6 Places to Start Your Gift Search

Friday, 9 December 2016Friday, 9 December 2016 StarrLeave a comment

For a lot of people, December brings about a lot of gift anxiety. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I put a lot of pressure on myself to buy gifts for people. Either I know them really well, so I want to make sure the gift is something personal that reflects how well I know them, or I don’t have a close, personal relationship but still want to make a nice gesture without being too weird about it. For some folks, you know exactly what to get them. But more often than not, the holiday season comes around and we’re not sure what to get for our managers, our extended family, our children’s teachers…
And gift exchanges can also be their own can of worms.

Finding the right store to look for a gift can make or break your gift-buying excursion. A lot of very different stores often have a gifts section that is great to look at. If you don’t want to buy something from that section, it might give you a great idea with regards to a gift you can get!

Places that I find myself visiting —online or in-person— even if I don’t buy anything, are:
(Note: I tried to include screenshots that have products for both genders, as some of the gift pages tend to be geared towards female recipients.)

TJ Maxx / Marshall’s / Ross

Discounted department stores are one of my favorite places to start looking for gifts. In December, in particular, they will start keeping lots of easy-to-gift items at the front of the store. It can be easy to get overwhelmed because of the variety, but some items you can look for – depending on the people you are shopping for – include:

Fitness, e.g. yoga mats, foam rollers, water bottles
Self-care, e.g. face masks, sleeping masks, hot water bottles for aches and pains
Pets!, e.g. the large selection of pet toys that are available
Food & drink, e.g. a specialty coffee or snack

This is also a really great stop if you have a budget limit for your gift, like if your white elephant has a $10 cap on it.

Screen Shot 2016-12-09 at 12.18.57 AM.png — You can start your search online for ideas as well. This is from the new arrivals page on TJMaxx.com

ThinkGeek

I love browsing ThinkGeek when it comes to my nerdy friends and/or my friends who are really into a particular movie franchise/TV show/video game. Even if I am not familiar with the fandom itself, I can get some inspiration as to what kind of merchandise is available for it and what people are interested in buying. You can get anything from T-shirts and mugs to more specific gifts to the interest. When my friends get really into a video game, or I often discuss shows like Game of Thrones or Doctor Who with them, I go to ThinkGeek and start getting ideas for what kinds of things to get. Even if you don’t think your gift recipient has any super nerdy interests, you might still find something that’s just really cool to receive!

Screen Shot 2016-12-09 at 12.23.03 AM.png — Here’s a selection of their best-selling gifts

Urban Outfitters

I have never purchased clothing from UO but I love browsing the gifts and non-clothing items they have. They have books, candles, cute kitsch, or Instax cameras, but because the collection is so eclectic, you can also get ideas for gifts to look for elsewhere if nothing specific jumps out at you. Stuff I’ve gotten for gifting include really cute Korean skincare products and a grow-your-own bonsai tree kit! It’s one of my favorite places to browse for gifts and get ideas.

Screen Shot 2016-12-09 at 12.24.35 AM.png — A selection from the under $12 section of their gifts page

Francesca’s

The store is more geared towards women, but their gift section is really cute. This is also a really good place to look if you have a bride-to-be in your life, as they always have some great gifts for brides in the store, as well as the incredible cat-themed section of the gifts table. If you are shopping for someone who really embraces how they fulfill some “basic” stereotypes, you might want to check out Francesca’s.

Screen Shot 2016-12-09 at 12.26.30 AM.png — A lot of great gifts categorized by interest

Barnes & Noble

Definitely a good place to look for a book lover in your life, but they also have a lot of other things you can look through as well. Not only do they have a lot of craft + skill books (e.g. origami books, recipe books, etc.) that are great for gifting, but they have board games, figurines, puzzles, journals, planners, book accessories, and tables of themed gift-type items! Around this time of year, they are usually Christmas-themed items. One year, I got a cute mug with peppermint hot cocoa mix and a teensy little whisk.

