Day 5 of Engadget's Five Days of Holiday Giveaways: Win an unlocked Orange SPV C500
posted December 17th 2004 2:03PM
Yesterday in Engadget's Five Days of Holiday Giveaways
we gave away a Nokia N-Gage QD to the person with the best embarassing gadget-related story. But today we're going out
with a bang (until Sunday, anyway, when we'll announce the grand-prize winner of a Voltaic Solar Backpack in the
Engadget in Public contest) and we're giving
away the smallest Smartphone around. You can call it the HTC Typhoon, the i-Mate Smartphone 3, the Qtek 8010, the Dopod
565, or the Audiovox SMT5600, but it's the Orange SPV C500. That's just what it is, okay? So get over it. And you get
it—unlocked and ready to go. So don't say we never gave you nuthin'! The contest: tell us about the best
gadget gift you ever gave someone else that you really wanted yourself (or that you were hoping they'd just give up and
give back)!
Also, the first runner up will get free copy of Migo,
the software that lets you take your PC desktop with you on your iPod. Good luck, everyone!
P.S - You know the drill about shipping to non-US residents. Very sorry, but we can't!
Well, this isn't quite a 'gadget', how about a home alarm system?
DAY 1-
I got the system installed into the house and the 'nice' man told me how to set it up, so we do it, and it worked. Later that night i wanted to turn it on, and it said its not registered. I thought hum... and then i pressed the blicking red button again, and it worked so i went to bed.
DAY 2
I wake up and just as i was about to walk out of the door, i relized it was on, so i put in my code with the remote, and nothing happens. i go up to the system with the remote and pressed everysingle button with the remote (including the emergancy), and nothing happened. Just nothing, so i put in my code into the system. As i walked out of the door i heard my neighbors house alarm go off and they weren't at home, they were in vacation in mexico or something, and I walk into the door and then the cops came! (This was before they made the law if the house alarm goes off then the police can't come). And they were like...
cops - PUT YOUR HANDS UP
me - Excuse me, i think you have the worng idea... im just the..
cop - BURGLER!!!
me - No! i live right across the street, i left the house and i noticed the alarm went off..
cop - *strangleing me and put cuffs on*
me - *sitting in car...*
Later that day they kept asking me question at the police station and I was like 'NO!!! I LIVE ACCROS THE SCREET, WHY AREN'T YOU BELIVEING ME, THEY WENT TO MEXICO FOR HOLIDAY!!!"
After words, they called my neihbors and they are like yeah thats my neighbor.
From that day on, i will ever use a security system remote ever again. Ever.
The best gadget gift I have ever given was an iPod mini. Ive allways been into gadgets, and thus, allways been the one in the family to get the cool stuff. 2 months ago, my brother was looking around at MP3 players, and I began preaching to him the awesomeness of the iPod. Unfortunatly, he had got it in his head to get anything but the iPod. So, being the kind and generous person that I am, I bought him one. Now, I dont have an iPod of my own, though I dealy wish I did. I figured that if he really did not want it, I could keep it for myself. Turns out that he is in love with it. Takes it everywhere with him. He even figure out on his own how to transfer music to it. Damn you Apple! Why do you have to make everything so easy to use!?
Isn't it most embarsing story?
Oh... Jee... silly me =(
Gave my father a 43" Pioneer plasma screen tv...
Ok, about 3 or 4 years ago, I bought my best friend and myself Camera watches, I think they were Casio. Well, we went to see my brother (we are all about the same age) and he saw our watches. I didn't get him one because I didn't think he'd want one. Well, he expressed great excitement towards them and I think sort of expected one also. So I felt bad and told him I left his at my house. I then proceded to go home, and take my sweet, sweet camera watch off, repackage it and sacrifice it to him... He was very happy, I was somewhat sad, but felt good for what I had done...
Scott.
Gave a $170 Pronto All in One remote control to my in-laws and had it returned to my conniving little mitts the next family gathering. The only way the wife would allow me to spend that much on a remote was as a gift for her father. Ya, the same guy that couldn't properly record a show on his Tivo.
