When it comes to gift shopping, I’m a positively aggressive procrastinator. Even if I want to get things done early, I fight myself until I submit to waiting until the minute. But my perennial argument is that even if I may not be hitting the pavement and swiping the plastic, at least I’m still thinking about what I’m looking for. As long as I sort out what I’m trying to do in advance, a last-minute blitz isn’t hard to pull off.But what about those people for whom finding a gift is completely impossible? Luckily I happened across this gift guide episode of early-nineties geek show Computer Chronicles. Hosted by Stewart Cheifet, who was curiously omnipresent in the neon-and-flannel heyday of early computer television, the show reviews a cornucopia of nerd gear from 1994. That list includes hot items an ergonomic keyboard from Lexmark, a GPS, a paper airplane designer (which I remember playing with), a sat phone, a Simpsons screen saver (remember buying those?) and a number of games, including Monty Python’s “Complete Waste of Time” from 7th Level. It’s a fascinating look into how simple, silly and cheap geek wish lists were in the days before everyone was asking Santa for thousands of dollars worth of tablets and smartphones.
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