Tech Gift Ideas for the Last Minute Santa

Hello French Fries!

     I recently purchased a new king size bed, with a new mattress. The two months of using it since has been great! I can spread out without push back from my fiancee, my dog, or my cat. However, I’ve noticed in the past week that I’ve started waking up with pain in my lower back. I tried putting some pillows underneath me, I’ve tried switching my sleeping position, I’ve tried going to bed with a bottle of Advil… nothing seems to fix the pain. However, after I stand up and stretch for about 10-20 minutes, it seems to subside. I do not know if it’s the mattress or spasms or what. If anybody has had similar experiences and has discovered a fix, would you like to share? Please do so in the comments. I’d greatly appreciate any suggestions that you fries would put out there.

 

For my rant of the day: As you may have started noticing, on the posts I publish on Fridays, I tend to go with more lighthearted subjects. So seeing as Christmas is 3 days away, I’m going to do away with my traditional in depth look at a dense subject and highlight some of the coolest looking tech gifts that last minute Santa’s should get for their beloved elves.

In an earlier post, I had already suggested drones. They are fun to play with, like remote controlled toys in the sky. Some of the small simple ones are rather inexpensive. I purchased a $20 drone at Ross that I use to entertain my cat by letting her chase it around. They are a fun and great starter toy for hobbyists. You can shoot videos with a drone, carry things with a drone, they make for interesting conversation starters, they are rather easy to use, and your elf would have such a blast owning one!

Another great idea, especially for tech-savvy designers or people wanting to learn how to design is 3D printers. They are all the rage right now, and allow designers to explore what their designs would look like in three dimensions. The applications of 3D printing are not just limited to designers. Medics have used them to make (rather cool looking) casts, tech-centrist chefs have used them to make food, and price-savvy architectural startups have even used them to make full-on homes for reasonable prices. So if you want to spark the creative and entrepreneurial energies of one of your favorite elves, a 3D printer would be a great idea.

    For the fashionistas out there, smart watches have become a niche corner of the watch market. To be honest, I do not know many women who collect watches, however most of the influential men in my life have a passion for watches. I happen to have a nascent, but growing collection of (non-smart) watches myself. My father, as well as a gentleman who I grew up with and view as a pseudo-older brother both have very impressive watch collections, and they have inspired me into collecting watches. There is a timeless and classy essence that comes with a man who knows his watches. And there are now timeless and classy appearing smart watches out there that make great gifts for the fashion forward elves that you may have in your life. The smart watch market is no longer cornered by Apple and Google, and unlike their wrist computers, the new crop of smart watches actually look like watches.

For the connoisseur of sounds out there, I don’t know if you noticed, but Dr. Dre has started a earbud revolution with his Beats by Dre headphones. Now, I grew up in the Atlanta area, and I was in high school during the mid 2000s, so I definitely was a big proponent of hip hop culture as a teenager. The thing about the hip hop youth culture back then, which is true today as well, is that it’s centered on groundbreaking and visionary artists and the poetic music they release. What better way to listen to Outkast, Eminem, Big Tymers, Pastor Troy, BoB, Lupe Fiasco, Snoop Dogg, Aesop Rock or any of the other great artists that I loved as a teenager than through a great set of ears!

The United States real-estate market has been on a very healthy upward trend this year, and 2018 is supposed to be a banner year for home buyers.  For the new home owning elves in your life, what better way to warm their homes than with an intelligent personal assistant! Echo and Alexa are the two most famous intelligent personal assistants (Echo being built by Amazon, and Alexa by Google). However, there is also Apple’s new HomePod, and some people are loyal brand diehards. They are all basically just glorified smart speakers, but they are fun and make your elves house feel futuristic.

For the gamer out there, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and the Wii U are always popular consoles. These three consoles collectively are the backbone of the eighth generation of video gaming consoles. Each console has been around for about five years now so the prices have dropped about $200 for a new console of each model. There is no real firm news or known plans on when a ninth generation of consoles will come to the market, so for the time being, these consoles are the cutting edge stuff.  Personally, I have a PlayStation 4 and a Xbox One, and I mostly use them for streaming Netflix on my TV, and playing sports video games in the very limited free time that I have (I’m a big fan of FIFA and Madden),  but it’s much nicer to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime on my television through my consoles than having to pull out my laptop and it’s smaller screen.

Lastly, for the artist or documenterian, digital cameras are always in vogue, and are an underappreciated corner of the tech market. I have a Canon T7i that I absolutely love and would challenge anyone with negative opinions to meet me out back. Photographers tend to feel very strongly about the equipment they use, and against ones they refuse to use.  So for the artistic elf in your life, I suggest you get them a digital camera and let their passions flow. Who knows, it could become a fulfilling career for them!

 

I wish you all a Happy Holidays! Christmas is next Monday so I do not know if I’ll release a new post then, but I am looking forward to my three day weekend! Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Belated Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Belated Solstice, Happy any other holiday I forgot to mention. Until next time…

…the ketchup jingles in the bells.