Screen Shot 2016-12-09 at 12.30.31 AM.png — An interesting mix of gifts that is organized by interest

Drugstores (CVS, RiteAid, Walgreen’s)

The gift aisle of drugstores is king for two types of gifts for sure: mug sets and face/body sets (e.g. lotion + body wash, nail polish sets, etc.) . In recent years, I’ve seen the sets get less generic and more fun! For example, one year, I got Ben a Darth Vader-shaped mug that was filled with Hershey kisses. We were more interested in the mugs, so I ended up getting the rest in the Star Wars collection of head-shaped mugs. They have a lot of different gifts, so you might be surprised by what you can find that is a safe gift for someone you don’t know as intimately, for a white elephant gift exchange, or to donate to a gift drive. It’s also another reliable spot if you’re looking for a gift within a stricter price range.

So the next time you need to buy a gift for someone and have no clue where to start, try checking out of the six spots I mentioned above. I also really like browsing curated gift guides by bloggers and larger websites because they can have a lot of great ideas for gifts as well!

If you’re still having trouble, comment below and tell me what kind of person you’re shopping for or what kind of gift you are looking for and I’ll try to direct you to a place or a gift guide to start you search!

Do you have any go-to places when it comes to buying gifts when you don’t have a specific item in mind?

Weapons of Math Destruction (2016)

Tuesday, 6 December 2016Monday, 5 December 2016 Starr2 Comments

If you enjoyed Freakonomics, I think you’ll really enjoy Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil. This book is crucial as we become an increasingly data-driven, automated world.

http://images.randomhouse.com/cover/9780553418811?width=450&alt=no_cover_b4b.gif — Weapons of Math Destruction: How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy

While it’s very exciting that we have machine learning and big data, O’Neil highlights how important it is to realize that the algorithms that we allow to run our lives in an attempt to avoid human biases are, in fact, developed by biased humans. Or they run in a biased context. And it’s important to think about this, especially in the wake of things like social media algorithms that keep us in echo chambers of people repeating shared opinions back at us and with more and more tasks becoming automated to the point where we don’t know why things happen anymore – we can only point to the computers and say “the algorithm did it”. Although the book came out before the 2016 US presidential election, she touches on the danger of our News Feeds and the fake news that can circulate in these echo chambers, which has become a huge topic of late. She also touches on how Weapons of Math Destruction were involved with the 2008 housing crisis, which was why she left the hedge fund she previously worked at.

O’Neil is not afraid to name names, either. She calls out specific companies that enable and encourage data-based biases, like police predictive software and teacher evaluations. This book really opens your eyes to the kinds of injustices that we are no longer able to say is the fault of people and, instead, just shrug and say, “Well, the numbers don’t lie.”

And it’s true, numbers don’t lie. But the thing with the Weapons of Math Destruction, which are carried out at a huge scale, is they often don’t receive feedback as to whether or not they’re working. Unlike sports statistics, which O’Neil thinks is an ideal use of data because they are constantly calibrated based on whether or not the predictions were correct, these WMDs plow forward with no regard to whether or not the predictions are correct. This is all the more dangerous if they are written with biases in them or designed as self-fulfilling prophecies.

This was one of my favorite reads this year because I am fascinated but apprehensive about the role that big data is taking in our world. While I was busy worrying about what companies can do with my data (still a valid concern!), it’s so important to understand the the lack of transparency with how some of these big data predictions and decisions are made have very serious consequences.

I highly highly recommend you pick up this book and learn about how companies are using data to perpetuate biases and to learn ways that we can start critically thinking of solutions to avoid just that.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

Friday, 2 December 2016Friday, 2 December 2016 StarrLeave a comment

After stuffing myself on Thanksgiving, I went with a group of friends and my brother to go see the newest from J.K. Rowling’s magical world, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

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As I’ve gotten older, my appreciation for the well-crafted world that J.K. Rowling dreamed up has grown and matured. What the canonical material lacked in depth and insight, I found in Tumblr’s fantastic Harry Potter community.

So what did I think of the newest prequel to the Harry Potter film franchise, which is the first of five films?

