This year, I said that I wouldn’t mind a Nintendo DSi XL for Christmas, the main inspiration for this being that, when we got them in where I worked, we as staff opened one up to have a look, and from that moment I was like “OMG WANT”, so the family got me one of those and some games to go with it. Ever since, I’ve been playing Professor Layton and Scribblenauts, amongst others… Scribblenauts is an awesome game, the fact that a shop assistant tried to kill me because I accidentally threw a piece of fruit at her was hilarious, as was the mobster that tried to kill me after I shot the mouse that was standing near him. Professor Layton, oh, how I simultaneously loathe it and adore it, the puzzles are incredibly hard sometimes but you want to solve them no matter what.

Top prize goes to my sister, though, who bought me this.

Also, my wife has discovered that I usually like just about everything from thinkgeek.com. It’s usually a pretty safe bet and it’s easy to distribute the link to family members.

I don’t mind the crappy presents, I just wish they would stop using me for free tech-support. I seriously spent ~3 days of my 7 day vacation doing website maintenance, installing XP, removing malware, etc. I think they think I enjoy it…

Everyone in my family sends around lists of things we’d like. I usually include links to examples of the products. It is a great system, because not only are they baffled in what to get me, but I’m baffled in what to get my parents & sisters.

Also, the steam sale has been awesome. I picked up Orange Box, deus ex 1 & 2, I added the games from the humble indie bundle 1 & 2, and picked up a “casual” game – flight control – all for less than $20!

I found my way back here because I was still subscribed to the old CAPS LOCK post. There are so many fine blawgs you just forget about…

Anyway, my mom finally got it at 25 years of age (me, not her ;) ) and gave me a small pile of cash. Nice! Ended up buying a new camera. For my age (stated) gender (male) and demographic (some sort of geek) I’m particularly uninterested in games. And when it comes to animu and mango, I usually go the HAR-HAR-HAR route.

I got some pretty good gifts from my parents. Some were books they already knew I wanted. They were also able to pick out a couple of other cool looking book based on my tastes. Other gifts were pretty universal things that can be enjoyed even by non-geeks, like a Leatherman multi-tool.

The biggest problem I have in picking out gifts for my geek friends is figuring out what they have and don’t have. Especially with things like books and games.