Photo Gift Ideas : Photojojo.com

So I decided to be as corny as possible and send christmas cards with my face plastered on them. I was thinking of using this photo... not sure if I can see any reason not to do that but... In my search for the best place to make a photo card II ran across Photojojo which to my pleasant surprise was packed full of awesome photo-related crafts projects and guides to taking pictures and buying gifts.

Oh and they have a little store too.

I tried the mailable photo frame and was very happy with it. It's a cheap and cute way to mail off a photo with a message, and I might use them for my christmas card so that my family is forced to have them out when I come over to their house! Below is the example of the photo mailer/frame.

Custom T-Shirts (and others): Zazzle.com

So, Zazzle has been around for years and years; I think I first ordered from them during sophomore year of college, so it must have been about six or seven (christ, am I that old?) years ago. What's cool about Zazzle is that you can submit your own t-shirt designs, and they will print it for you quite reasonably. I made a t-shirt with the image below (which I made in the gimp in about ten minutes), and I got the thing printed for $19.95. Not bad! What's cool is, if someone else buys one of your designs, you get 10% of the proceeds. (I'm not linking to mine because I don't want to make money off of this blog).


The shirt looked great, because the image I submited was huge (2200x2300) with a large dpi (144). Getting images that size is tricky, because no web images are that size. I made shirt of an image that was only 705x680 72 dpi (a largish web image) and the shirt came out terrible and pixelated. The last comment I have is that the shirts don't last terribly long, because the image kind of flakes off after about 10 washes.

I also made a shirt off of this Indian Oil Corportation logo

Threadless is having a sale, just in time for Christmas

In June, I posted about the t-shirt site Threadless. I guess winter time is not the time for t-shirts, because they are having a sale, most of the t-shirts are only $10.

Since I lasted posted about them, they added two awesome features. First, the stockchart. Before, it was a bit of a chore to check whether they had the shirt you wanted in your size, but now you can check by size, which is great. The second feature is the Present feature, where you can the vague personality of the person you are shopping for.

I bought a hoodie version of the image at the right for $35, and I reckon it'll make a good christmas present for someone who I hope doesn't read this blog. I bought this one for myself, because I think it's adorable, and I'm not nearly as, um, large, um, as the model they have choosen. Lastly, I bought this "motovino" for my girlfriend.

Magazine Subscriptions : eBay

I'm not sure everyone knows this, but you can get suprisingly cheap magazine subscriptions on eBay (full disclosure: I work for eBay). The selection isn't that great, which is suprising because that is what ebay is known for, but they prices are as close to free as I've found.

The reason they are so cheap is that magazines sell adverts based on circulation, so if they numbers are higher, they make more money. They basically give free subscriptions to these folks, who turn around and sell them to you for $1 or $2.

I was able to purchase a 4 yr subscription to GQ for my brother for just $4, a 2 yr subscription to Esquire for my brother-in-law for just $3, and a 2 yr subscription to Men's Health for my friend for just $1.99. Magazine subscriptions are usually pretty cheap, but these prices are so cheap it's almost nothing, and they provide something current to read in the loo.

What's really cool is that I got a one-year subscription to the Wall Street Journal for just 99¢, which is something like $.0032 or .32¢ an issue (there are 306 issues per year in the subscription). That is really cheap.

I did lose an auction for the Economist at $40. The subscription eventually went to $53. But with all the other magazines and newspapers to read, what do I need that for?

Cell Phones : Amazon.com

This may be extremely obvious, but amazon is close to the cheapest place to get a phone. Of course, you have to wait for shipping, but if you don't need the phone right away, amazon is quite a bit cheaper than most stores you can go to. I bought this Motorola Q phone for $50, plus a $100 rebate, so in all it was $-50 with only a one-year contract. You should check it out, they carry all the major carriers and I think they have more free phones than any other site I've seen, most with no (or cheap) activation and only one year contracts.

Raw food (and best macaroons ever) : oneluckyduck.com

I was at my mate's barbecue last week, and the oddest thing happened. First, some cracker who only eats raw food showed up to a barbecue. Seriously! A barbecue. Next, we get a discussion of how you can eat well without eating cooked food. Then, he pulled out this bag of macaroons. He told me to try one and I was absolutely floored. They were amazing. Just amazing. The best macaroon I've ever had.

He had bought them at a raw food store in Nob Hill, which apparently is the place for this sort of thing, but I wanted to find a place online so I could share it with you. So here it is! One Lucky Duck is the first and last (trust me, last) place you need to go for all your raw food needs online. The have goji berries (what?), raw ice cream (I think I'd be a bit worried if someone was cooking my icecream), and nut milk bags (I guess for drinking milk made of, uh, nuts).

Ok just try the macaroons.

More tableware: heathceramics.com

Some one emailed me that heathceramics.com is a "classier" (his words) alternative to rosanna which I posted about before.
I really love the "plaza" line. I because I lived in Japan, I have gained an affinity for square plates. Another nice thing about Heath is that you can choose from various colours.

Heath has some classic qualities that ensure your dishes won't go out of "style" as quickly as Rosanna's are likely to. But this blog is for young, mostly single guys. So my advice: Rosanna when you're single, get something trendy, when you get married, register at a store that sells Heath.

Cool site for photos: thesartorialist.blogspot.com

I know it's weird for me to plug a blog that gets like 1000x more hits than mine does, but this is my favourite site and I have to tell you! The sartorliast is a blog run by one man with a photo camera that has basically blown up out of control in the last few months. The photos are not that impressive in terms of camera work, (compare the camera work to this site) but they are wildly rich in terms of substance. The site focuses on the looks, not the brands or the store where the items were bought (basically the opposite of my site).

The guy who runs the site, Scott Schuman, is not just good at picking people with good style, he explains the subtleties. Much of it isn't even expensive. Of course a lot of it is, but that's the way of fashion, isn't it?

Bedroom Products : kikidm.com

*Warning, some links NSFW*

I was looking for some new pillows because I get the feeling that its going to happen some time this month with the Taiwanese girl I met at the New Huevos show, and I stumbled upon kiki's pretty randomly via cribcandy (cribcandy is super awesome by the way). I was pretty shocked (I guess it happens easily) by the site. Kiki's is geared toward some fairly risqué items; they sell some pretty wild sex toys, sexy lingerie, and even stylish little video cameras to film the, ahem, event with. They even have some sex items, that I even don't understand: the $125 condom holder. What the fuck is that?

Well, I won't be buying any of those. First, I don't even know what a cock-ring is used for or why you'd want to spend $800 on one, and I certainly do not want you to email me to tell me. Second, I don't think girls actually want you to buy them lingerie, unless you have a pretty particular relationship. I think you'd be better off buying them jewelry, an ipod or basically any thing else you can think of unless your sure she wants lingerie. Even then, don't give it to her for Christmas or her birthday. Finally, I'm not buying a tiny camera because I wouldn't want my celebrity sex tape to blow out my burgeoning celebrity. Plus I already have one.

But I do recommend these items which are, infact, very cool, very stylish and even useful. These $25 tea sets (upper right) are pretty stylish and probably make awesome gifts. This poker set looks pretty cool, but it doesn't say how many chips it comes with and at $225 I'll stick with the chips I got free from party poker. Oddly, the poker set comes with rules for basic five card draw. Who plays that? I guess, though, if you need rules for hold 'em then you probably ought to buy a cheap set because someone is going to take your money. Invite me over!

This cashmere blanket (left, $500) seems like it'll impress her, but I think in tandem with these boudiour pillows, I'd probably look like sort of a freak. And it it turns out she likes a freak, well, I'll know where to get the whips and blindfolds.