This post was written in December 2008, but it seemed like the perfect time to repost it here.

I’ve already finished all my Christmas shopping for this year, so I thought I’d give my best tips.

1. Don’t Wait Until The Last Minute

My best tip has to be: not to wait until the last minute. Don’t go the day before Christmas to find your presents. For starters, you’re not the only person with the same idea; it will be one of busiest days in the high street. Plus, there’s less chance you’ll find what you are searching for.

2. Don’t See It As A Chore

If there is another thing you shouldn’t do, it’s this. Seeing Christmas shopping as a chore will only make you postpone it, and thus, leaving it to the last minute. I always like to see it as a challenge, as a puzzle, trying to figure out what present is suitable for which person.

3. Don’t Give Gift Vouchers, Money, Ties or Socks

In my book, a big no no. Unless they are cute knee high black-and-white striped socks, this is just an easy way out. Just think about it: if everyone started doing this, what’s the point of exchanging presents? I’d be much happier with a smaller gift that’s worth maybe less than a gift voucher with no real thought behind it. (Mind you, I am talking about direct family present exchange here. If it’s a not too close friend or a distant family member, it should be fine)

4. Pay Attention Throughout The Entire Year

So how do you get someone a gift that he/she really wants? Now the best way is just to pay attention throughout the year. Be aware and keep note of what the person says when they want something. Also handy: drill people two months before Christmas about what they want. If you do it right (meaning sneaky and not too suspect), you’ll end up with loads of ideas. Plus you can’t really do it a couple of days before Christmas, cause then the person will know what it’s all about.

5. Analyze Your Subject

If getting tips from the person doesn’t help, you’ll have to figure it out all by your lonesome. So: analyze your subject. What does this person like to do? What hobbies? TV shows, sports? The really geeky way is to make a mind map out of it all, and just write everything down that pops into your mind.

6. Keep Your Receipts

I actually don’t always do this myself, not with all receipts at least. But there are a couple which you definitely should keep: 1. clothing (in case it doesn’t fit), 2. gadgets/electronics (often the receipt is also the guarantee), 3. cd/dvd/book (in case the person has it already, unless you think you’ll always be able to flog it to someone else).

7. Remember What You Bought (And Wrapped Up)

You should always write down and keep a list of all the stuff you’ve bought, with how much everything had cost. Next time you go shopping, take that list with you, so you know who you still have to get something for. Then what I always do is wrap stuff up without remembering what was in it; always handy to keep track of this too.

8. Shop Online

Every time I mention to someone that I do a lot of my shopping online, they stare at me and tell me that’s cheating. Cheating?!? How does me knowing what I want to get and order it at a place I know that has it classify as ‘cheating’? How is that worse than you buying socks the day before Christmas? The thing you have to keep in mind with online shopping is that you shouldn’t go for the ‘top 10’ lists and stuff like that. You have to KNOW what you want to get.

9. Try To Avoid Weekend Shopping

Easier said than done, right? Cause when you can otherwise shop. Well, (and I know this isn’t perfect) a lot of stores are open to quite late, especially in such malls like Westfield (they’re open till 11pm on week days).

10. Create A Present “Diary”

Yeah, so this isn’t really a tip for now, but one for next year. Remember tip 4 “Pay Attention The Entire Year”? Do this next year. And take it one step further. Write it down when someone mentions they want something or when they mention they’re looking for a certain item. What I mainly do is keep track of the stuff I see in stores, always shelving certain items in a mental bookshelf as possible gift ideas for one person.

Any tips you can give me that I’ve left out?

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danieleski – $13.57 on Amazon.com, £16.49 on Amazon.co.uk, £16.48 on Book Depository

I got my brother this book last year and it’s pretty amazing. I still have to read it, but my brother was addicted to it the moment he laid eyes on it.

Here’s the description from Amazon:

Johnny Truant, a wild and troubled sometime employee in a LA tattoo parlour, finds a notebook kept by Zampano, a reclusive old man found dead in a cluttered apartment. Herein is the heavily annotated story of the Navidson Report. Will Navidson, a photojournalist, and his family move into a new house. What happens next is recorded on videotapes and in interviews. Now the Navidsons are household names. Zampano, writing on loose sheets, stained napkins, crammed notebooks, has compiled what must be the definitive work on the events on Ash Tree Lane. But Johnny Truant has never heard of the Navidson Record. Nor has anyone else he knows. And the more he reads about Will Navidson’s house, the more frightened he becomes.

