Holiday Shopping Ideas
A crazy Tuesday — snow in the morning, way late getting into the office, rush around all day, then Fast Money in the evening, then home to find that missus decided to paint the den without me.
Oh, well, I guess I’ll just have to break out the laptop, and go shopping instead. I still have plenty of people left on my list, after last week’s shopping.
I have lots of suggestions in all price ranges. 
These are the objets d’art on my list this year:
• I am a huge fan of Carl Richard’s Behavior Gap — some of his signed and numbered limited edition prints have managed to find their way into a few of my pals stockings this year. For anyone who works in finance, its just fun stuff. ($100-200)
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• Got a Springsteen fan on your list? The Promise: The Darkness On The Edge of Town Story is a no brainer. The “deluxe package” has six hours of film, more than two hours of audio on 3 CDs and 3 DVDs, and features The Making of ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town,’ a documentary directed by Grammy- and Emmy-winning filmmaker Thom Zimny. The ninety-minute film combines never-before-seen footage of Springsteen and the E Street Band shot between 1976 and 1978. great stuff for any Bruce fan. ($99)
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• Last year, I mentioned the Frogman, and lots of you wrote in the froggies made lovely gifts. Check out this year’s Bamboo Monumental — 12 feet tall, and only $150,000!
If you don’t have the yardage for that, I love this little yella fella: Jump start ($680)
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• As soon as the new iPod Nano Touch was revealed, I rushed out and grabbed a 5th Gen the old model — the superior Apple iPod nano 16 GB Purple (5th Generation). Scroll wheel, video camera, FM radio — i just like it better than the new nano touch. Better grab them (in whatever color you can) while you can at Apple, eBay and Amazon before they are gone! ($150-270)
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• Jack Black Beard Lube Conditioning: A few of you wrote to say you liked the Billy Jealousy face wash — well, you can add this to your products.
I use the Beard Lube as a pre-shave. It slicks your face so your blade glides for an easier, smoother shave with less razor burn. It’s also very light and rinses clean easily.
($16)
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• Buy a gift for yourself (and your back) the Embody Chair by Herman Miller ($1000-1500)
To hell with those ugly Aerons, this is my white whale . . .
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• Panasonic DMC-LX3 Great stats on this camera: 10.1MP Digital Camera with 24mm Wide Angle MEGA Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
• I love the tile of the book: How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming Mike Brown tells the story of how his research on the outer solar system led directly to the death of Pluto, the planet.
For the astro/physics geek on your list. ($14.88)
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December 14th, 2010 at 9:02 pm
I got a Frog last year for my then fiancee, now wife. She collects them!
December 14th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Just to be clear, your gift selection price range is $15 to $150,000 — a 10,000 X spread. Is that correct?
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BR: Now that you mention it, yes it is . . .
December 14th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Agreed on the old nano, primarily for tactile feel, which is nice to have if you’re trying to control your music while keeping your eyes on the road when driving, for example. Got two of them.
Got myself the Springsteen box set too.
December 14th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Lumix are great.
Pluto is still a planet.
December 14th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
I just ordered that coffee maker you recommended a couple weeks ago. If not for your post, I wouldn’t have realized the design had evolved so much since my current vintage.
Of course, if it sucks, I’m giving my wife your email address….
December 15th, 2010 at 1:06 am
I am no fan of the Aeron chair either. I had one at a previous job and found that sitting on the unpadded mesh for long periods was uncomfortable and I didn’t like the fact that when I leaned back, the bottom of the seat remained stationary. However, the Embody Chair for me looks too much like the Alien.
After lots of testing, for my new home office, I went Old School with a Herman Miller Eames Soft-Pad Management chair – a chair that they first began producing in back in 1969. I have been sitting in it for up to 10 hours a day for a few months now and so far, so good.
http://www.hermanmiller.com/Products/Eames-Soft-Pad-Chairs
December 15th, 2010 at 1:09 am
Hey, those Eames make the Embody look reasonable in price !
Thanks!
December 15th, 2010 at 1:14 am
Not to be insulting but if someone can get away with selling a few scribbles on a page for $100 then we have to be on the brink
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BR: You need to check out the scribbles — they are very clever, witty, minimalist drawings.
December 15th, 2010 at 2:56 am
I just purchased the DMC-LX5 camera for an upcoming trip. I love my DSLR, but wanted something lighter and hopefully less noteworthy to thieves. It’s the successor to the LX3.
December 15th, 2010 at 5:02 am
Umm…$680 for a bronze frog? I know a few food banks that would kill for that kind of donation.
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BR: That is a different page: What charities to give to that make the best use of your donations. We’ve done lots of those — Post Tsunami, Katrina, Haiti Earthquakes, etc.
Gift giving and charities are not mutually exclusive.
December 15th, 2010 at 5:29 am
There’s a spoil sport in every crowd !
December 15th, 2010 at 6:19 am
I love the Californication series you mentioned. Its brilliant.
December 15th, 2010 at 7:18 am
Yeah, the new Nano got seriously downgraded compared to the 5th…
December 15th, 2010 at 8:28 am
BR commented re the overpriced t-shirt:
BR: You need to check out the scribbles — they are very clever, witty, minimalist drawings.
reply:
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Long ago, I went to a college art show in a museum setting. Art students displayed their sculpture. One such sculpture was as a 2 foot piece of flexible thin wood that was bent into a wavy, snake appearance. On front were two more pieces of wood made to look like legs. It must have taken 5 minutes or less to find the pieces of wood and construct and was obviously a farce. I touched the art while laughing at it and knocked it over. I put it back up, more or less. A lot of people were around, I was on CCTV, and nobody said a word about me defacing the art, let alone touching it, except for a few others who were also laughing hysterically.
This t-shirt reminds me of the snaky wood thing. $100??? Sucker. Will it shrink? Go to despair.com and see way better similar stuff at a much better price.
December 15th, 2010 at 8:34 am
OOPS. My mistake. You don’t even get a t-shirt with it. Just a scribbly line picture. For only 1 bill each, I’ll take 2. What a steal. ROTFLMAO
Why not just cut and paste the son of a bitch out using microsoft paint and make a few laser printer copies on good paper, for personal use only.
December 15th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
So I decided to boycott Amazon.com this holiday season to protest their booting of Wikileaks from their cloud servers … but now am feeling very conflicted, as they are offering the complete 4-season set of my favorite all-time SciFi series, Farscape DVD set for $55:
http://www.amazon.com/Farscape-Complete-Ben-Browder/dp/B002GP7ZWI
Just over $2 per disc … Damn you, Amazon!
December 15th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Anyone with feedback on the Logitech Squeezebox Touch? Thinking of adding it to my Santa list.
December 15th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
ewmayer,
Maybe you can resolve your conflict by considering that Amazon just took the advice of their lawyers.
Hell, they yank anything that has even a whiff of a potential copyright problem.
When they find they are hosting something that both sides admit was obtained illegally, of course they’re going to kill it.
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