The Engadget Father's Day Gift Guide
We tend to be a bunch of ungrateful bastards here at Engadget, but once a year we try our best to walk in lockstep with the patriarchy and give a little something back with our annual Engadget Father's Day Gift Guide. There are only four days left, but you've still got enough time to make up for not getting your pops a decent Christmas present. And if you're already in the clear, feel free to chime in with some gift suggestions of your own in the comments.
Yamaha's Sound Proof Entertainment Room
Face it, the last thing Dad wants is a bunch of freakin' screaming kids (toddler, full grown, or otherwise) scampering about the house, wreckin' up his Sunday paper and spilling his Tom Collins (or his Arnold Palmer, as it were). So for God's sake, won't you please let him lock himself in Yamaha's soundproof entertainment room for a little while while he regains his paternal composure? Sheesh.
TomTom Go 300We can personally vouch for the accuracy of the old saw about men not asking for directions. But that doesn't mean
that guys get lost any less than the fairer sex. One way to help your dad find his way home is a GPS unit, and if
you've been holding off on getting one because of high prices, now may be the time to take the plunge. At a street
price of around $600, the TomTom Go 300 includes most of the features of devices costing hundreds of dollars more,
including a large color display, preloaded U.S. maps, and voice prompts.
Look, Dad's tired of asking you damned lazy kids to mow the freaking lawn, ok? So give both yourselves a break
from your jobs of yelling about the mowing, and the mowing of the lawn, respectively—just get the household an
Automower, already? One day all familial conflicts will be mitigated by robots, and not a moment too soon if we may
say so ourselves.
Actiontec Internet
Phone Wizard
If Dad keeps complaining that you don't call often enough, and you keep bugging him to get on Skype to keep your
costs down, here's a way to compromise. Hook one of these $60 boxes up to dad's computer, and he can use his home
phone to make and receive Skype calls. Of course, if Dad doesn't already have a PC and a broadband link, you're out
of luck, but hopefully you took care of that on previous Father's Days.
Forget about seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. If Dad spends much time on the links, you may want to
give him a pair of these shades, which filter out long-wavelength light (colors such as greens and browns) but let in
shorter wavelength whites and yellows. The results: the green may look blue, but those elusive golfballs practically
glow.
Consistently rated as one of the best digital SLRs around, Canon's eight megapixel Digital Rebel XT should be enough to impress just about any amateur or not-so-amateur photographer. It sure ain't the cheapest gift but we're sure you can think of plenty of excuses to "borrow it" while you jet off for a few weeks on your next vacation.
Whether Dad's a cube dweller or has the corner office, you can find something to make that prison
cage workspace more dynamic at Office Playground. In addition to the usual stress balls and magnetic gear,
they've got one of our faves: the Office Voodoo Doll, which can be customized to target the boss, the annoying guy in
the next cube, or the schemer who beat you out of the promotion you've been expecting for the past ten years.
The BottleSpy
Looking for a subtle way to let your dad know that he needs to stop getting his drinky on quite so often? Then
hook a father up with the BottleSpy, a bottle opener that keeps an electronic running tally of how many beers your
pops has been popping. Should get him to lay off the sauce a bit, but he may sober up long enough to switch to
bottles with screw-off caps.
Bushnell's Night Hawk
Chances are, your dad missed his chance at making that exciting espionage career happen — but he can
relive that life that never was via the Bushnell Night Hawk night vision viewing system. It's a digital compact
hand-held system with a 1.8-inch LCD screen, 2x zoom and a swivel viewer for all of his swivelling, night vision
needs. He'll be forever grateful for the enhanced ability to peep in on the neighbors catch those
elusive nocturnal birds in their native habitat.
Discovery WeatherTech FX5000 Weather Forecaster
If Dad's the type who's constantly stealing borrowing the remote to check in on the up-to-the-minute
weather forecast, he and the whole family will dig the Discovery WeatherTech FX5000 Weather Forecaster, which not
only gives numerical readings but actually delivers temperature in "how it feels outside" terms. It forecasts 12 to
20 hours in advance, so he can always feel confident that he'll be able to predict the best golf course days the
night before. A remote wireless sensor handles all manner of weather indexing and transmits the results to the indoor
display panel, which will also please the neighbors who've long endured Dad's morning weather auguries on the front
porch in his boxers.
You know Daddy-O is never more proud than when standing at his own personal grill. So why not let him strut his prowess in public with the Thane Q portable BBQ. Using cheap, easy-to- find one-pound propane canisters, this 13-pound folding grill can lay flame-to-flesh on about six meaty burgers per non-stick side. Oh, and it features a night-grillin' dome light and dishwasher safe grilling surface all for less than $100. And you know he's weak for that space-aged stylin'.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim S @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
That grill thing is looking pretty good as a gift...
Keith McDuffee @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
Congrats on #5000, Peter!
judith @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
ditto on the 5k post kudos peter!
Stephen @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
Is there a 5k club somewhere out there?? There might be some other "hyper-bloggers" out there with something interesting to read.
pspimp @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
You forgot the stupidy-duper PSP!!!!
At least there weren't any gddamn iPods.
Good job!
steve @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
The Yamaha sound-proof self-pleasuring room is indeed fascinating. Not sure *I* want to be the one to give it to Pop, though.
Anthony @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
My dad actually got the grill for father's day two years ago - works really well!
Saranomaly @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
I got my dad a 120GB external hdd. He's not very tech-oriented, but he has quite a large collection of classical music on CDs that he wanted to back up, but couldn't due to a small laptop hdd.
Jason Chiang @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
Congrats, Peter~ ^^
macus13 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
Can you actually buy the Automower yet?
macus13 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
Can you actually buy the Automower yet?
Congrats on 5k.
Tim Burnett @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
Responded to "eye" above:
> then go to a friendly local game store and buy Settlers, or Puerto Rico ...
I can't imagine trying to teach my parents Puerto Rico! If you're going to go the route of buying them a board game, I would recommend something relatively easy like Modern Art, Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne. If they're religious Christians, there is a Carcassonne variant "Ark of the Covenant".
Other good easy (introductory) games would be
Tanz der Hornochsen (you can get the English rules online) or the card-game version of this game which is Category 5. O Zoo Le Mio (aka ZooSim) would be good. So would Clash of the Gladiators.
andrew @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
so..what is this 5k thing? there have been 5000 things posted here on engadget?? or 5000 things posted only by pete????
Peter Rojas @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
That's 5000 just by me. Engadget has had about 10,000 posts overall.
Dito @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
my dad is an absolute weather nut, but living in the midwest we were a bit concerned by the fact that all these weather forecasting devices say on the packaging that they don't operate well in sub-freezing temperatures. i'm guessing it has to do with the battary, but is there a device like this that will work well for us poor sob's that don't live in california?
Whaleman @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM
Congrats on 5000, Peter! Now all you need is 300 wins and you'll be in Cooperstown for sure.