In general, I liked it! It was a fun movie to see, and it was nice to revisit the wizarding world in a new film. Sometimes, the last HP movie seems like it came out just yesterday and then I remember that it was released 5 years ago…

I have to say that having the film take place in the United States… was a fun choice, but not an obvious one. And when I say that, I mean that I frequently forgot that the events in Fantastic Beasts takes place in New York City. It still felt very British to me, except for the actors who forgot to do British accents!

Let’s talk about some of the actors and characters, shall we?

Eddie Redmayne is a darling. Here’s a great piece by Bustle about the roles he has chosen and how they challenge toxic masculinity. I have to agree that Newt Scamander is not a traditional Male Movie Hero. He seemed to struggle socially, but he cared so deeply for his beasts that he was smuggling in his suitcase. (There is a theory I like that Newt has adapted his body language to be non-threatening based on his experiences with his fantastic beasts.) You do root for him, and I think we needed a male hero like Newt.
I can’t say that I particularly liked Katherine Waterson’s Tina Goldstein. She seemed to struggle a lot at work (at the American Ministry of Magic, MACUSA) but her struggles seemed so easy to avoid. It was just another case of strange social interactions. Her earnesty and unwillingness to be swayed from the right path was admirable, as was her compassion that is revealed throughout the film.
Apparently people have been talking about Alison Sudol’s Queenie a lot, because she’s a very Marilyn Monroe-esque character who is ultra feminine in contrast to her sister Tina, who is no-nonsense. She even says herself that her sister is the career woman and she… isn’t. But I really liked that she is comfortable with acknowledging that she doesn’t have the same career ambitions her sister has; not everyone does, and women who don’t are not less feminist than women who do! I also loved that her thing is her prowess with Legilimency (mind-reading). It added a beautiful layer of compassion and empathy to her character, and I found her really hard to dislike.
A fan-favorite character out of this film is Jacob, played by Dan Fogler, who is a muggle. Sorry, “no-maj”, ugh. He encounters the magical world the way we, the movie-goer, do: with awe and wonderment and wide eyes. Seeing this amazing, fantastical things for the first time is amazing, and while we had Harry acting as our eyes and ears in the original movies, Jacob is a funny and endearing way to experience magic as someone who did not grow up with magic. And yes, he is very funny.
I think Colin Farrell is finally being recognized for having more depth as an actor, given his earlier work, but these past few years he’s really stepped up his game. He plays Percival Graves with this dark solemnity that you’ll recognize immediately, that guy who doesn’t want you to succeed, that guy whose motivations you can’t quite pin down (until the end of the movie, of course!). I love Colin Farrell and I’m glad to see him play an antagonist like this.
Let’s also say that Ezra Miller’s portrayal of Credence was… chilling. I am not super familiar with his work, but I felt very thoroughly on edge whenever he was on screen. Interested to see how his portrayal of Barry Allen will be!

I had a few little issues with plot and story, and even with some of the world-building in this movie. (Why use Accio instead of Expelliarmus? Not sure.) I think the world-building in this movie was weaker than in the Harry Potter movies, but that could also be partly due to how high my expectations are after having additional world-building done by the HP fandom. Still, there were many times where I felt I had to really suspend belief.

Image result for fantastic beasts

One thing to consider when watching is how easy the magic comes to the wizards and witches we see in this movie. We are not watching teenagers learn magic, with a few exceptions in-between. We are watching adults practice magic, as they have been doing for years, many of them who do so professionally. It’s very different and it’s something to get used to – people performing magic with little to no difficulty at all.

Image result for fantastic beasts

The movie was a lot of fun though. Lots of action, lots of creativity and imagination. All the fantastic beasts were great. It’s a much darker movie than the Harry Potter films, and I want you to be ready for that. There is abuse. There are gruesome deaths. More serious family drama occurs. This is not a children’s movie, the way the Harry Potter movies were. It’s a movie for the young adults who watched Harry Potter when they were kids.

Image result for fantastic beasts

~~Also, full disclosure, I cried a few times watching this. Okay.~~

How about some spoilers? After the trailer:

#GivingTuesday

Tuesday, 29 November 2016Monday, 28 November 2016 StarrLeave a comment

I hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving holiday and was able to take advantage of sales to get some gifts for your friends, family, and yourself!

