Editor’s note: From now through the end of December, various Crave experts will be sharing their top five (mostly) tech-related wishes for the holiday season. See what we crave, and maybe you’ll get some ideas!
Eric's video game skills are MIA. And he wants them back.
1. iRobot Roomba. Yeah sure, these things have been around for years now, but I’m not the type of person who jumps all over new technology as soon as it’s available. For me, there needs to be a necessity. Case in point, my new DVR. I mean, look at my face in that pic. It’s the kind of face that causes you to think, “How could someone over the age of 20 and under the age of 60 be that excited about a DVR in 2008?” And yet, there I am. It wasn’t until I determined that a DVR was necessary for me to feel better about myself as a human that I got one.
Recently, my girlfriend and I got two black cats that shed. A lot. They also track tons of litter around the house. I’d prefer not to vacuum. I thought, “Do I have any young desperate relatives that I could pay 5 cents a week to come clean my house?” When that fell through, I thought, “Robots.”
2. A Men’s Health subscription that doesn’t suck. Not exactly tech related, but it needs to be said. I love reading this magazine. Sure, they recycle a lot of the stories and workouts from previous issues, but I can always find one or two things in each issue that are useful.
If you’ve ever had a subscription to Men’s Health, you know it does not come without strings attached. These strings assume the form of “free” books that they send you. Now, there is sometimes some new and useful information in them. That’s not the problem. The problem is that they send you these at their own discretion and usually accompanied by a letter telling you how excited you should be that you have access to this free book for the next 10 days. If you’re unsatisfied, send it back within the 10 days at no charge and you’re done. If you keep it beyond the trial, you’ll be charged.
This is a trap, plain and simple. They know most guys aren’t going to bother going through the trouble of sending this thing back. They’ll either keep it out of laziness (like me) or actually find a reason inside the book–probably a flimsy one–to justify keeping it. So yes, my Men’s Health subscription sucks because I am lazy.
3. Video card upgrade. OK, I currently own an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS.
While a year or so ago this would have been pushing the cutting edge, it’s now yesterday’s news, a card that drops as low as 10 frames per second at peak times in Dalaran in Wrath of the Lich King. That is unacceptable. I’m not even sure the last time I’ve seen anything near a steady 60 fps.
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Extremely important research is being done in Australia right now, and it’s yielding extremely important results: octopuses are officially more technically discerning than 
