffeine–that magical substance that keeps college kids awake and alert during all-night cram sessions and early morning lectures. Girls with a love of chemistry and caffeine, take note, because these silver earrings featuring the diagram of caffeine’s molecular structure will become your new favorite accessory. Perhaps they’ll also help you win favor with your organic chemistry prof and work in your favor should your grade sit on the border between two letters… but we don’t make any guarantees!

4. Solar Backpack
Picture this: you’ve got two hours between classes and your cell phone is about to die. Your dorm room is across campus and you only got 3 hours of sleep last night, so making the trek home is out of the question. The library’s always filled with people who’ve snatched up all the outlets. How do you get the juice back into your cellphone to keep up on all the gossip? Well, find a sunny spot on the quad, and plug your backpack into your cellphone and let that little guy charge. These backpacks with solar panels on them output 4 watts of power, allowing you to charge most small electronic devices like cell phones, cameras, MP3 players and portable game systems.

5. Electronic Musician’s Emergency Adapters
If you’re studying anything along the lines of Music Composition, Electronic Music Performance, Theory of Digital Music or the like, at some point you’ll inevitably find yourself staring at two audio plugs at 2am in frustration as you try to figure out how to get signal to pass through them. You can’t exactly run out to Radio Shack at that hour, but if you have this comprehensive set of adapters, you’ll surely be able to solve most tech-audio emergencies.

The Washington Post Express thinks Budclicks are a neat way to customize your iPod earbuds. We think so too!

As if things couldn’t get any better than our adorable and popular Super Mario Brothers Mushroom Candy and our imitation retro-controller Nintendo Power Mints, behold our motion sensor powered Wii Controller gum tins that are pretty much the same size as the real ones, but lacking the ever-important safety strap. After you’ve finished off the peppermint gum you can use the case to store useful things like pens, DS cartridges, memory cards, ball bearings, or any small thing you need to tote around inside a Nintendo controller.

If you’re feeling of a particularly DIY spirit you can attempt to mod the case into something useful like a toothbrush timer, pre amp, actual remote control, or any of the other projects featured over at Make.

Here is a cool talk we found on TED about our favorite subject, fractals (of course!). Ron Eglash noticed Julia set patterns in they way villages were laid out while flying over Africa and it spurred his interest to investigate what was going on. Specifically, he talks about his research on the intriguing fractal patterns he noticed in African villages across the continent. He talks about his work exploring the rigorous fractal math underpinning African architecture, art and even hair braiding.

Got a guy on your gift list who’s got every gadget you can think of, and you’re not sure where to turn? Check out our suggestions for great geeky yet stylish gifts.

< Odin’s Rage Watch - $120.00
This futuristic watch has a novel way for displaying the time. You know how you’re expected to recall the position of numbers on a watch with a blank face? Well this watch operates on the same principle, but substitute a large inner dot for the hour hand position and a small outer dot for the minute hand position. Cool huh?

High Voltage Laptop Bag - $65.00 >
Watch yourself! Any guy who’s dreamed of having superpowers can indulge his fantasy just the slightest by suggesting that his mega gadget fascination has made him electrically charged himself. The army-green laptop bag has a padded laptop sleeve a roomy interior, and pockets under the flap to store a variety of other electron-pushing gear.

< Electronic Musician’s Emergency Adapters - $65.00
Even if the gift-recipient in question isn’t an electronic musician, he’ll be just as overjoyed to sift through this “first aid kit” and know he’ll be the hero when an audio emergency strikes. It has common audio adapters as well as ones used in professional audio situations, and there’s even an LED light to make following cables around in the dark much easier.

< Duct Tape Hybrid BiFold Wallet - $25.00
Raw industrial style meets clean minimal design with a touch of futuristic aspiration in this wallet made from real duct tape. It’s made from a specially-designed duct tape that won’t lift, peel or get sticky like the normal stuff, so your man won’t have to worry about trying to delicately detach a fifty at the cashier while the line of impatient shoppers behind him grows.

