Next month, a younger friend of mine is getting married (I introduced them) and, well . . . I’ve visited their registries and there’s nothing that’s really for a guy. I’ve chosen something for her, but I’m wondering whether there’s, for example, a men’s magazine that doesn’t suck. I don’t have deep pockets. $75 is about my limit, I think. Ideas?
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Not that most men would mind a magazine that did suck: less chafing.
I’ve heard that you can register a new groom at Lowe’s. He can go get power tools or dry wall or lumber or large appliances. How cool is that? (Hope I’m not being too hypermasculine).
I imagine he’s bringing his own lumber, Bob, but thanks.
How ironic. After all the blustering lately, you’re in the market for something that’s suitably masculine? According to whose definition? How about Reader’s Digest, large print edition. Maybe they still have that Life in These United States feature. Sounds manly enough to me.
Bwahahahaha, cynn.
You are Teh Queene of Ironie.
Well, it’s always nice to make sure he never has to hear about how they didn’t get enough accent plates.
Well, since you made a lumber reference I was going to make a joke about dry wall, but good taste forbids, this being a family blog and all…also the $75 dollar limit kind of eliminates a lot of the really cool stuff. Maybe you should just buy him a tie; I’m outa ideas already.
Thanks, hf. Good thinking.
Days are, with the online stuff, I’m unabashed about waiting til the day after the wedding and checking what sets of stuff didn’t get completed.
It would suck though if this caught on I guess.
Well, fuck, okay. I’ll go to $125, but she’s gonna rip my balls off.
Here ya go, Dan. Membership and a choice of three excellent magazines.
Dan – My favorite wedding present was a Milwaukee Sawz-All from one of my uncles. A gift card to Lowe’s, Home Depot, Menard’s, or Sears would work well too.
Seriously, Dan, wtf? “Men’s” magazines are marketing tools, as are “Women’s” mags. But if you’re seriously looking for suggestions, I nominate Details or Maxim, because they’re such IRONIC self parodies.
P.S. Since when is it proper to give subscriptions as a wedding gift? Give him a gift card to Car Toys or something.
Holy crap Dan, I don’t want anyone to rip your balls off. My point is that $75 just barely gets you in the door at Lowe’s. But seriously, how about a gift certificate for a nice dinner for the bride and groom after they get back from their honeymoon? Got to be a few good restaurants around where they live, right?
Can’t get much more manly than this, but a few bucks more than $75…cheapskate…
Maxim, Stuff, or FHM if you are going that route. Details is kind of teh ghey, no that there is anything wrong with that.
Fuck it. I’ll just plow their driveway this winter, or get them a general pass to the fetish event in Montreal. Thanks for nothing.
$800 Swiss Army knife? You would freeze to death trying to locate the correct tool up here. Anyway, SHE’S getting a $150 Gift Certificate to Victoria’s Secret. Poor guy.
Dan – You could enroll him in one of those Micro-brews of the Month club, or Hot sauce so hot it melts the chocolate starfish on the way back out, or a sampler box from Omaha Steaks.
Ummmm…that’s $1200, American. But worth it!
Rick beat me to it.
Leatherman multi-tool (actually, women enjoy these as well),
Bottle of good whisk(e)y.
Good set of electric barber shears (only if you think his wife has a reasonble amount of manual dexterity and artistic taste … I’ve saved hundreds since I got mine, and my wife has gotten pretty good at it).
Weber Smokey Joe mini-grill (perfect size for two, and will outlast 4 or 5 cheap grills, and cook ten times better in the bargain).
Coleman PowerChill 40 quart thermoelectric cooler (will run off the cigarette lighter outlet in a car for road trips or camping, or off an AC adaptor for keeping cold ones in the garage. Can also be filled with ice and used as a normal cooler).
Just noticed that the Powerchill lists for $130, but WallyWorld has it for $79.
Spies, Brigands – About a year ago, I decided that rather than paying $25 every 2 weeks for a “high & tight” like I used to get at the PX, I would learn how to do it myself. The clippers have more than paid for themselves, and now I can blame only myself when it does not turn out well.
Dan – A humidor or a box of good cigars would be nice as well.