If you are able to spend a little more time and money, please consider #GivingTuesday. 2016 has been a pretty crazy year (remember when we all wished 2015 would end?), but I think that sitting and feeling crummy about it for more than a few minutes isn’t the way to go. This year, I have been trying to at least actively think about what I can actually do to make the world a better place, rather than just thinking about how it isn’t better yet.

Giving is so important, especially during the holidays when those who are without may feel it more acutely. It connects us to other people and adds a little more goodness into our world that so desperately needs as much as it can get.

According to GivingTuesday.org:

#GivingTuesday is a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration.

Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) and the widely recognized shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on their holiday and end-of-year giving.

One of the best ways to get involved is in your own community. We’ve created a directory to help you find organizations, charities, events and more in your own community.

If you aren’t sure how or where to give, GivingTuesday.org has some resources to help you get started. To break down how you can give, roughly in order of time commitment, you can:

Donate money – This can be a one-time donation or you can set up a regular donation with an organization you care a lot about. Think local if you can, as you can often more easily make a large impact on your local community, and you may be able to more readily see that impact yourself! GivingTuesday.org has a great resource to help you get started with finding local organizations. Even if you’re only able to donate a small amount of money, it counts. If you’re just saving pennies from your change to donate, it counts.
Donate items – Whether you are leaving boxes of old clothes outside your house or organizing a canned food drive, giving items can be a really impactful way to give. I highly urge you to think a little bit outside the box with your donations. Check out this lis t as a place to start with items that are in high demand, and also please consider picking up extra feminine hygiene products to donate! It’s something that gets overlooked because we don’t like thinking about it, but imagine how difficult it is to not like thinking about it and not having options when you have to.
Volunteer – One of the most valuable assets we are able to give is our time, along with our energy. A lot of folks will volunteer at soup kitchens on Thanksgiving, and I’d love to see that continue on. Sometimes volunteer work isn’t fun or glamorous, but you just need to remind yourself that you are giving your time for the sake of someone else and not for the sake of your own personal enjoyment. For example, I once volunteered at a pet shelter with a group that was disappointed to learn that we were not volunteering to play with dogs! Because the shelter really needed us to help with wiping things down and filing folders away, so that’s what we helped them do. You can do one-time activities or find a cause that you want to give your time to more often.
Do pro bono work – Check Taproot+ to see what skills you can give and what organizations need. As a Ruby developer, I can recommend Ruby For Good, which gets Ruby devs together to work on projects for non-profits that can’t afford to spend their limited budgets on hiring developers to put together great tech solutions that they may really need. There are a lot of ways to work pro bono for organizations, and that can be an immensely valuable way to give your time and energy to groups in need.

Another thing you can do is make your purchase with an organization that gives back. Here are a few lists to start with, if you still need to buy any gifts. Giving a gift that gives back is nice because the recipient knows the impact of your gift is goes beyond him/herself and that’s very special.

When in doubt, reach out and ask how you can best help. The folks at the organization you are thinking of will know best what they need the most if you’re not sure whether you should be giving money or items or your time and know that you can’t do all three. And if you aren’t able to give any of those right now, think about at least giving these organizations your attention. Be aware of what their goals are and maybe promote them and how other people can help them through social media, so that someone in your network who is looking to give but isn’t sure how can get a little nudge in the right direction.

Sometimes giving can feel very overwhelming. You might need to research the charity you are giving to, to make sure it’s legitimate and using most (if not all) of their proceeds for the actual cause itself. (When in doubt, check Charity Navigator.)

What I find makes regular giving a little easier is not to think about it. I know this is counter-intuitive to what I just said about actively giving organizations your attention, but what I mean is try your best to automate your giving so that you don’t need to actively think about it – it just happens. Two ways I do this are through Amazon Smile, which lets you give by allowing Amazon to donate a proceed of your purchase prices to an organization of your choice, and Tab for a Cause, which donates a little bit for every new tab you open in exchange for showing you some ads that fund those donations. (I also just really love Tab for a Cause as a new tab page with handy widgets on it.) With these two tools, I am able to give a little bit without even having to change my routine. I just make my Amazon purchases at smile.amazon.com and keep opening a bazillion tabs and I am still able to do a little good.