MIDI Cuff 1″ - $40.00 >
Get your geeky rockstar boy one or two of these cool cuffs made of four sequential black MIDI cable segments arranged in rows to form 1″ cuffs. On a few of the strands you can read a segment of the phrase “VTG Audio Low Noise Quad Balanced Cable. Made in the USA.” Perfect whether he’s a world-class electronic musician or could simply pass for one.

Microcontroller Cufflinks - Rectangular - $40.00 >
If your boy isn’t into our green circuit board cufflinks then make him rock these instead. Classy and subtly nerdy at the same time, these swank cufflinks are made from two matching black microcontrollers.

< Testosterone Keychain - $22.00
Quite possibly the “manliest keychain ever,” this pewter keychain cast in the form of the testosterone molecule is the perfect thing to adorn your guy’s keys, especially if they’re for a sportscar (appropriate, right?). And it sort of even looks like small brass knuckles–totally tough!

Hex Standoff Necklace - $12.00 >
If the guy you’re gift-shopping for is stylish with a streak of geek, this subtle aluminum-and-black necklace will be his new favorite accessory. The horizontal “pendant” is actually a hex standoff, a bit of hardware commonly used to connect circuit boards to their cases or each other.

Here’s an interesting blog featuring tracks from video game soundtracks, along with a bit of insightful commentary and historical context. Not only do they include symphonic renditions of tracks from Final Fantasy, there are nods to more obscure tracks such as the medievel-eque vocal track“You Were There” from ICO [PS2], “Let Mom Sleep,” the breakdance-inspiring title track from Jet Grind Radio [Dreamcast], the brooding, Eastern-European “Waiting For Action” track that opens Hitman 2 [Mult.], and the instrumental 90s-Jrock combat accompaniment, “Blue Water, Blue Sky “ from Guilty Gear X [Arcade].

I had Hitman 2 for the PC and loved the puzzle-solving / strategy aspect combined with the creeipiness of the environment and badass factor. Hearing the soundtrack makes me want to dig up those disks and pretend to be a bald super assassin once again.

Check out the entire collection here: VGMe >> Music.

If you love Linux you automatically love Tux, the cuddly mascot-slash-logo for the open source operating system. Just as the software is free to download and install as your computer’s desktop, the patterns for Tux can be downloaded so he can sit on your desktop next to your computer.

The Free Penguin project provides the “source code” for plushie Tux sewing patterns. Your hardware requirements for executing the source code are a printer, fabric access, a needle,

thread, and scissors capable of cutting said fabric. Download a development release.

If you’re lacking the necessary hardware requirements for the Plush tux but have a printer, functional scissors and glue, KDE-Look.org]

Have you made either of these Tuxes? Post your version in the comments!

Paper toys are probably the closest thing we have to delivering 3D stuff over the internet. The only catch is you have to do a bit of cutting and gluing to get to the 3D part.

Mandelbot is a stylish little robot that you can download, print out, and assemble to have a new tiny companion. If small talk bores you, no worries–he seems to have his headphones permanently glues to his ears. Download him and get to work: Mandelbot Paper Toy.

Here’s some links to other cool paper toys we’ve found:

Speakerdog
Download one of many Speakerdogs that have been decorated by designers, or grab the blank one and make your own.

Mr. Robot
Very complicated but cool moving robot who plays a guitar.

Space Shuttle
Technically this is just the orbiter part of the Space Shuttle since the rocket boosters aren’t included, it doesn’t mean building spacecraft is any less fun.

Bill Gates’ House: Page 1, Page 2
Cut out all the different elements of BG’s 50,000 square-foot high-tech home on Lake Washington and assemble them into a palatial Microsoft abode.

The Tardis
The police-box-shaped time-bending spaceship from Doctor Who can now be yours in a paper model form.