I bought myself an iPaq h2210 last year. My wife was pissed because I didn't "approve" it with her. She was actually pretty mad with me because it was like the third time I had done something like that last summer and it was costing a lot of money! Anyway, she started playing with it and she LOVED the thing. Within 30 seconds she was like, "I NEED THIS, NOT YOU" and I was basically off the hook when I told her I would buy her one. So I did. It was our 8th wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks, so I bought her one. The part of the story that applies to this, however, is that the Motorola MPX200 came out a month after I bought my h2210 and I decided to go the "all in one route". Once I had my MPx200 for a week, it seemed like it could do the job for me, so I sold my h2210 on eBay for a nice loss of about $100 + (when you count the software).
But then, after another month or so, the MPx200 became a real pain in the ass (battery issues, lack of PPC capabilites, etc) and I quickly had "wife gear envy" and wished I had never sold my h2210 on eBay! Needless to say, my wife thought it was pretty funny rubbed it in for quite some time.
Ok now, Let me get this story stright!
It was my mothers birthday and she needed a laptop, but she hates technology, and we got her a apple g4 ibook. (it wasn't that long ago). I wanted it. So badly. For myself, and nobody els. Buying it made me so happy, and yet sad, and yet jelous =(. I remeber my mom opening it up and she was like "Oh huny, I dont need this..." I was like "Sure you do mom, your the greatest mother ever" And she was like "IF YOU SAY SO". Riped open the box charged it up and played with it.
Made me so mad *me shakes his fists* DAMNN YOUU HUMAN EMOTION!!
ah, let's see its a little weird so here goes, i won a treo 600 smart phone last year, but due to the fact that i work in a place that has a no camera of anytype policy i was stuck without being able to use it. so here i was with a wonderous phone that i can't use and a job i don't want to quit, so...
i gave it to my girl at the time (now my wife), and of couse she still doesn't really know how to use it. She only uses it like a regular camera phone but with a screen nice enough to surf the web on, but doesn't sms or use the palm functions at all... damn
Gave my 2 yr old son a Playstation for Christmas even though I knew he wouldn't be able use the controllers to play the games. I would just let him hold an unplugged controller while I played :-) Now that he's 9 he kicks my butt on PS2 games.....
Last Christmas I was trying to decide what to get my wife for Christmas. I’m pretty big into gadgets and enjoy new tech stuff. She is also...just to a different degree. I had just bought a new bluetooth phone (Z600 at the time) and did the hacked firmware upgrade of my X5 which in turn...killed my bluetooth driver support...uggg. About the same time the gift I had ordered her came in...the ipaq 2215. So I was out of time for another gift...so I gave up my chance to use my bluetooth with a pda...and gave it too her...which she used it with a t610 like twice before she decided she wanted a different phone. What I really need now is a C500.
I built a custom computer for a friend of mine for his birthday. Had alot of nice stuff in it. Raedon 9600Pro,Pentium 4 2.4ghz Processor,512mb PC3200 RAM, 120gb HDD, a nice mobo for ocing(forgot the model). So anyway, I really wanting this for myself after booting it up and putting Linux on it. I was basicly drooling, however the guy needed a new computer. He had a 233mhz Dell. So I gave it to him in hopes he would give it back to me. Alas, he didn't. He has the computer running at 3ghz and using it all the time. He also got a 17" LCD Monitor. So thats what I gave in hopes it would come back to me.
Okay, this is the best gadget I gave it to someone.
Few months back, I saw Audiovox Thera was on sale at TigerDirect.com for USD 150, at that time it was the cheapest Pocket PC Phone, and the specks were not too bad. People had a LOVE/HATE relationship with it. There is no way I could justify spending so much money, when I already had a phone, and my wife would not approve of the same.
During that time, my wife's Birthday was on due, and I thought it would be the best opportunity. So I ordered one, and gave it to her as a present, I knew that I am, the one who will be playing with it for a long time to come as she did not care much for Gadgets.
But the thing is she started to love that device. She liked its capabilities where she could browse the internet or IM people from wherever she was. She also started to show off the phone to every one.
What can I say, I just turned into a green monster because of jealousy.