What organizations will you give your attention, and possibly more, to this #GivingTuesday?
What was your best experience with giving? Remember that you can give to one single person and it still counts – a lot! As cheesy as it sounds, as long as you can help one person, you are making the world a better place.

White Elephant Gift Guide – Under $10

Tuesday, 22 November 2016Tuesday, 22 November 2016 Starr2 Comments

Secret Santa is fun, but my preferred gift exchange game is White Elephant. It can be a little stressful to get assigned a person to get a gift for, especially if it’s a group like coworkers or a large organization where you might not know everyone that well. Personal gifts are really tricky and you feel like you’re not able to get something a little more generic.

White Elephant is great because you don’t know who is going to go home with your gift. The rules vary from group to group, but it’s a lot of fun to see gifts exchange hands and the different reactions to gifts. What matters isn’t who bought what for whom but the fun in the game.

There are a few approaches to White Elephant. Some folks play the variation my friends call “Pass the Trash”, where you bring in a gift that maybe no one wants. This can result in some troll-tastic gifts. It’s also a great place for rejected gifts from past years to show up. One man’s trash can be another man’s treasure, so this could be great for some folks! It also results in a lot of laughs. Some examples I’ve seen from this variation include a $20 bill superglued in a mason jar, a signed photo of another participant, and the leg lamp from A Christmas Story.

I don’t like playing that way and try to think of something that people will like and have a fun with. (Just not a lot of troll in me…) Here’s three suggestions to help you think of things to pick up for a White Elephant exchange you might be doing that has a spending cap of $10. Remember, with a lot of deals coming up on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you might be able to make that $10 stretch quite far!

FUNKO POP! VINYL TOYS// Funko makes cute vinyl figurines for every franchise you can think of. Disney? Superheroes? Video games? TV shows? Movies? They’ve got ’em, usually for a little over $9. They can be tricky for White Elephant because Funko Pop! toys are one of my go-to gifts for friends who are in fandoms, and it’s harder to have any one toy appeal to every person participating in the gift exchange. You can pick something that most people are interested in — like a movie or show or game the group has discussed often — and hope that one of the folks who has an interest in it either chooses the gift or steals it! These can be purchased from a bunch of online retailers like Amazon or ThinkGeek and at physical stores like Hot Topic and Barnes & Noble.
Screen Shot 2016-11-21 at 11.34.34 PM.png
FUN DRINKWARE // A lot of us have too many mugs and cups, SO if you are able to find fun drinkware, this works out great! Again, this could be tricky because it can be easier to get a mug or cupfor a specific person, but you are free to be a little more broad here. For example, if your Greek organization is participating, you can get a tumbler with your letters on it. Some fun options include those heat change mugs and cups that have a special shape to them, if you don’t want to risk it with the text or design that is printed onto the item itself.

NOVELTY CANDY // Along with that book, I felt the need to beef up that gift with some Pop Rocks, which, for the record, are always a lot of fun to watch people open up and eat and share. Things that fall into this category are sweets that you wouldn’t ordinarily get but are super fun and enjoyable anyway, maybe for their novelty. Other examples include Japanese Kit-Kat flavors you can’t find in your usual grocery, astronaut ice cream, and anything that tastes like bacon. (Why is there bacon-flavored everything??)

Before this post gets too long, I think I just want to say that White Elephant gift exchanges should not be stressful. If you get anxious trying to pick out the perfect gift for a specific person, this format of gift exchange should relieve a lot of that anxiety. As long as the recipient(s) can tell that you got the gift with their enjoyment in mind, they’ll have fun with it!

(And if it’s better than the box of condoms and can of Spaghetti-Os I once received, you’re solid.)

Note: Links in this post are affiliate links.

What’s the best and worst White Elephant gift you’ve ever received or seen at a gift exchange?