My 21st Birthday Geek Wish List

Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.

As I begin this post, it’s exactly 38 minutes before I officially turn 21. It’s very exciting. Vegas, anyone?

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been getting the inevitable question: “what do you want for your birthday?” For years, I’ve always said the same thing: “I don’t know, whatever’s fine.” That, for the record, is a huge mistake. Not being specific means crappy gifts you don’t get to be mad about – not a good combination.

But this year, I’ve got it covered. I’ve got a wish list a mile long of the things I want for my Birthday. They’re all, not surprisingly, tech-related.

I won’t bore you with the details (fingers crossed for the $2 headphone splitter), so instead, here are the top 9 things I want for my Birthday.

9. A Flip Cam ($150)

This thing is just awesome. The Flip is a $150 video camera that is both crazy-powerful and crazy-simple. It takes fantastic video, and then uploading it is as easy as attaching it to your computer. I’m not in need of a camera with tons of features, and I don’t notice the difference between good and great video – I just need something I can whip out at a moment’s notice, take cool video, and share it easily. The Flip’s got that down.

8. A Man-Bag ($20)

There’s bound to be a better name for a man-bag (satchel’s the best I hear, but I don’t like it), but whatever you call it, I want one. Bags are as stylish as we men get to be, and with all the stuff I carry around on a regular basis, having a good one’s pretty important. My personal favorite is the one Jack Bauer used, because, well, Jack Bauer used it. It’s made by Rothco, and I think would make me almost as cool as Jack Bauer.

7. Verizon MiFi ($60/month)

Get this: portable WiFi, that goes with you wherever you go, and works anywhere you’d get cell phone service. Awesome, right? That’s the MiFi. It’s a little credit card-sized gizmo that creates a WiFi hotspot that you can jump on from anywhere. The plan’s not cheap, but total Internet access might just be worth the price. And hey, I pay $30/month for data on my phone already, and the MiFi’s not much more than that!

6. Rock Band: Beatles (Some Amount of $)

A guy’s gotta have fun, right? Epically awful as I am at Rock Band (the whole “pressing the orange button” thing isn’t working for me), I still love it. It’s a great game, and especially with a catalog of exclusively Beatles songs, is pretty hard to beat in the fun to awesomeness ratio. Which totally exists.

5. LiveScribe Pen ($149)

Two of the things I do most are interview people (for my job at school) and take notes (for that whole school thing). For both, the LiveScribe Pen is pretty amazing. You take notes on a special type of paper, and the pen records as you write. Then, later on, tap a spot on your notes and hear exactly what was being said as you were writing. Now, my ridiculous scribbles as I fall asleep in class might actually be useful. Who’da thunk?

4. Amazon Kindle DX ($489)

The Kindle, I think, is a device that’s poised to take over. Except that it costs $500 to read things, and I don’t usually do that for free. But the Kindle has some great potential – especially with the DX, a larger version that’s designed to, among other things, read textbooks. The idea of having all my textbooks on the Kindle, where I can read, take notes and highlight, is a pretty compelling one. The book catalog is huge, newspapers can be downloaded, and even blogs can be read on the Kindle – it’s the most convenient way to read just about anything. But did I mention it’s $500?

3. Things Task Management ($50)

This is the only piece of software that’s crept up my list, and it’s a new addition for me – Things, by Cultured Code, is the best task-managing software I’ve ever used. It’s gorgeous, super-flexible, and features a fantastic iPhone app; it’s single-handedly beginning to revive my productivity system from the brink of disaster. I’ve tried a ton of these applications, and never been so smitten with one as I am with Things – but $50, plus $10 for the iPhone app, means I’d better be more than just smitten.

2. Blackberry Tour ($200)

My Windows Mobile phone (a Motorola Q9c), which I’ve used for a while and will still adamantly defend to anyone who wants to tell me to get an iPhone, is starting to fall apart. I pulled it out of my pocket the other day, and discovered that evidently there’s a vicious monster living in my pocket, because there were two scratches and a big ol’ crack that weren’t there when the phone entered my pocket. Which, you know, is kind of a problem. As a loyal Verizon user, it might be time to upgrade to the Blackberry Tour, which has all the fun bells and whistles I’d been hoping for – plus a real keyboard, which never hurt.

1. Macbook Pro 13″ ($1200)

This one’s cheating, because I already got it – a brand spankin’ new Macbook Pro! Moral of the story here, kiddies: dropping not-so-subtle hints every day for eight months really pays off. And I love this computer. It’s fast, the battery lasts about 13 years, and it just works (a feature noticeably absent on my PC). I just became a Mac, and I’m sure not sure I’m ever going back.

So there it is; the top of my geekiest of geeky wish lists. What’s on yours?

Photo: Augie Schwer

Liked the post? Share it with somebody!