My grandfather loves war movies and he has a nice wega 50 inch television. For his birthday, a couple of us got him the "Band of Brothers" DVD set (the one in the tin can) and a set of home theatre system. Of course it was a group gift and when we bought it, I was like "I wish I had this". Later in the week we received a phone call from grandma, saying that grandpa had a heart attack while watching the "battle of the Buldge" episode. He apparently left the home theatre system on full blast and when the bombing began he got scared and ended up in the hospital. He's OK, but I couldn't help but wonder if I could have been left with the TV, Movie, Home theatre system if he had past away. Just a thought!!
This christmas I am giving away one of those photo printer docks specifically for digital cameras. Now, I know to most of you this isn't the ideal gadget... and it wouldn't be for me either except that my parents just got a small generic digital camera and need to print photos. I have had my DSLR for almost a year now, still have a HP inkjet from like 1995, and have yet to print out a photo even though part of my profession is my photography. Everything I have shot has gone to the computer, been erased from the camera, and not seen again unless it has made it to my website. I would never ask for one of these small photo-printer-dock-dodads... but since I don't have the money for a good professional printer, and don't have the need to send out for prints, this would actually be something that I would like to have and yet for some reason get for someone besides me.
Last year, I decided to give my brother (who was away at college) some entertainment--I decided to get him an X-Box. I thought it would be cool if I modded it for him so I started looking online for what you can do with one. I started with just a mod chip, I figured that would be enough to get him started, and it probably would have, but by the time I got done instlaling the mod chip and seeing what I could so with it, I had made it my personal project to pimp it out as much as possible. So then I added a 120 GB hard drive in there, made it so it could stream mpg, divx, mp3...you name it. Backed up some games for him, and then I stumbled across soemthing really neat. Emulators for other systems. Now that was too cool to pass up, so I loaded it with almost every console from the NES and on and a ton or ROMs (all...uhh, of games I own, obviously.) I spewnt the next few days working out all the bugs and installing any other cool programs that I found and then...*sniff* and then I had to box it back up and wrap it.
Well, this happened about 3 years ago while I living in NYC.
My then-roommate worked for the Department of Defense, and was doing a lot of traveling to a number of european countries.
He had always thought about getting a GSM phone, so he could use it regardless of the country he was in, but never got around to it.
When the Matrix came out, he wanted to get one of the Nokia phones with the auto-sliding covers, but alas, they were made only for the movie.
As he was (and still is) my best friend, I went and got him the Nokia 8860, the sleek brushed aluminum world-phone with the sliding cover and the neat blue-ish LCD. It cost me a pretty penny too ($550 IIRC), and I almost kept it. I loved that phone, but work had given me a Motorola StarTac, so I gave him the phone.
Even with all the new phones that have been out, he still sticks to the 8860, and refuses to upgrade it. He's been keeping an eye on the MPx220, but we'll see.
That's it... I know it's kinda sappy, but oh well. Mark, you rock!
For my daughter's B-Day this past October I/we bought her a GameBoy SP. I wanted it really bad so that I could get that nifty Movie adapter thing and a 1GB CF card.... But dang it, she's always gaming on it so I never get to use it.
How about the reverse? Bought "Sims Bustin' Out" for myself for my NGAGE. My Wife and Daughter immediately snatched it up whenever I was home. I could use my NGAGE for a month and I'm still trying to learn how to fish when they are running their night club or whatever.
(Lame stories I know but I'm really intrigued by the phone... even though it won't work with iSync.)
Another iPod saga...I buy a fair amount of gadgets, ipaqs, palms, smartphones, etc... And my girlfriend is quite happy to use the 'old' phone everytime I upgrade (every 3 months). I am slowly turning her into one of us. ;) Anyway, for her birthday I bought her the iPod 20GB. Her music collection has ballooned from 1.5GB to 10GB in 3 weeks. She figured out how to use it as a hard drive as well. Now I am very jealous, I have always like flash players, and usb drives. Now she has 10GB of storage at her disposal, and I still only have 256 mb. Waaaa
This is something that has been on my chest for the last 4 weeks. I've commited a cardinal sin in gift giving: I'm not only admiring the gift I got her I am USING it. I bought a new PS2 slim with Vice City San Andreas. She will absolutly adore this present and she is going to have such a good time cutting people's throats in the digital world but, I thought to myself, why let her have all the fun? I held onto it for a week but my technolust knew no bounds and I opened all the boxes and started playing hours upon hours of San Andreas. I avoided talking on the phone while playing for fear I would let out a peep about the game. I'm an absolute addict and I am in a full on battle with myself over whether or not I want to even give it to her! I havn't owned a console since I was 14 and this PS2 has filled that void. I've already commited the fatal error of opening the box and destroying any sense of that "new gadget" feel. She will catch on fairly quickly and I will be in a world of hurt for sure. This is where you, engadget.com, come in. To save my three year relationship with my sweetheart I beg and plead you to award me this prize to somehow make it up to her. Maybe if I relay to her how I was able to, through my greed and self centered attitude, win her a new even cooler gadget she'll forgive me.