JD — I’ve never tried doing it myself, but my wife actually seems to enjoy it. An advantage that I didn’t foresee is that I can go straight from the “barber chair” in the kitchen to the shower. Hair down my back drives me batshit, and you always seem to get some no matter how careful the barber might be.
You are braver than I. Should I ever let my better half get a hold of the clippers, I will be more bald than a cue ball, and be missing my eyebrows.
A subscription to Playboy (great articles! and Hef is an alumnus of my alma mater) is always appropriate, provided you know his better half well enough to know that she will not chop your nuts off for doing so.
Some friend you are.
By her a gift certificate to a nice spa in his name.
Buy. The word is spelled buy.
The box set of “Jeeves and Wooster” with Hugh Laurie is right in your price range and a sure treat if he likes Wodehouse.
I went to a Vietnamese wedding today. It is traditional to honor the family members that are no longer with us, and at this wedding, the family had lost 19 people following the withdrawal of American troops, and some more Cambodians more distant relative that we not included. This is obviously not applicable to the bleg, but it was really sobering reading the names.
Dan – You are a cruel friend, and no gift certificate will make up for the years of hell you have subjected this young man to. ;-)
Two words: Mental Floss
I keep mine in the crapper.
Cigar Aficionado. Even if the groom isn’t a smoker, there are always good articles on golf, poker, occasionally other sports. Interesting interviews. “Good Life for Men” is a feature every issue, with writeups on the new gadgets, super-pricy watches (Patek Philippe, along those lines), super-pricy cars, and other stuff that’s fun to look at and think, “If I had the bucks, that would be so cool.” Got my hippie brother a subscription five years ago and he reups every year. Most guys I’ve shown the mag to like it. Not expensive, either.
Lots of macho advice and qualification. Is he a lumberjack, and is he OK?
How about one of those small crossbows they sell in gas stations sometimes?
I hear that there’s some magazine called The New Republic, or something like that, and they’re fixin’ to have a subscription drive featuring some outstanding rates. I don’t know if their circulation is down a bit or what.
A first rate wine carafe and filter.
Here’s a decent choice. http://www.wineenthusiast.com/E/details.asp?Ep=An/354//A/16355&uid=2EF3E548%2DE571%2D4E01%2D8021%2D7C2E8169B258
Decanting much improves the taste of any wine.
A men’s magazine might come in handy (heh) after the honeymoon. You might as well get him him Penthouse, though. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a bitch.
Whatever you do, no firearms. In ten years, when she’s got the house, monthly child support, and his bonafides in a pickle jar, he might come looking for the man who introduced them.
Seriously, though, we still have the mixing bowls my college roommate bought my wife and I for our wedding twenty years ago. Are you sure the guy needs a separate gift? He’s not going to use the dishes, cookware, glasses, toaster oven, etc?
If they’re foodies, a really nice chef’s knife.
Otherwise, I second the Leatherman or the Weber.
Baseball tickets.
Vogue is a men’s magazine now, unless you’re an insecure neocon.
Ards–
I’m sure that they will use that stuff mutually, and I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t care, especially as his bride has left him out of having to make any of the arrangements for the wedding apart from put the suit on and show up, which is WAY merciful. However, I have noticed that guys’ ideas of what ought to come first in a household are a bit different, a point that I can illustrate by noting that everyone I know whose built his own house has gotten a grill on his porch before the porch was actually finished.
$75 credit at the local watering hole (include stipulation it is not to be applied to sissy drinks: frozens, schnapps, or drinks with homosexual names… er… like Vance or Seth).
What if he tries ordering a Christopher Collins?
HA – you are a terrible person. I will say extra Hail Marys and see if I can’t clean that one up for you.
I’m going with the tools idea. Sooner or later something is gonna need to be fixed and nuthin’ puts ya in solid with the missus more than bein able to fix it. Trust me on this.
You know your friend best, Dan. It just never occurred to me to get his and her gifts for a couple on their wedding. I know most couples these days have already set up house before they get married, and don’t need as much of that sort of thing. What was it you got her?
Get him a $75 gift certificate for a good attorney … with your condolences.
I would say that you should just hand him the 75 dollars and apologize for what you have done.