From what I understand it’s a story within a story. You get to read Johnny’s experiences as he tries to uncover what happened, yet at the same time you’re reading the actual Navidson Report that Johnny is reading.

Besides that though the book is full of interesting elements to make the reading experience unique. For starters, the words in the book are arranged to echo the feeling of the what is written. When characters are navigating a claustrophobic maze-like sections of the house’s interior, the text is dense, confusingly packed into small corners of each page. Later, when a character is running desperately from something, there are only a few words on each page for almost 25 pages, causing the reader to flip quickly through the pages to frantically figure out what happened next.

Another example is the font choices. Each narrative of each separate person has a different font, with the main character in Courier, another in Times, and two others in Bookman and Dante. Also the colour of certain words are changed, although this depends on which version of the book you have (there are 4 versions: black/white, blue, red, and full colour).

What intrigued me the most though was that there are also secret hidden messages in the book. Stuff like taking the first letters from sentences to form a secret message. I still haven’t read it myself, so I have no idea how much of these codes are in there, but I love the idea behind it.

If you’re looking for something unique to give at Christmas, this is a great book. It’s perfect for the person who likes complex stories and figuring out things. Also: cool for the designer in your life, or anyone who likes typography.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danieleski – $13.57 on Amazon.com, £16.49 on Amazon.co.uk, £16.48 on Book Depository

Sometimes it’s weird how some memories can just stick by you. I exactly remember when I picked up this book for the first time. It was during my second visit to London and I was browsing the books in the basement at Murder One. In the secondhand section I came across the second part of this series, and was annoyed to find out it was a second part. No way I was going to buy a second part first! Of course, some moments later I found the first one too, and I bought both books.

The Banned and The Banished series is one of those series that not many people have read. And it’s a shame cause it’s one my favourites. It’s being offered for free at the moment on Suvudu as a pdf, so it’s a great chance to check it out and see if you like it. Here’s the description:

On a fateful night five centuries ago, three mages made a desperate last stand, sacrificing everything to preserve the only hope of goodness in the beautiful, doomed land of Alasea. Now, on the anniversary of that ominous night, a girl-child ripens into the heritage of lost power. But before she can even comprehend her terrible new gift, the Dark Lord dispatches his winged monsters to capture her and bring him the embryonic magic she embodies.

Fleeing the minions of darkness, Elena is swept toward certain doom—and into the company of unexpected allies. There she forms a band of the hunted and the cursed, the outcasts and the outlaws, to battle the unstoppable forces of evil and rescue a once-glorious empire…

Elena the main character has a form of blood magic, unlike any I’ve seen in other books. Besides that there are a slew of other characters each with their own element of power; you have the wood nymph, the wind elf, etc. It seems pretty standard at first, but you slowly discover how much story and world building has gone into this. As the story progresses, the relationships and background stories get more and more complex, which I loved.

I enjoyed the first and the second books, but it’s the third one that completely got me hooked. Before that it was just one of the many enjoyable books I read. With the third one it became addictive to read. I read that one in almost one sitting, only stopping for food and sleep. And then I had to wait half a year for the fourth book… and had the same experience. Same with the final fifth book.

Of some writers I love the books as long as the series continues, but the moment it ends I’m frustrated with the conclusion. Not with The Banned and the Banished. It’s one of the most satisfying fantasy series I’ve read, where the world building, cliffhangers and mysteries don’t disappoint.

I hope I haven’t hyped up this book too much, but it really is one of my favourite series. Check it out on Suvudu.

This is one of those movies that I heard about (castings etc), but never really piqued my interest. But seeing this new trailer… I’m really liking the look of it.

It’s a live action re-imagining of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice segment in Fantasia, which in turn was based on a poem by Goethe. This seems to go way beyond the Fantasia bit and the poem though, with much more back story and side characters. It stars Jay Baruchel as the apprentice, Nicholas Cage as the Sorcerer Balthazar Blake, Monica Belluci as the love interest and (I’m guessing here, but I think I’m right) Alfred Molina as the villain Horvath.