Ah, emoticons… either you love using them to convey playfulness in your instant messaging, or you despise people who use them at the end of every sentence. Either way, you’ve got to appreciate the thoroughness of the design of these necklaces featuring a wide array of emoticon-ed emotions. They’re available in sterling silver, 14K gold, white gold, and gold plated.

Send your girlfriend a surprise kiss through the mail with the Kissing emoticon necklace in sterling silver. Or, if you’ve got a daughter off at college, why not send her an Angelic necklace in 14K gold on her birthday, both to show how much you love her as well as serve as a subtle, parental good-behavior reminder.

There’s no better way to give a nerdy girl your heart than to present her with the “Less Than Three” Heart Necklace in silver. It’s even adjustable so you don’t have to worry about figuring out what size to buy.

Guys, we know you love jewelry too, so check out these emoticon cufflinks in sterling silver. They come in pairs, but you can choose the design of each of them. Go binary and get one “Happy” and one “Sad,” or get the equivalent of a cartoon conscious and get one “Devil” and one “Angel,” or just hint at how much you love your job and get two “Bored” cufflinks.

Sure it may be inexpensive and “engrave-able” with a label printer, but wow, you’ve got to get something else besides that gigantic black binder clip you borrowed from your office to store your money in. It’s not only bad for the magnetic stripes on your card, it makes you look…well, cheap. And that you value a quick solution instead of a smart one. Why not check out our cash-organizers instead? They’re geeky, innovative, and stylish. Just like you, right?

The simplest, most elegantly nerdy solution for you if you primarily carry cash and one or two credit cards is the Circuit Board Money Clip ($10). Choose your circuitboard color–red, green, or blue–and then clip together your loose bills and receipts. Easy.

So you’ve got a few more credit cards but still like the concept of a money clip. The Duct Tape Money Clip will be absolutely perfect for you. Everyone knows how useful duct tape is for securing cables to the floor, holding broken CRT monitor cases together and repairing holey laptop bags, but as it turns out it also makes awesome wallets. There’s 2 credit card slots and 1 clear ID window along with the money clip part so you can stash the essentials in style.

So you need a better solution than just a hopped-up money clip, but you still want to show off your nerd cred, and you don’t want anything that’s too bulky. Check out these Tyvek Dot Matrix Wallets that come in Trifold ($23) and Bifold ($18) forms. It looks like you’ve got a wallet made from retro pin-fed accounting paper that people used to use to print out reports or ASCII art, but it’s made of super strong yet thin and waterproof Tyvek–a paper-like material made from plastics (the same thing that USPS Priority Mail envelopes are made from). The printed numbers are the first 3,000 digits of pi, which not only made a nice decoration, it also makes your wallet into a swank reference tool.

You’re a gadget freak and wish you could apply cool technology to managing your cash and credit cards every day. You’ve got to check out this Credit Card Organizer ($39.50)–just push the corresponding switch and the card you want is nudged out of its slot for you to grab and use with ease. They’re totally lightweight with a low profile and have a cash clip on the reverse to store more stuff. You can even switch out the icons assigned to each slot with others or just use colors. And you’ll never go back to a standard wallet again!

OK, so you’re a gadget freak and a card freak. The option for you is the larger version of the aforementioned gadget: the 12-Card Credit Card Organizer ($58). The same six switches control 2 cards now, doubling your payment / loyalty-generating power. It’s perfect if you use a bag or a purse and don’t need to stuff it down your pants–er, pockets–every day.

While a gadget that pops out cards by the push of a switch is definitely cool, you’re more of a traditionalist, but with still a ton of credit cards and cash.Your best best would be to go with the Duct Tape Hybrid Credit Card Wallet ($15). There’s slots for nine credit cards and a clear window for your ID, as well as a regular money fold and a slot for coins. It’s the ultimate, nerdiest solution for physical money exchange management and it won’t set you back too much at a mere fifteen bucks.

If you’re almost sold, there are more options between the ones we’ve picked. Check out all the wallets we have here and you’ll surely be on your way to being a more organized, money-at-the-ready geek.