Syntax Holiday Gift Guide

Welcome to Syndax. Happy holidays. Today, we have a sick pic Node. This is an episode we actually haven't done for a couple years. I think 2020 was the last year that we did it, and the people have spoken. They want it back. So here we are. This is Mhmm. The syntax holiday gift guide. And if you like the sick picks of things that we pick every Wednesday, you're gonna love this episode because it's an entire episode of us talking about our our sick picks. And, basically, just like things that would make a good gift for developers, things that would make good gifts for people in your live life who like nice things. I I like nice things. I like good things, and I, I love talking about this stuff, quite honestly. So I'm I'm glad it's back. Do you also like open source software, Wes? I love open source software.

Tell me about it. Do you like to support open source software?

I absolutely like to support open source software. How how could a company do that, Scott? Well, they should check out opensource pledge.com.

It's a way that you can pledge to support the software that you're using.

When we joined Century, one of the first things they did is they hooked it up so that we were going to be donating to all the projects that we had inside of our package Scott JSON.

And to me, that was one of the coolest things in the world.

And so I love that the open source pledge is here. And you you should go to if you go to opensource pledge.comforward/members, you can see the teams based on how many people work there, so how much dollar per dev they're giving to open source. And, honestly, these are the companies that I wanna support because they're supporting the projects that we all rely on.

So if you wanna check out and join the Open Source Pledge, head on to open source pledge.com and give this thing a raid. And if your company qualifies, join the pledge.

Alright. So we have broken down our gift guide into our favorites Wes we're gonna list 3 or 4 of our absolute favorite things, games, under $30 gifts, clothing, desk items, kids' items, house items, kitchen items, eatables.

I was gonna call it edibles, but for reasons, I'm not going to call it that. And smart home, finishing it off with. So, honestly, I could I could talk about this for hours, but let's start off with our absolute favorites. These things are not going to be just web development related. But just as somebody with mediocre taste, these are things that I quite enjoy.

Quite honestly, a Scott Sichpix are very good because I often find myself just buying them,

myself after Likewise. He's talked about them. Yeah. I I have the same problem, Wes. That is, I guess you could call that a problem.

Yes.

I'm going a sick pick something. I gotta make sure my phone number is on it. I can't show it. A Leatherman Yarn.

This is a knife multi tool all in one that my wife got me for Christmas last year after I had wanted a Leatherman for many years, but never could commit on a specific one. And the Leatherman Yarn is so fantastic because it has absolutely everything in it. It's got pliers. It has a really nice knife on it. It has a pair of scissors. It has a file.

The scissors and the knife are probably the 2 that I use most often along with the pliers where you just need to pull something out. And this is is what we call in the industry a EDC and everyday carry. And I have this thing on me industry. At all times, and it is so dang Sanity. From cutting a kid's chicken nuggets up, opening Bos, everyday things to, oh, man, this thing is bent. I need to fix it. You know? I never have to go and go find a screwdriver or a pair of pliers or whatever. This always in my pocket. And I never thought that I would like it because it's it's it's relatively big, but I it's one of those things where I tap my pockets and I go, oh, if it's not on me, I I kinda kinda panic. So get somebody a multi tool. This one's called the Leatherman Yarn. It's probably the best one you can buy, and it it's one of those things. Get your name engraved on it because, if you lose it, you will cry. But it's one of these things that you'll probably have forever, and you can you can endlessly Leatherman's a really cool company. It's made in the USA. All of the parts on it are replaceable.

They have a really good warp. So just one of those forever items. Yeah. I'm gonna sick pick. I guess we don't have to say that before every single one.

One of my favorite things on my desk is the Anker Cube.

I have this. The Anker Cube is a 3 in 1 Anker charger, and it's built like a brick. I could I could throw this thing through a window. So it's it's very solid.

