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It's true that money can't buy everything: Shoplifters will steal the rest.

The profile of your average person looking for a five-finger discount has changed as the recession has hung around: It's now middle-class types stealing little luxuries to "keep up appearances," rather than survive. (Winona Ryder, you've got company.)

A British survey of shops showed an uptick in "shrinkage" (retailer jargon for theft). And they're pointing the finger at not-the-usual suspects. Middle-class shoppers short on cash who justify their crime sprees as a sign of the times: It's the economy, stupid. Wanna-be Martha Stewarts are snatching pricey cuts of meat, fish and cheeses, all to keep up with the just-as-broke Joneses'. Go figure. And it's not just the U.k. Shoplifting has swept the the globe.

While some interviewed basically viewed the whole thing as a victimless crime, swiping goods, even from huge, global chainstores will hit everybody in the wallet (those that bother to use one) as retailers jack up the prices to make up for the losses.

Well, they say crime doesn't pay.

This year, the gift trend toys with your mind.

Mattel, better known as the house of Barbie, showed up at the Consumer Electronics Show back in January with a funny-looking contraption called Mindflex. The set-up entails a small purple ball, a white-and-blue plastic "obstacle course" console, and a headset.

But not just any headset: You strap it around your forehead, then try and move the ball with your brainwaves. Telekinesis for the holiday stocking? Looks like a winner.

Mind the gender gap
Online lookups on Yahoo! for "mindflex," "mattel mindflex," and "mindflex game" are, dare we say, mind-boggling. In the past 7 days, they've made the top 5,000 searches on Yahoo!. (Scarcity's part of its appeal: Vendors cut back on toy orders this holiday season.)

While blogs think the male geek market's the primary target, the Web traffic for the game's coming mostly from prepubescent boys and women aged 35-44. Sure, some women might be doing some gift browsing, but their searches are more than double than men of the same age.

The Mattel game, which went on sale in October, has a fan base in the Eastern half of the U.S. Places most itching to play brain ball: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Connecticut, South Carolina and Minnesota.

What's behind mind control
The popularity taps into the ultimate couch-potato fantasy: moving things without moving a muscle. The sensors, explains the Mattel site, reads brainwaves using a "variation of EEG technology." PC World gets into more specifics: The game's based on NeuroSky technology, and taps into "beta-wave activity" (what deep thinkers give off when they concentrate), converts it into a signal, then transmits that "as a radio frequency."

Big dreams
Mind control may be a game now, but the hope is this technology could evolve to train athletes, personalize online communication with emotional feedback, wake up drivers falling asleep at the wheel, and even help people focus their way out of Alzheimer's or addictions. (For the worst-case scenarios, just go to the sci-fi and horror section of any bookstore.)

Worth the brain cells?
It might help already: One Amazon reviewer claimed MindFlex is helping her autistic son slow down and concentrate. Other reviewers, though, found that the allure of raising a ball up and down wore out pretty fast, and isn't worth the price tag (ranging from $59.99—sold out, of course—to as much as $120.)

By the way, if you do try it out and the ball refuses to move, don't panic: You still have brain activity. The game requires 4 C batteries.

While most Americans gain a pound (or 10) over the holidays, the only repercussion is tight clothes. In Japan, employees must face an annual physical exam that includes the dreaded tape measure. If your waist is over the mandated limit, you don't just run the risk of looking bad, you — and your business — get in trouble.

Faced with high health care costs that the country links to obesity, the law of the land now requires employers to keep the numbers of fatties to a certain low level or risk fines — and be required to pay in more for health care coverage. And those health care costs aren't getting any cheaper.

Apparently, the Japanese take this annual humiliating ritual pretty seriously, going on crash diets and joining gyms to whittle their waists down to government-acceptable levels.

Here's the biggest irony: Japan's obesity rate, according to the Global Post, is actually the world's lowest. (A skimpy 5% compared with a scale-busting 35% in the U.S.) But in the last three decades, the population's weight has ballooned, along with worrisome levles of diabetes. Their solution: Legislate weight.

Oh, and if you're planning to visit anytime soon, rest assured: The law doesn't apply to tourists.