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November 29, 2005
The Fine Art of Nerd-Gifting
Shopping for a nerd is not easy.
The difficulties are multi-tiered. It is likely that your nerd already owns most of the technological delights he wants. Okay, so there are still a few gadgets that he casts longing eyes towards but, come on. You need to pay rent. Besides, even if you did have the budget, the shopping process itself is rife with peril. Perhaps you have witnessed from afar the soul-searching distillation of desired specifications, the fanatic perusal of user reviews, the studied inspection of rumors proclaiming the imminent arrival of The Latest Edition, and, finally, the purchase. Such finely-tuned thoroughness requires not only immense dedication to the gizmo -- which you, as a non-nerd likely lack -- but also demands fluency in a strange breed of acronymns, strings of letters that make no more sense written out than they do in abbreviation. Yes, that level of nerd-shopping is best left to the nerds themselves.
Yet, hope remains. As the daughter of one nerd and the wife of another, I've developed a kind of subversive nerd-gifting. Instead of hoping to miraculously hit upon that Very Cool Tech Gizmo in a half-blind grab, I tend to buy gifts that fall into one of 5 categories:
- Gifts to Surround Gizmos
- Gifts that Capitalize on the Power of "the Series"
- Gifts of Nerd-Affirming Apparel
- Gifts that Assist in Living Among the Technologically Sluggish
- Gifts that Make Me Laugh, Too
The last category, obviously, is my favorite. Currently, my test for nerd-appropriateness and self-gratification is simple: look for "USB" in the product title. The actual meaning, function, or explanation of the inner workings of said "USB" is unimportant. But as far as I can tell, if you can unexpectedly stick it into the USB port, then the thing at the other end stands a fair chance of being cool. Utilitarian gizmos -- fans, lights, coffee-warmers, and humidifiers -- practically quadruple in interestingness simply by virtue of running off of your USB port. And then there's that fascinating genre of USB trinkets whose desirability is based almost solely on their unlikely power source. Piggy FM Radio? Froggy massager? Christmas tree? Dancing Santa? Aquarium? You can't make these things up.
Now, which one do you think Noel would most appreciate?
Carefully Dramatized Life Accounts | By elissa | 09:43 PM
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Comments
From one soon-to-be NerdWife to an veteran NerdWife, I can appreciate this post.
Thanks.
Posted by: Beth at November 30, 2005 08:30 AM
