We feel sorry for Monday sometimes. It's had the misfortune of being placed after the weekend, and through no fault of its own reviled by adults and children everywhere for spoiling their free time.

Maybe if we had access to some Bionic Bopper Cars every Monday, the day's reputation would improve. You might even want the weekend to be over sooner.

Sold by New York-based hardware store Hammacher Schlemmer (and brought to our attention by PC World), the Bionic Bopper Cars are a life-sized version of the old plastic "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em" robots you may have played with as a kid.

Rather than pressing a trigger with your thumb, you actually climb into these six-foot tall robots (safely protected inside a metal cage) and battle away with huge metal tire-tread-fisted arms.

They weigh 850 pounds and thanks to a small Honda engine, you can move them around at 3 mph to get a better shot on your opponent. A 12-volt battery powers the electronic functions for five hours of punch-throwing fun. That said, we aren't sure how much fun the enormous clangs from every punch would be after five hours...

If you want your Mondays to improve, then start lobbying your employer. They might have to be quite open-minded though, since the robots cost $17,000. Gossip around the coffee machine probably isn't as fun, but a lot cheaper...