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[cjsmith]

What do you get as a birthday gift for someone who not only has everything but is overwhelmed with trying to find a place to put it?

I can't afford real estate. Nice idea though.

And oh yeah, I have two hours.

Comments

[portia.livejournal.com]

An electronic gift certificate to their favorite on-line catalog? Fast and easy!

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

I know what worked for me... *chuckle*

Okay, let's see. Gift certificates are small, at least.
Events--maybe a special dinner, trip or other treat?

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

Watercorse Way GC? They're within 2 hours round-trip...

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

...things which would more naturally be kept in a work
environment rather than at home... (no specific idea
there, just a kernel of one)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hmm, yeah, the work environment is a lot less full... although it's still the most full cube in the building. Hmmm.

I have been thinking for more than an hour now and have come up with nothing, except stuff I no longer have time to get. (A random movie on DVD -> must research what he already has. That sort of thing.)

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

If he does DVDs, would netflix appeal to him?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I don't know. How does netflix work?

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

Basically, there's a monthly subscription which allows
you to have N (typically, N=3) DVDs checked out at any
time. They're managed through an internet queue. E.g.,
I go to the netflix web site, enter 20 or so movies
I want to see, and they send the first three (in order)
to me. If I watch one and send it back, they send me
the next one. I can reorg the list whenever I want.
In some cases they'll send the 2nd one on the list if
the first one is in short supply, but usually there's
not much trouble in that regard. You end up getting
to see a lot of DVDs, but you never collect a bunch.
The DVDs arrive in mailers, inside of which are the
appropriate return envelopes. It's very low-stress and
easy for me, I end up watching a lot of DVDs that way.

I personally love it, I don't have to maintain a bunch
of DVDs that I only want to see once, and I don't have
to drive to the store to rent them. There's a flat
per month fee--no late fees because I always have
3 checked out. I think it's roughly $30/month for
N=3, though.

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

(If the comment about no late fees didn't make sense,
I can explain more, I was just trying to justify why
Netflix doesn't care whether you hold a CD for a long
time or turn them back in at a high rate.)

Their ship point is San Jose, so the mail is pretty
fast 'round these parts.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, that sounds pretty cool. So a person can buy a "subscription" for someone else? Wonder what happens if you let the per month fee lapse and you still have 3 DVDs... Time to go poking around on the web!

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that they have an official process for gifts,
which could be an issue. The netflix web site is pretty
good, I hope this isn't a wild goose chase for you, I'm just
casting around thinking of ideas, and I had two DVDs in
my incoming mail. :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

OK, one more Netflix question. You can buy a gift certificate if you want, but only people who do not already have Netflix accounts can redeem gift certificates. I'm PRETTY sure he diesn't already have an account, but can I ask Netflix to be certain?

(Maybe that would violate their privacy policy - wouldn't be surprised - but I don't want to goof up, either.)

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

Try to log in with his email address, if he has only one.
Amazingly, the login screen from my testing appears to
distinguish "we don't know that email" from "you gave
us the wrong password". Bwaha!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Good idea! I tried both addresses I know about and they both "didn't match any address in the database". Cool. I'm sufficiently confident that he doesn't have any other e-mail addresses that I could go ahead with this one.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm trying to think along those lines. Gift certificates will probably simply be left to expire. It's a personality thing. But if I could buy tickets to the Harry Potter movie, or to some other Event, that might work...

hmm, dinner at La Fondue?...

*sigh* i hate this. I didn't know I had no time left until after midnight last night, when Rob threw the square dance club at me. Crap, it's getting on toward eight PM already... if I don't think of something fast, online will be my only remaining option.

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

Ummm, the promise of (movie, trip to Watercourse, etc.)
without the gift certificate per se? Dunno if that
would be less stressful...

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

(La Foundue is always good, of course.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh now THAT'S a thought. I could make up my own little gift-certificate, redeemable by the management of CJ. Maybe a little booklet of them. One backrub, one ride to the car repair shop, one movie, one dinner at La Fondue... and maybe some goofy things in there too...

I do at least have two small things to wrap. But I want to do a bit more than those.

[portia.livejournal.com]

Actually, I believe there is a law in CA that states that gift certificates may not expire. (The company I work for had to enhance their gift certificate software module to accommodate this CA law.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh wild! That's interesting. Cool.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Maybe I should be careful about making up my own little gift certificates. :-) Ten years from now, who knows, I may not WANT to have dinner with this guy!

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

:)

[hopeforyou.livejournal.com]

I know there isn't any time left, really, but I thought I would say if they have everything and no place to put it, maybe a gift certificate for Stacks and Stacks (http://www.stacksandstacks.com/) or Organized Living (http://www.organizedliving.com/) would help? Then they would have organizers and storage units to put all that stuff in.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That's definitely in the running. I bet I could do it by pho... um, well, maybe on line. Anything that can be done on line doesn't have the same deadline, because I can do it at any time of the day or night and it'll be ready in moments. Hooray for the web!!

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

A domain name registered for them. Something cool.