Gift Guide Part 1: For a lovely bearded husband, who is a geek at heart and has a deep love for plaid shirts

Are you excited about Christmas? I am!!! I can't believe that it is December already. So to start this awesome month with a bang, here is the first part of our early gift guide. However, this post is not written by me, as such, but by A, my awesome husband, who decided he should show me how it's done and write his very own gift guide.  A is not your average guy in my opinion - and that's why I love him- he has quite specific taste and would probably start crying if I gave him a jumper and aftershave for Christmas - or maybe not crying but, you know, pout:)

So here are his choices:

From top left clockwise:

1. A little pricey but Dan Aykroyd, of Ghostbusters etc., is one of the founders of this company. His love of the weird and fantastical led to the creation of this bottle. The Crystal Head vodka is distilled using peaches and cream corn, and is gluten free. You can buy from a local retailer (Lupe Pintos in Glasgow stock it). If the large bottle seems too expensive (or the gift set with skull shot glasses if you are really pushing the boat out) there is a miniature 50ml bottle available for around £10.99 which still looks cool.

2.This is retro looking turntable brief case, for under £100, it looks cool in or out of use. With vinyl making a big comeback this could be pretty essential. Two speed turntable with built in speakers, it can also covert your vinyl to MP3.

3. Danner boots are hard wearing leather boots made in Portland Oregon, generally known for work boots and outdoor wear. However I like these Forest Heights II, in forest Grey, which look more suited to everyday wear. The website ships to the UK too.

4. For the video game addict the Retrotrio is three vintage game consoles in one. Dust of your old cartridges or hit up ebay for Megadrive (Sega Genesis for American readers), SNES and NES games. It has AV and SVideo outs for easy connection to your TV.




And again from top left clockwise:

1. The pocket Boom is an amazing sounding, tiny Bluetooth speaker, I travel for work so this is very handy. Small, powerful, sounds great and available in several colours. It charges from a USB, and a full battery should give you over four hours of play back. For about £20 it gives great bang for your buck.

 2.The Leonard Maltin movie guide is an essential tome for film buffs. Great, succinct, intelligent reviews. It’s a real shame that this will be the last edition to be physically printed, it’s ebook only from next year on. As an added treat the book can be used to play your own version of the Leonard Maltin Game, as featured on the Doug Loves Movies Podcast. I'll add the rules below. A book and party game in one.

3. The wallet ninja, again for travel, looks so useful. A credit card sized all in one multi tool. It is TSA approved so should get through airport security no problem. You’ll always have “that” tool handy. Always ready to MacGyver your problems away.

4. USB sticks come in all sort of crazy shapes and sizes these days. Who wouldn't want to store some data in a Delorean?

And finally:

 
1.  I love the Death Waltz record Label, their releases are always interesting, mostly soundtracks from Horror and Cult films, this John Carpenter LP is a great example. The sleeve designs are always striking, and quite often by notable graphic artists. You could play this on the briefcase turntable above.

2. This pen is amazing. Recording your doodles and sketches it then saves them straight to the graphics program, where it can be edited and played with. It saves your drawing at various stages so you can use the various layers of the image.

3. This clock may be a little big but i think it is great looking. Designed with tech straight from MIT, it's nerdy and stylish.

4. Last of all, the perfect stocking filler. An empty bottle may seem like a terrible gift but this tiny keyring Sriracha bottle will mean you'll never be without that spicy condiment. Almost everything tastes better with hot sauce. So now you can spice up a Big Mac or your sandwich at lunch wherever you are.

Don't miss our next guide: choosing a gift for that crazy fussy girlfriend/wife of yours, who pretends she is easy to buy for! You can also check our past gift guides here, here and here.

Below are the rules for the Leonard Maltin Game at Home: 

How To Play

Like "Name that Tune" but for movies, The Leonard Maltin Game takes Leonard Maltin film reviews and turns them into a group guessing game.

The Host chooses a Movie (or have the panel choose a letter the movie starts with).

The panel is given the year of the movie, the star rating, some unhelpful clues from the review itself and the number of names in the cast list. 

In order, each panel of contestants must declare how many names they can name the movie in, knowing that the cast list will be read from the bottom up. You can only bid less than the bid before you.

If a contestant doesn't know the movie, or doesn't think the person before them knows the movie, they can declare "NAME THAT MOVIE!". 

The amount of names that were bid are read and the challenged person must name the movie. If they get it right, they get the point. If they get it wrong, the challenger gets the point.