-Ian
I just bought and subsequently gave away [as a Christmas gift] a brand new Nintendo DS and 2 games to my little brother who'll very likely destroy the touchscreen within a week. I could almost cry.
Whoever said it is better to give than receive really never had to give away 50 B&O telephones and 2 B&O stereo systems.
I was running a program at a former company and decided that the best way to get people excited and motivated was with shiny, pretty, high bling factor toys. So, made an arrangement with the local B&O store to acquire all the goods. Let's just say that the PO raised some eyebrows with my management chain, but they thought it was a good idea and signed off on it (this was a very big and very generous company).
The time came to start sending out the phones as gifts for all the participants in the program. Looking at a room filled with slick B&O telephones was almost too much for me to bear. I could hear them calling out to me, wanting me to have one.
Fortunately, the stereo systems were shipped direct, so I never had to lust after them in person.
Best of all, there was a phone left over. I did get to receive after all.
My best friend and I have our birthdays around the same time of year (about a month apart) and we usually go a small trip and celebrate. Well last year we decided to go to Las Vegas, it was his 21st and my 22cd so what better time to go.
So for his birthday I got him a barmaster electronic bar book, a fitting gift for someone turning 21 and what better place to use it, but Las Vegas. So while driving there we discussed that we had gotten each other small gifts this year. And I told him that I got him something that I really wanted for myself but only got one so he’d have to share while we are in Vegas.
He went through different possibilities and finally I asked him what he got me, he said “it’s about the same explanation that you gave me, something I’d want and you have to share it while in Vegas”. So I said this can’t go on any long why don’t you and I just open these suckers up.
So at the same time we opened the gifts and BAM! It was the same exact thing. I guess it just showed how good of friends we actually were to give each other the same thing and something we both wanted, for the same occasion.
So by far that was the best given gadget, something I really wanted and in the end got my self. I don’t know how many gadgets are given like that. And as an added bonus I didn’t have to share.
Its not really a gadget, but I bought my tech friend at work a thermal winter thong. I'm not saying I didnt want it because it did look quite cozy with a little poof ball on the back, which made it look like a santa hat. He loved it and i bought it as a gag gift but i kinda did want it. sorry it was off topic but i couldnt resist! God bless.
Its not really a gadget, but I bought my tech friend at work a thermal winter thong. I'm not saying I didnt want it because it did look quite cozy with a little poof ball on the back, which made it look like a santa hat. He loved it and i bought it as a gag gift but i kinda did want it. sorry it was off topic but i couldnt resist! God bless.
For my boy friend's birthday he wanted a new flashy cell phone to replace his aging Samsung SGH-300. He wanted something not many people have, something that has unique looks and must have a speakerphone included. Between the two of us we are both pretty gadget obsessed, I am however crazily gadget obsessed, especially when it comes to cell phones. And yes I'm a girl!
After alot of researching I decided the Motorola V80 was the phone for him. It has really unique styling and good-looks. The flip out key pad and flashing lights are very original and very few people in the states seem to have it. Plus it has a bright color display, a decent camera and speakerphone. I ordered it from Expansys. My boyfriend fell in love with it right out of the box. The only complaint he has for the phone is the pretty dismal battery life. Ever since then he hasn't stopped getting compliments from people about the phone. This has kinda sparked my jealousy. Ok, well not kinda, but a lot. I got the Nokia 6230 back in April and I'm happy with it, but my phone isn't as flashy as his and it never gets any compliments :( Everyday seeing him use his phone still makes me wish I had gotten the same phone. But I can't becuase twin phones would be too cliche!