What do you think? I think the visual effects look awesome, and I’m even not dis-liking Nicholas Cage in this. I really want to like this, but I’m a bit hesitant cause the director (Jon Turtletaub) previously gave us National Treasure 1 and 2.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice – Release Date: 16 July 2010 for US, 13 August 2010 for UK.

Update 2: Signup is now closed and everybody has been emailed the person they have to get a present for.

Update: I’ve opened it up now to the whole of UK. And changed the deadline of signup to tomorrow.

A while back I blogged about participating in two Secret Santa’s for the book blogging community, and since then I’ve had the idea that it would be great to do something similar for the London bloggers. I’m not sure how many people will be interested in participating, but I thought I should at least try to set something up; I think it could be so much fun!

So here’s the plan (for those of you who don’t know what Secret Santa is): all of the participants will be randomly assigned another blogger to send a gift to, and these assignments are kept secret until the gift has been delivered. So no one knows who their gift is coming from! The idea is to get inspired by your assigned person’s blog/twitter/whatever presence that person has online and get them a suitable gift.

Here are the “rules”:

1. Sign up and fill in all your details in this form (signup is now closed) before Friday 11th 18:00 Saturday 12th 20:00. Only sign up if you really plan to do this; I’d hate someone not ending up with a gift.

2. You should be a London UK blogger or at least an avid Twitterer. There should be enough “info” about you online for your secret santa to get you a present.

3. Gifts should be kept under £15 including shipping costs.

4. You’ll get an email sometime during the weekend (before Monday 14th) with the details of your assigned blogger.

5. Make sure your gift(s) are sent out before Christmas. They don’t necessarily have to arrive before Christmas, just sometime during the Christmas holidays (before 1st January).

6. Blog about the cool gifts you receive! Email me (melinda@missgeeky.com) a link to your blog post, so I can make a nice overview of what everybody has gotten. Also if you haven’t received anything by the 1st of January, email me and I’ll try to sort something out.

7. After your person has received and blogged about their presents, feel free to reveal your identity. You don’t have to, if you don’t want to, but it would make it so much more fun if you get to connect with this person!

8. If you have any questions, email me at melinda@missgeeky.com.

That’s it! Feel free to blog, Tweet, spread the word about this; it would be great to have as many people as possible participating.

I’ll also be joining in on the fun of this. We’ve got a piece of software that should sort out the assignments automatically and send everybody the right emails. Plus I’ve got a Christmas Elf on hand to help out with the background details and check if everything runs smoothly; I won’t see who’s paired up with who or who has gotten me. I won’t actually be in London during Christmas (from the 22nd till the 5th), but I will be online and reachable via email to answer any questions.

Have fun!

I got this mug for Cristiano last Christmas:

Brilliant, right? It’s available on Splitreason.com for only $9.95 (although international shipping doubles that price).

I love the non straight lines, it makes this book case a little different:

It’s also available in black at Ligne Roset (but no idea how much it is, I’m guessing quite a bit).

Via The Sassy Kathy

Episode 151: “Every moment is a chance to get ahead.”

Brilliant short movie about a traveling salesman selling glimpses of the future in his suitcase.

I really enjoyed SyFy’s Tin Man last year (ugh, still not used to writing SyFy. Stupid, stupid name). While it wasn’t exactly a masterpiece, it was a cool sci-fi re-interpretation of the standard Wizard of Oz story. Now SyFy has done the same thing with Alice in Wonderland.

Now it isn’t exactly a “preview” cause the first part aired yesterday (the second will air tonight), but I still haven’t had the chance to check this out. It stars Caterina Scorsone as Alice, Kathy Bates as the Queen of Hearts, Andrew-Lee Potts as resistance fighter Hatter, Tim Curry as resistance leader Dodo, Colm Meaney as the King of Hearts, Harry Dean Stanton as the Caterpillar and Matt Frewer as the White Knight. Here’s the trailer:

Now for the second part of my Christmas wish list. I already blogged about the normal books last week and this time I’ve listed the comics/graphic novels I want. I’ll try to be a bit more informative than the previous post, actually writing a bit about the books (was impossible last time with the amount of books in that list). The main reason I’m writing about these is that they all look like great books and you might get inspired to get these for the geeky gal or guy in your life.