It'll charge your Vercel all at once. Because to me, I, you know, I have all these devices. I have all the Apple Vercel. But, you know, it's like, I'm on the road sometimes. In this thing, you just chuck it in your bag. But I I really just keep mine on my desk all the time anyways, And it's my, like, main charger or whatever. It sits my phone up nicely while I'm working. It is a little bit expensive, but all of the kind of 3 in 1 chargers are. So if you're hucking out the cash for one of these 3 in 1 chargers anyways, this one I really, really like, and I kinda get it as a gift for everybody that I know has a iPhone and likes these kind of things. Mhmm. Yeah. The the thing about these chargers is that if you do cheap out on them, you're either

giving up, like, charge speed or, like, safety, because, like, some of them are are are kind of sketchy. Right? Like, Anker is a really good company, and I trust their stuff.

And if someone were to come out with 1 that was, like, $29, I would kinda be a little bit suspicious of it because it's it's doing quite a bit that I didn't realize, like, it's such a good idea to put your phone on it while you're at your desk because then you can glance at your phone without having to pick it up. Yeah.

I like that.

Yeah. It just sits here. And in that same Anker realm, I also have, like, the Anker MagGo where Yeah. We we did a little bit of traveling this year. I spoke at some conferences and stuff, and your phone battery dies. I'm always installing the beta software on my phone, so my phone dies especially fast.

But Anker makes and I don't have it on my desk Sanity, but, a little MagSafe battery pack, that's a good I think it's, like, 10 milliwatt hours or whatever. It's a lot. It's big. And the MagSafe's onto the back of your iPhone, and then you have battery charge for the whole day, toss it in your bag or whatever. You don't have to worry about finding a charger. I've also found it to be a nice little thing to have around.

Yeah. That's when I go traveling, I get, like, an e SIM. And the battery when you have a second e SIM, the battery just just drops, like, significantly.

And I always find myself, like, you go out to eat when you're traveling, and then you you plug in. And I always have this big cable where I'm I'm trying to charge as fast as possible, but this would be kind of a nice nice little thing to lay your phone on and and charge it up. I'm not a big MagSafe guy What? Mostly because it gets so hot. But, like, I we have it in my our car, and, like, I never use it because it's slow and hot. But I think,

like, a proper MagSafe is faster. Is that true? I don't I don't know. You know, I don't necessarily worry about speed because it's on my desk. Right? So it's just kinda charging it all day Yeah. If I Node to. So the speed thing isn't a super big concern so I'm never, like, I gotta get this thing charged up real quick before I go. Oh, yeah. The MagSafe thing, I guess, the the battery again, you just kinda leave it attached for a little bit, and you're you're good to go. I pretty much exclusively charge via MagSafe these days. Wow.

My next Node is something if you need to get a bunch of people the same gift, I'm going to tell you, get a bucket of Maldon sea salt flakes and a bunch of really nice wooden salt cellars.

So these are the gifts where they're not very expensive, but it's like, oh, that's nice. And I use Maldon salt all salt on everything.

It's these really nice crystals. You can buy a smoked version of it as well.

And for a couple years ago, what I did is I bought these nice, like, Wes jars, which is kind of like a mason jar, with these clips on it. And then I filled them up with this nice salt and gave them to everybody in my family. However, I'm thinking I probably should've gave them a salt cellar, because with that, you just flip the lid open, sprinkle it on your food, and close the lid. And I love having a salt cellar at our house. So for, I don't know, probably for $11 per person, you can get a really nice gift. I would love to receive that.

That's fun.

I have Node here that you can go brand name or you can go generic with it. I initially bought one of these because at the time, there wasn't generic versions of this. So I have, like, an older Theragun. So Node of the older ones. And, man, I use this thing all the time in my desk, whatever, just on the my shoulders.

I made sure I got one for my dad the moment I got this because It's a massage gun, you should say. What a Theragun is. Sorry. It's a massage gun. Really, what it does is it just hits you really fast over and over again.

And it's like a percussive massager, they call it. And this thing just go bah bah bah bah. You know? It it's it's pretty amazing.

And the non brand name ones are are by all means, I don't know if they're just as good, but I I've seen these things, you know, and lots of people have the $40, you know, $30 ones.