I have a blog where I talk about gadgets and did a comparison review between the Tmobile Sidekick and the Treo 600. This was back in July and I knew that I wanted to do a new comparison when the Sidekick II and Treo 650 were out. I actually bought the Treo 600 from a friend and gave my Color Sidekick to my wife, who previously had a B&W Sidekick. In October when the SK-II was out, I decided to give it to her for our 1-year anniversary. I knew she wanted it, or at least would be happy to get it, but I could have thought of something more imaginative and which she might like better. She likes gadgets and all, but not nearly as much as me! I was doing it partially because I wanted to play with it and review it eventually, although not actually to take it over from her - since I've moved on from the SK and am now fully a Treo guy...
As a college student, you can imagine that I don't have very much money. Even though I'm a Computer Engineering major, one of my biggest hobbies has always been film, and manipulating film to produce special effects.
My sister's wedding was in May 2003, and I had saved up a fair amount of money from my job the summer before. She is eight years older than me, and she is also my only sister. I wanted to give her a gift that would show how much I care for her and how I wished only the best for her and her future family. I needed to find something that would be perfect -- something that I know she would love and something that gets my message across.
I went to B&H Photo Video in downtown Manhattan, and found a truly beautiful digital camcorder. It is a JVC Optura 20, and even though it isn't one of the fanciest DV camcorders, I could envision her filming family moments of children and vacations and other delightful family events. Even though film is a hobby of mine, I don't own a camcorder (I borrow one of the school's or one of a friend's).
At the time it pained me to think I was spending about $700 on an item which could bring me so much joy, but the joy that my sister and her husband could get from using this and raising a family was enough for me. They couldn't be happier with it, and I couldn't be happier for them.
It still gets to me seeing them use it, or showing me home movies that they've taken with it. There is a sense of satisfaction that comes with improving the lives of those you love, and even though I haven't been able to afford a camcorder for myself, I have absolutely no regrets about the decision I made.
It had just arrived from Japan. My shiny new Toshiba Libretto L5 ultra portable laptop. I was just getting it all set up, tweaking the os, and getting all my favorite apps installed when I decided it would be a good idea to "upgrade" my girlfriend's computer. Everything was going great, I opened her computer up, performed the upgrade, and closed it up. She thought I was some kind of super pro. Well... it seems I lost one of the screws in the process somewhere under the mother board. Feeling all proud and ready to show off to my girlfriend how speedy her new upgrade was I overlooked the missing screw and booted up her computer. Everything went fine for about the first 30 seconds and then I smelled that familiar smell. Have you ever heard the joke that all electronics have a certain amount of smoke built into them that makes them run and if you let the smoke out they don't work anymore? well I let the smoke out...
So out of good will I let her "borrow" my new laptop. I warned her that "she wouldn't even be able to use it" because the os was in Japanese and there was no cd-rom drive. She said I should just show her how to "get to the internet" and see if she could manage. Well seeing if she could "manage" turned into her "borrowing" my laptop for quite sometime, in fact she has it right now. see it turns out that she was quite good at figuring out the Japanese os and the next time I saw the laptop she had changed options that I didn't even know existed. I was crestfallen; but I decided to stick it out because after all I had bungled her computer up pretty good. anyway... the situation persists to this day, I'm busy, I'm lazy (to fix her computer), and she loves the laptop, so what can I do... :-)
Hands down it's having to give my boss a MyFi this year for the holidays. I'm looking at the box right now and you have no idea how badly I want to just say F it, crack this baby open, and listen to the portable goodness of XM. I knew these things were great just from reading about 'em, but now that I look at it, it's freaking awesome! Built in FM transmitter (which might suck, but still...), car kit, home kit, built in antenna... Mmm... 5 hours of content storage...
He won't use it. He won't appreciate it. He always wants to brag to everyone about the latest gadget that he has. Which, by the way, is all due to me giving him advice. If it wasn't for me, he'd be just a short, bald, angry man. Instead, he's a short, bald, angry man who has the coolest stuff around. It's not fair. And the worst part is, once he gets it I'll have to set it up for him and show him how it works. I'll have to be all nice and helpful while a knife is turning inside me, causing pain and anguish. Worst Christmas ever...
