We’ve already covered Star Wars, Star Trek, World of Warcraft, and Harry Potter fandom for our gift-guide roundups. If you have a twi-hard on your shopping list, have no fear, we’ve got some great Twilight-related gifts, and there’s just enough time to get them shipped for Christmas.
After the jump, check out some of the best holiday gifts you can buy for the teenage vampire fan in your life.
You’re going to need something to wrap all those holiday gifts in, right? If you chose any of the gift ideas from our Daily Gift series, then you undoubtedly chose a geeky present. To stay with that theme, a nerdified wrapping paper is absolutely necessary. Sure, you could go with the QR Code Wrapping Paper we mentioned a few weeks ago. Or, you can honor the greatness of Twitter with Samsung’s Tweet Wrap.
As part of its holiday campaign to promote the Samsung RF510 laptop, The Barbarian Group has launched Tweetwrap, which allows visitors to customize their own Xmas wrapping paper. You can choose from six patterns. Then, you select the text for your tweets. You can choose by keyword, such as #HappyHolidays, Santa, Presents, I<3U, #Surprise, or #MerryChristmas. Additionally, you can enter and search for your own keyword, or for a username.
Then, you can place your order and get your tube of paper for $6.95. The site was offering 3,000 rolls for free, but you can still get your personalized paper for under $7 (plus shipping). Additionally, wrappers can then take photos of their presents and upload them to the site for a chance to win various Samsung prizes.
You can check out my Bieber wrapping paper to see another pattern (and a funny tweet).
What should you get as a Christmas stocking stuffer for the Android lover in your life? How about one of these cute li’l Androids?
If you didn’t find what you were looking for in PCMag’s roundup of the best gifts for music lovers, we found another great product that will surely make any music geek smile. The Electronic Music Synthesizer Shirt ($29.99) from ThinkGeek puts a real playable music synthesizer on your shirt. You’ll never leave home without your synth again. It’s no Moog, that’s for sure, but it allows you to play five different pro-quality sampled instruments. Also, up to eight keys can be played at once.
This is the third musical instrument shirt from ThinkGeek. There’s already an Electronic Rock Guitar Shirt, and a Drum Kit Shirt, so I guess the only thing left ThinkGeek needs to make is a bass shirt. Then you and your three friends could walk around playing music from your shirts. The shirt comes with a wearable retro-style amp box with an adjustable tone knob.
It’s perfect for the person who’s always humming tunes, and is always saying, “if I only had my keyboard here, I’d play you a jingle.” That happens, right? And in case you were wondering, the electronics are removable for easy washing. It requires 4 AAA batteries, which I assume go into the amp that clips onto your belt.
One thing I’m wondering: How does this work for women?
Want to see the shirt in action? Check out the video after the jump. There are some wonderful renditions of A-Ha’s “Take On Me,” and Europe’s classic “The Final Countdown.”
Gorillaz mastermind Damon Album has been hard work on a follow up to March’s Plastic Beach. The former Blur frontman has eschewed all of that fancy studio nonsense, recording the thing on the road at piecing it together on his iPad. Last month he told NME, “I’ve made it on an iPad–I hope I’ll be making the first record on an iPad. I fell in love with my iPad as soon as I got it, so I’ve made a completely different kind of record.”
In that interview, Albarn said that he was attempting to get the thing out before Christmas. According to a new interview with Gorillaz co-founder cartoonist Jamie Hewlett, however, it looks like we’re going to have to settle for on Christmas,
At the moment, we’ve got an Advent calendar on our website, and there is a daily door that opens to reveal a gift. On Christmas Eve, a video for one of the new songs from the iPad album will be released. Then, on Christmas Day, fans get the whole album downloaded to their computer for free as a gift.
Albarn, also taking part in the interview, added,
I wanted to make sure that it came out at the end of the tour because I don’t want anyone to think I’d tampered with it. I literally made it on the road in America over a month. I didn’t write it before; I didn’t prepare it. I just did it day by day as a kind of diary of my experience in America. If I left it until the New Year to release it, then the cynics out there would say, “Oh well, it’s been tampered with.” But if I put it out now, they’d know that I haven’t done anything because I’ve been on tour ever since.
There you have it, Cynics, no tampering. Now merry Christmas.
Hands-free is the law in most states and the law of common sense everywhere. If your car doesn’t come with Bluetooth, or if the dealer retrofit price is too costly, get your own in-car Bluetooth in-car speakerphone such as the Plantronics K100, $65 street. It has dual microphones, noise reduction, voice alerts. It clips to the sun visor and unlike some portable in-car Bluetooth speakers, doesn’t slide around when you push one of the buttons.
For as little as $30, you can equip your car with the 120-volt power that should have come standard. Get the Kensington Power Inverter with USB Power Port, $35 street, if you want compact size and convenience. It provides 75 watts of AC power (90 watts peak) plus a USB jack for phone or iPod charging. The Kensington inverter plugs directly into the car’s 12-volt socket (no power cable) and is so small and light (0.3 pounds) that it will barely be noticed in a business traveler’s carry-on bag.
For times when you really need a flashlight in the car, you should have a small, powerful LED flashlight with long-lasting lithium batteries. Example: The Duracell Daylite CR123 LED Flashlight, $27 street (above left in photo), puts out a tremendous amount of light, runs for a long time, and it’s just six inches long. You’ll trade in your car before the batteries die from old age (10-15 years). A similar Duracell Daylite flashlight using two AA cells will be a couple dollars cheaper.
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