Scott Pilgrim

This series has been on my list for some time now; it’s about Scott Pilgrim, a guy who falls in love with a girl, but has to beat her 7 evil ex-boyfriends in battle before he can date her. A film adaption is currently being made based on it, and it looks awesome! Here’s the description:

Scott Pilgrim’s life is totally sweet. He’s 23 years old, he’s in a rock band, he’s “between jobs,” and he’s dating a cute high school girl. Nothing could possibly go wrong, unless a seriously mind-blowing, dangerously fashionable, rollerblading delivery girl named Ramona Flowers starts cruising through his dreams and sailing by him at parties. Will Scott’s awesome life get turned upside-down? Will he have to face Ramona’s seven evil ex-boyfriends in battle? The short answer is yes. The long answer is Scott Pilgrim, Volume 1: Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life.

The first volume Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life is available on Book Depository for £6.07.

Runaways

I love stories with people discovering they have special powers and Runaways has an interesting slant to it: a group of kids find out their parents are “The Pride”, a criminal group of mob-bosses, dark wizards and ‘more evilness’. They runaway and learn that they’ve inherited their parents powers.

All young people believe their parents are evil… but what if they really are? Meet Alex, Karolina, Gert, Chase, Molly and Nico – whose lives are about to take an unexpected turn. When these six young friends discover their parents are all secretly super-powered villains, the shocked teens find strength in one another.

The first collected edition Runaways vol 1: Pride and Joy is available on Book Depository for £4.08.

Rising Stars

J. Michael Straczynski! Ever since Babylon 5 I’ve wanted to read some of his non TV show stuff, and Rising Stars looks like something right down my alley. It’s about 113, called “Specials”, born with special abilities after a comet struck near their hometown while they were in utero. The series explores how society may react to the advent of superpowers and how those who are Specials may react towards society and each other.

There are multiple editions of this series and it can be kind of confusing what exactly is what. The easiest to get is the Rising Stars Compendium, which collects all publications in one volume (£27.93 on Book Depository for the paperback, £56.30 for the hardcover). This version covers everything, so you don’t have to get anything besides that. Besides that though, they still also sell the thinner volumes, each covering parts of the story (5 volumes in total), but I’d suggest the compendium is easier (plus cheaper on the long run).

Buffy Season 8

I loved how Buffy ended it’s TV show, but still I was happy to find out that it would continue in comic book form. I’ve read the first three collected editions so far, and want the fourth and fifth ones that are out now (Time of Your Life and Predators and Prey).

The actual issues have been coming out almost once every month since March 2007, and in total there are now 30 issues. I tried collecting these issues, but it was easier to just wait for the collected editions. Each collected edition bundles 5 of the issues together (so far there are 5 of these, covering issues #1-#25). I’m not sure how much more I can say about this, it’s a definite must-have for every Buffy fan.

The first collected edition The Long Way Home is available on Book Depository for £6.51.

Fray

Yep, another Buffy/Joss Whedon comic. Well, technically it’s not ‘Buffy’, but it is part of the Buffy-verse. Set in the future, Manhattan is now a slum, run by mutant crime lords and disinterested cops. Stuck in the middle of this all, is Melaka Fray, a vampire Slayer.

Fray is available on Book Depository for £10.07.

Fables

I adore re-interpretations of mythology, fairy tales, and other old stories. While it’s not that difficult to find good re-imaginings of mythology, it always is a bit trickier with fairy tales. Fables though seems like exactly the type of re-interpretation that I’m interested in.

The series deals with various characters from fairy tales and folklore – referring to themselves as “Fables” – who have been forced out of their Homelands by “The Adversary” who has conquered the realm. The Fables have traveled to our world and formed a clandestine community in New York City known as Fabletown. Fables who are unable to blend in with human society (such as monsters and anthropomorphic animals) live at “the Farm” in upstate New York.

The first volume of Fables (Legends in Exile) is available on Book Depository for £5.16.

Yoko Tsuno

I blogged about this series last week, and as I said then I would love to have these in English (so that I can lend them out and show people how awesome it is). If you haven’t seen that post and are too lazy to click through and read there what it’s all about, it’s about a young Japanese electrical engineer who gets mixed up in time travel, space and all sorts of other sci-fi-y adventures.

The first volume On The Edge of Life (weird, it’s actually not really the first volume, not according to the original French version, but it’s the one they started publishing in English first and is numbered as #1) is available on Book Depository for £4.45.

Any tips on what other comics I should get? Or I should put on my wish list next time?