Unlike him, I don't have small anatomy and need the latest and greatest gadgets to boost my ego.
I recently started my first grown up job, and of course the next week was my dad's birthday. So I took my new paycheck and bought him an 80 hour tivo (I myself have been without tiv since college). I kept wishing that he would say he couldn't figure it out, like he always says, and maybe he would send it back to me. Never happened, infact this is unfortunatly the first gadget my family has ever own where I havn't had to serve as tech support. That almost makes up for not have in a Tivo.
this starts out as a gift I was *given* and reverses. My husband gave me a first gen iPod right after they came out. I thought they were nice and all, but I didn't really need it, didn't have much call to use it. So it sat around a lot, and I was mercilessly teased about not using it (to the point of him asking, "do you even know where it is?"). His envy was virulently potent. Of course he'd gotten it engraved for me so he wouldn't just take it! Fast forward to this year. I'm finally out of grad school, good job, using my iPod every day at work. I can finally afford to get him an iPod! I spent time researching which model to go for (20gb 4g or the new photo model), figured out which peripherals he'd need, and even researched the best headphones for his taste. Little did I know when he opened the package I would see the iPod *I* wanted--all lovely curves, much nicer features, and room enough for all of my music. How wrong it is for me to covet his iPod when I just started using my own!!! I'm already trying to figure out how I can justify the expense of a new one. He can't keep his hands off his now!
I'm currently in the middle of my story. I have been helping my family all get new plans and cellphones (9 lines worth in all) this holiday. In the process, I've set up both a RAZR V3 and an Audiovox SMT5600 among others. I've gotten to test them out, but painfully had to hand them over to siblings and parents. The truely sad part is that I'm waiting for Cingular to certify the SMT5600 and in the meantime am limping along with a Nokia 5190. Yes, you read that correctly, a 5190. Watching this array of wonderful new phones pass through my hands and having to give them all up has not been fun. Worst part is, there's seemingly no end in sight for my wait as the assistant manager at the local Cingular store told me a couple days ago that the SMT5600 didn't pass certification and wouldn't be offered. Not sure if he's right, but it sure did make me long for one of those phones I gave to the family.
I got to geek out vicariously for my friends. How? Well, for the last several years, I have been the tech answer man for the wives of several of my friends. It starts with the "I want buy my husband a geek toy but I am deftly afraid of Best Buy" (paraphrasing just a little). So I would hit the websites, do a litte research, figure out what I would want, then point at something and say "Buy this".
On at least two occasions, the help I was providing drove me to wanting/getting one myself.
The biggest gadget I have ever given away was my 85 Lincoln Towncar. Someone told me that I can file it as a gift on my taxes. But after giving away a working, funtionally sound and in great shape lincoln Towncar limited edition with auto rear view mirror tinting, moonroof, leather interior, 4.0 V8 ...etc..etc, my accountant said I can't. Something about my deductions and dependancies were not sufficient. :-( Hey you live you learn. Anyone seen my car arround that i can buy it back?
I had been living in Japan for almost a year and was going home for Christmas. All of my friends and most of my family members asked me to bring them electronics for their presents. I didn't have a lot of money, but I had enough to be able to buy everyone pretty cool (for the time) MD players, CD players, shelf stereos, cameras, and toys.
I went shopping and came back to my apartment with all these wonderful packages. Packages that I had lusted for myself for the better part of the year.
For the next few hours I just surrounded myself in shiny new unopened boxes. Reading what I could and just enjoying the pictures.
Then I had an idea.
To this day I am not sure if my next move was a blessing or a curse. I opened up everyone's presents and used their presents for the better part of a month on the pretext that "I need to make sure that your present works properly before bringing it back to the States. I would hate to give you a present that doesn't work."
As far as gadget heaven goes, it was so much fun. As far as gadget hell goes, it almost made me cry when it was time place everyone back in their foam and cardboard homes and say goodbye.
I do have to admit though, it was really fun to give everyone their presents, and see sparks of gadget madness take over their souls that Christmas.
An additional bonus came when I impressed everyone with my "general" knowledge of how to instantly use every gadget that came home with me. Practice makes perfect and while I wasn't perfect a month of practice made me damn good.