Dan,
Try Orvis, Plow and Hearth, Cabellas, Sportsman’s Warehouse, etc. etc. At times I professionally buy gifts for one client to another. Or, if he’s into food, there’s always Omaha Steak Company. For the old-fashioned and eclectic there is the Vermont Country Store as well. Let me know if I can help you with other ideas (clean ideas that is…) :)
Ear Plugs.
He’ll be wanting to use them quite often after say the first 30 days…
If you bought her a Victoria’s Secret gift certificate, you’ve already bought his wedding gift. Unless you were being sarcastic above, which I seem to be clueless at picking up online.
If you weren’t being sarcastic, get them both Victoria’s Secret gift certificates. Or get her a VS gift card and him a JT’s Stockroom gift card. If they offer them.
Or buy a gift certificate that’s actually enough to cover a really nice meal at a really nice restaurant, and give it to him on the sly. That way he can take his wife out and she’ll think he’s actually spending money on her.
Thanks for the many excellent suggestions. I need to find out whether he’s got a grill or not, but maybe a different sort of GC for him would be a good idea, depending. Wine decanter: nice idea, as well. And maybe a subscription to a wine mag (any that make an effort to deal with “value wines”?).
As for Cigar Aficionado, I think articles about expensive watches and autos are merely pornography, when you consider he’s a colleague of my wife, and she’s a colleague of mine.
They share an evil sense of humor, want kids, swim in the same gene pool (he’s tall and handsome and she’s lovely and has a great rack and hips made for child-bearing) so I think they’ll be all right. But I’m perfectly willing to disown any responsibility, should things not go well.
” But I’m perfectly willing to disown any responsibility, should things not go well. ”
Pussy.
Your point is? ;-P
How many friends have I lost by listening to them drunkenly whine about the woman who left them, only to find that they were appalled to have spilled so much to me? Even after I found them staggering down the center lane hollering her name? Bastards.
Sorry Dan , with great hyper-masculine powers come great hyper-masculine responsibilities …… I’m still trying to adjust . Should have used wimp , instead of pussy . I’ll work on it .
Brandy warmers. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=kitchen&field-keywords=brandy%20warmer&results-process=default&dispatch=search/ref=pd_sl_aw_tops-1_kitchen_5205344_2&results-process=default
And a bottle of D.O.M. Brandy & Benedictine. Hells YES.
I have a brandy warmer that looks like a snifter balanced over a bunsen burner. I have burnt myself each time I tried to use it, those that was back in my drinking days.
Warmed B&B with a fine cigar is the most pleasureable thing I’ve ever done that did not involve a woman performing sex acts on me.
And by me, I mean my penis.
Just give cash, the most perfect wedding gift possible. All other gifts suck, whether magazines or not. The only loophole to this rule opens onlhy in the rare case that both (1) you are a close friend of the couple, with a nuanced understanding of their personalities and wishes, and (2) you can acquire something they want at a bargain price, far below what they would pay had they bought it themselves with the cash you would otherwise have given them.
Two more remarks in support of my “cash only” rule.
One argument for a ribbon-wrapped gift is the attendant ambiguity regarding the money spent by the giver. A gift of cash (or leaving the price tag attached) signals crassly and explicitly, “This is exactly how much I value our relationship”. The popularity of gift registries puts paid to this argument: both giver and receiver know to the penny the price of that silver gravy boat. Anyone who has ever participated in a gift registry (whether giver or receiver) cannot rationally raise this objection to a gift of cold, hard, dare I say masculine, cash.
Second, gift cards are worse than cash, because they force a purchase from a particular merchant, and force the recipient to carry the blasted card around until it’s redeemed. (In my wallet now I have a 2-yr-old $30 card for Dick’s sporting goods, and another year-old $5 card for Starbuck’s. Hate ’em, but can’t bear to throw out this “cash” because, eventually, I’m pretty sure, I will get the opportunity to spend it.) Step out of your own shoes, and consider how much simpler it will be for the recipient to deposit that cash in the bank, where it can be applied when, where, and for what at maximal convenience.
Gourmet makes a great gift. Awesome recipes, all very achievable by cooks of normal skill. I learn something every time I read it.
to add to DB’s comment –
Don’t forget gift cards nowadays will spend down after about two years. There is a $2 a month service fee on most cards after a 6 month period.
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