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Nearly in time for your holiday spending spree, here’s a miscellaneous collection of stuff I think is neat. I’ve mentioned many of these items before; see links below or search the site for more info. I’ll update this list periodically over the coming weeks, as I stumble around my mail-order-furnished abode and discover forgotten-but-intriguing items you can purchase and forget for yourselves.

A few of the links below (the book titles) go to Amazon.com. If you use them, I’ll make a tiny commission on your purchase, which will help offset the considerable cost of hosting this website. Of course, this costs you nothing; Amazon’s prices are the same either way. Thanks for your support.

Gifts for cooks and foodies

• The best salmon in the world comes from Alaska’s Copper River. Buying fresh or even frozen is expensive and inconvenient, but the canned and smoked products make fun and unusual gifts: Wild Copper River Salmon
• Cook’s Illustrated — simply great recipes and straight talk about gourmet cooking. (More about Cook’s Illustrated.)
• My current favorite bread book: The Bread Baker’s Apprentice
• (See also my other cookbook reviews and recommendations.)

Gifts for audiophiles

• Stereo-Link 1200 USB digital-analog audio converter. Plug your workstation into this (via USB), and run the analog audio outs to your amp to get high-end sound from CDs and MP3s.
• Etymotic ER-6 Earbud Headphones provide 15+ dB isolation from outside noise, plus middle-of-the-orchestra-pit sound quality. I use mine at the gym. Not recommended for use while driving or operating heavy machinery (other than a treadmill). More on Etymotic ER-6 Earbud Headphones.
• Clearview Golden Helix Speaker Cable - I hate to admit it, but I really could hear a difference when I replaced old MonsterCable with these alarmingly thin wires. (Why do I hate to admit it? Because now I’m doomed to a lifetime of tweaking. Seriously, I have a shopping list that contains “silver solder”. Argh.) For reference, I’m using the least expensive version of the cable, between small Polk Audio speakers and a Cambridge Audio A500 (65W) amp, which I point out to illustrate that you need not have a multi-thousand-dollar stereo to benefit from new speaker cables.
• Sorbothane Isolation Pods - I had a CD player that skipped due to foot traffic in the room. The fix was a simple matter of inserting four of these blue gel pods under the player’s feet. Note that you can spend twice as much for the same item at AudioAdvisor: AudioQuest Sorbo-Gel Big Feet.

Stocking Stuffers

• You’ll feel funny giving someone deodorant. But this one is special, and worth considering if your giftee isn’t a sweaty Neanderthal: Crystal Deodorant Stick. It contains no aluminum (implicated in Alzheimer’s, Gehrig’s, and Parkinson’s diseases). One stick lasts about 18 months, so there’s less landfill waste. And it’s cheap. But it probably won’t work for people who rely on chemical anti-perspirants to keep from sweating through their Oxfords; for these unfortunate souls we recommend a career change and new wardrobe.
• This is a real brain-twister: SET (a perceptual card game). Not recommended for anyone who has trouble distinguishing colors, or anyone whose spouse turns out to be a lot better at perceiving gestalt patterns from a randomly-dealt hand of cards. Otherwise it’s great: easy to learn, compact (for convenient travel), challenging. Play alone or with others. Play with your kids (if you don’t mind losing).

Miscellaneous and yet still unique

• Digital cameras are cool, but analog photo albums are even cooler: paper is never obsolete. Prints don’t crash.
  These are the best photo albums I’ve seen (I have six of them): Henzo Hand-Stitched Photo Albums. The paper is acid free, so your photos won’t turn yellow and brittle, which is likely if you use cheap albums or — shudder — those “magnetic page” abominations. Get the large one; pages are 12.5x16.5 inches, so you can fit 4''x6'' prints eight up on a page.
  A few warnings: The “Henzo Archival Photo Glue” is messy and difficult to use; I recommend using acid-free tape strips instead. And, be aware that once these big albums are filled, they’re heavy (9 lbs) and a bit unwieldy, and perhaps not recommended for persons of small stature or frail constitution.
• Make a poster or framed print of the Earth at Night. NASA provides free high-res, even extremely high-res images of what they call Earth’s City Lights. The next step is to find a service bureau who can make a large print from a digital image — try a web search. Pricing depends on size, but for reference, one vendor charges $36 for 36''x18'' in a satin finish.
• Handspring is selling reconditioned Visor PDAs for as low as $99. Compare the Visor Platinum ($99; 33 MHz; 8MB) to Palm’s Zire ($99; 16 MHz, 2 MB) to illustrate the bargain.