I had been living in Japan for almost a year and was going home for Christmas. All of my friends and most of my family members asked me to bring them electronics for their presents. I didn't have a lot of money, but I had enough to be able to buy everyone pretty cool (for the time) MD players, CD players, shelf stereos, cameras, and toys.
I went shopping and came back to my apartment with all these wonderful packages. Packages that I had lusted for myself for the better part of the year.
For the next few hours I just surrounded myself in shiny new unopened boxes. Reading what I could and just enjoying the pictures.
Then I had an idea.
To this day I am not sure if my next move was a blessing or a curse. I opened up everyone's presents and used their presents for the better part of a month on the pretext that "I need to make sure that your present works properly before bringing it back to the States. I would hate to give you a present that doesn't work."
As far as gadget heaven goes, it was so much fun. As far as gadget hell goes, it almost made me cry when it was time place everyone back in their foam and cardboard homes and say goodbye.
I do have to admit though, it was really fun to give everyone their presents, and see sparks of gadget madness take over their souls that Christmas.
An additional bonus came when I impressed everyone with my "general" knowledge of how to instantly use every gadget that came home with me. Practice makes perfect and while I wasn't perfect a month of practice made me damn good.
Last month my cell phone service contract ended and my wife's birthday was quickly approaching and I hadn't bought her a cool present yet. I decided to sign up with Cingular and get a family plan and two phones. I wanted the cool new Motorola RAZR phone. She had always told me she hated flip phones. OK, so being sneaky or trying to be, I got the RAZR and the Nokia 6010. I gave her the RAZR and said the 6010 was for me. I was fully expecting her to ask to trade - to jump at any chnce to get away from the flip phone. But NO, she loved it. She even ran around the house for a day pretending it was a star trek communicator. I got stuck with the non-supercool 6010.
I've got two. Starting with the most recent, I gave my girlfriend a beautiful iPod mini. Yes, everyone gave everyone an iPod at some point, but for me it's slightly different, as I work in the music industry, and still don't have one. I think everyone thinks I got one day one, but I didn't and I took my cash and bought my lady one.
But the bigger surprise was the gadget gift that was rejected. It's one thing when you politely turn down the pimply faced girl's dance request at the Prom, but when you kick Giselle Bundchen out of bed, there's something wrong. Last Christmas, I bought my parents a Tivo...I'd lived with and loved mine for two years, and I thought it was time to spread the joy. But because my parents didn't have super cable or satellite, they started freaking out about it, then began bickering about merits of getting satellite tv, and finally decided they didn't want the Tivo. Truly unbelievable to see a Tivo go unloved and unwanted. More than hurting my feelings about picking it out, I think they hurt Tivo's. Poor poor tivo.
I had an electronic nose picker that i found in my grandpas house. The box looked like it was from the 50's, and it plugged into the wall outlet. I gave it to a girl i liked at a christmas party. Everyone had quite a time with it.
I was 7. My older brother (in High school at the time) was a Star Trek nut and because I though he was cool I was too. In the toy store I found a pair of walkie talkies that looked like communicators. I wanted them sooooo bad. It's the first gadget I remember. I talked my mom into buying them for him for his birthday, since mine was months away and christmas even more remote. I had dreams of us spending hours playing Star Trek in the back yard, he Captin Kirk me the daring and doomed red shirted ensign. When he got them he did like them but he decided that they would be a collectors item and refused to open the package. I was crushed.
Don't know if it is a gadget in your mind, but the only definition I know of for a gadget is: a device that is very useful for a particular job.
According to that definition this fits.
One year for Valentine's Day I gave my girlfriend a few different presents. One of those presents consisted of some "body butter" creams and I was planning on having a romantic evening and a great night... We had been dating for almost a year, but had recently hit a rough patch and I had been hoping to put all that behind us. I was looking to the future. So was she...
We exchanged presents in the morning and at lunch time I received a phone call at work to tell me that it was over and she really loved another man.
Yep, that SOB got to use my gadget on Valentine's Day. Yep, getting pissed just thinking about it. Thanks for bringing up the memories. Appreciate it.
