Updated tastes for 2008. Many items from my 2006 and 2007 lists are crossed out, which is why cat­e­gories like “fur­ni­ture” aren’t small­er now.

I’ve been told that I’m noto­ri­ous­ly hard to shop for. Not only am I extreme­ly picky, I have eso­teric (and expen­sive) tastes, and I usu­al­ly buy — and so, have — the things that I want. This year, I real­ized that good gifts are things peo­ple want, but which they don’t buy for them­selves because they can’t jus­ti­fy the cost. It does­n’t have to be lav­ish, but maybe a lit­tle over­priced, some­thing you would­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly buy for your­self.

Photography

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II (about $2800) — Yep. This is the big one. I had the Mark I on my list back in 2006. This one is full frame, does dust clean­ing, and records video now. Even though I have a cam­corder already, I want this for low-light and low depth-of-field work that con­sumer cam­corders sim­ply can’t pro­vide.

Housewares

• Tea Forté Morehouse glass ($25) — A dou­ble-walled glass that can be used to keep tea warm (or iced tea cold). Made with a cov­er for the leaf on Tea Forté pyra­mid bags to stick out. No con­den­sa­tion means no coast­er need­ed. Love the design and func­tion­al­i­ty.
• Tea Forté tea trays (×2) ($7) — For hold­ing indi­vid­ual tea tags. Comes in sets of two with four colour choic­es, but I like bone white.
• Bodum Assam 1.5L teapot ($50) — My pre­vi­ous, small­er Assam teapot broke (rather eas­i­ly) as I was clean­ing out the fil­ter. I can’t give up my love of Bodum prod­ucts though. I already have tea mak­ers for sin­gle serv­ings, but I don’t have a pot for when I have guests over.
• Oxo Candela Flare (set of eight) ($130) — I’d put these on the ban­is­ter that sep­a­rates my hall­way from the stairs. It’s pret­ty bland right now.

Furniture

• B2C Expandable Dining Table ($699) — To replace the cheap, scratched-up din­ing table I have in my kitchen now. Frosted glass? More like frost­ed sex­i­ness.

Gadgets

• Tenori-On ($1200) — I’ve been wait­ing for this to be avail­able in Canada for more than a year, and it’s final­ly come. I’ve always want­ed to get into music as anoth­er medi­um of cre­ativ­i­ty. I come from a musi­cal back­ground (as opposed to visu­al arts), but the Tenori-On com­bines both, in a sim­ple, easy-to-use inter­face.
• Aromatherapy Car Diffuser ($16) — For keep­ing the car fresh, with refill­able scent pads.
• Apple Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard ($80) — I’m hop­ing the next MacWorld Expo will announce an update, not a dis­con­tin­u­a­tion, to the Mac Mini, which I’d get for a home the­atre sys­tem (my TV is soon to be dis­con­nect­ed because I don’t use it enough). If this holds to be true, I’d have to buy a key­board, which I could already use now.
• MicroFly Tiny R/C Hovering UFO ($20) — Small and easy-to-fly. Something I’d use to play with Dolly.
• Colibri Throttle Silver Plaid Lighter ($60) — Much to my dis­may, the elec­tro-quartz trig­ger on my old Colibri died. It was one Christie gave me for my birth­day, with my name engraved on it. I’ve been look­ing for a lighter ever since, and this is the first one I’ve ever real­ly con­sid­ered. I’m super-picky about lighter design.
• Auto LED ($25) — Plugs into the cig­a­rette lighter of the car, and glows blue (which would match the meters of my car). Pull it out, and it becomes a handy-dandy flash­light.

Games

• Rez ($20) — One of the most under­rat­ed and genre-bust­ing games of the PS2.
• Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition ($20) — DMC has always been one of those series I hear about, but nev­er got a chance to try. The spe­cial edi­tion adds game­play and fix­es var­i­ous issues.
• Metal Slug Anthology ($20) — I love the arcady feel of Metal Slug. Something you can turn on, and play with your brain off. The entire series in one game? Yes, please.