About 5 months ago I decided to upgrade my computer with the latest and greatest. At the same time I had dreams of giving my fiance my old rig (9600XT, 1Gb DDR, XP 2500) and magicly turning her into a gamer. I would sit at work day dreaming of us holding hands while we laying waste to our enemies in call of duty.
Fast foward to the present, and I shed a little tear everytime I walk into our office and see her playing solitare. There is a beastly gaming monster under that hood and it will never know its true potential. I guess thats what I get for giving gifts with a hidden motive.
So my girlfriend had been abroad for a semester, she's still a broad now that she's back. She came back near Christmas so eventhough we had not been daiting long I decided to get her something really nice. By really nice I of course mean more expensive then the t-shirt she got me. While walking through Best Buy I saw a sale on the really nice karaoke machines with the built in screen and video outputs and everything. So I got it for her along with several cds full of karaoke songs. For more then a year everytime we had a party the karaoke machine would get brought out and all the guys would hog it and we would make drunken fools of ourselves all night long. I hinted that it would be nice to have my own, but it never happened and then we broke up. Oh well.
I gave my brother an XBox, extra controller, two games and the DVD remote the first Christmas it was out. I really wanted to keep that for myself. Fortunately, he invites me over to play games.
For my Dad's birthday last year, after carrying a 6340i around for over a year, which is a record for cell-phone-ownership for me, I had saved up enough for a top of the line brand new phone, but bought my dad a Dell X5 instead, the one with the fastest processor and all. I wanted it so bad, and had to carry that crappy phone around for another 8 months before I could save up enough to get a new one. It was hard to have him call me all the time asking me how to do this and that, and raving about how cool his new PDA was. :(
I gave my buddy one of those tvbgone key rings. I am an installation artist and am surrounded by a plethora of annoying video loops in galleries and alternative spaces. I have often thought that it would be amazing to be able to just turn off some of the poorer video art in the gallery systems. bye!
This contest is apropos. I am well known for giving family and friends The Coolest Gadgets, primarily as a result of me giving things that I lust after (with the faint, mean-spirited hope they'll find too complicated/involved, and will regift 'em to me).
Examples: Back in '90, I gave my dad a GPS receiver for hiking. I remind you that in '90, a handheld GPS unit was over $2500. He did, in fact, offer it to me when he upgraded to a $150 12-channel Garmin last year, but I didn't want to invest in the batteries to keep the old machine running (it would go through 8 AA cells
in about 45 minutes). I gave my girlfriend a really sweet iBook last year. I gave my brother a night-vision goggle thing. Got the niece Lego Mindstorm Robot Invention System. And she won't even let me play with it :(
I gave my uncle a Casio calculator watch back in 1982. He still uses databank watches as a result. I gave my sister-in-law a tricked-out Linux box with a video capture subsystem a few years ago.
But the ueber-cool gadget has to be the Harbortronics Digisnap intervalometer I gave my brother for doing digital timelapse photography at his seed propagation lab. It hooks directly to the I/O port of most digital cameras, can be programmed in the field, and has a lot of great optimizations for Nikon Coolpix cameras. He liked it and uses it, so I ended up having to get mine for myself.
It was Black Friday last year, and being the nerdy, naive person I am, I accepted my cousin's invitation go to Comp USA for some early-morning shopping goodness. My prize: a $300 Sony digital camera that I intended to give my parents for Christmas. A few hours, and several verbal and physical threats (all directed toward me), I get through the three hour wait, pay for the camera, go home, hide it, and breathe a sigh of relief. Over the course of that month, I debated with myself as to whether or not to keep the camera for myself (it *was* rather awesome), but in the end, I chose to give it away.
Flash forward a month. Merry Christmas! My parents take out my carefully wrapped gift, and open it to find the camera. Much jubilation ensues. Someone comes up with the idea of taking pictures outside, in front of the house. My dad, sister, and I are lined up in front of the house, with my mom with the camera. We're on the driveway, which is safe, albeit slightly icy. Somehow, my mother shifts her weight ever so slightly, and takes a spill. The camera goes flying, and lands in the middle of the street. I dash out to get it before it got run over, and much to my dismay, it no longer worked. My present was ruined not a half hour after it was opened.
If I kept it, that *never* would've happened.