I've linked Node of them in here that I know has been decent. They even come with a lot more. They come with, like, 6 or 7 different attachments for the non brand names. And the Theragun one, you're paying a 100 and something bucks for it. At the time, I didn't have a choice just because that's all there was available. But I think if I were to get Node today, I would get one of these non brand name ones for for cheap. I got one for $8 at a garage sale.

Yeah. And the guy's like, it works fine, so I bought it. It didn't work fine. The battery was shot on it. So I I hacked it, and it runs on a DEWALT battery now. Yes.

I love it. Classic. It's it's great. I love it. I I've taught my kids to use it on me.

My next one here is a backpack, the Peak Design Everyday Bag. I've had this backpack for, I think, 8 years now.

And aside from a little bit of peeling on one of the laminated zippers, it's, like, looks brand new. And this is a backpack that I take traveling with me absolutely everywhere. Twice a week, I bring it to my daughter's ballet. I throw it in the back of the car. I use it as my, like, luggage whenever I go to the cottage. Like, this thing gets use out of it, and it still looks brand new. And every time people come up with a, like, what what's the backpack I should get? I'm always like peak design every day, 30 liter, which is the bigger version of it. Scott, you have it. Pretty much every everyone who's a developer has it. Yes. Scott has it there. Mine's mine's handy. It's, like, right it's always kind of handy. So Yeah. Well, mine's right here. Hold on. It's crazy. I just we just have these things sitting here. I haven't even Yeah. Been anywhere. Yeah. So, like, look at this. I got my my Mux water bottle in the side here. The sides open up so beautifully.

And you can you can see that I have, what, a Syntax skate deck in there, some socks, some stickers. I was just at a conference.

And, man, I, like, I honestly don't know if I'll ever get another backpack. Not because I, like, I love it, but I just don't know I ever need 1. Yeah. Like, 8 years, and it's it's great. I've had mine for 5 or 6. I'll show the people what I mean about the, you see the Yeah. The zipper there is starting to fray. It's so weird for you. Though. I I think I've never had a backpack last that long. Oh, man. Especially with, like, the heavy stuff that we carry in it. And and

I use mine I I use mine anywhere if I'm traveling or whatever. I've taken it all over the place. The only downside about this backpack is that airport security

will not know how to open it, and you will have to show them how to open it every time if they need to. They're like, what do you do with this thing? Yeah. And it has has a luggage pass through as well, which is key when you are traveling because you can put it over the handle of your roller luggage. Nice. So Yes. Highly recommend. That's one of those ones that you get it for somebody, and they're gonna be like every time they use it, they're gonna, like, damn. That was a good gift.

Yeah. Here's a good gift for developers, a subscription to Cursor, ChatGPT, Claude, one of these AI Vercel. If they haven't already, you can buy a year at a time. I personally I get a lot of value out of this. I get a lot of value out of Cursor. I get a lot of value out of Claude. Personally, I do use these tools somewhat frequently, not just to help me with, you know, writing code, but to help me evaluate decisions and just help around. So I I do think these are are incredibly powerful and useful tools if people haven't given them a try yet.

Well, also, we should, like, say our own stuff as well.

If you have a web developer I know that, web developer partners listen to this podcast to get ideas.

And, you can get them a hat, get them a Syntax T shirt, get a Syntax skate deck. We have Syntax koozies. We have Syntax basketballs, Syntax, skateboards. We got it all. So go to Sanity Scott shop and grab some Syntax branded merch for the web developer in your life. Word.

Sick. I have a bunch of games here. I know Wes doesn't play any games, so I can just kinda breeze through some of these games. Yeah. I know developers like this game. They do recently release an update, and there was a crazy amount of, people playing it at once. And, therefore, I believe the entire Internet suffered a major productivity, decrease, which is Factorio.

And this game is so funny because you feel like you're playing a game, and then after, I don't know, a little bit, you just kinda look at the game and you're like, wait a second.

Am I programming right now? I'm pro what? I'm doing work. I'm playing What do you build? Man, you build systems.

You build systems. That's what you build.

This needs that, which needs that, which, gets processed by that. And then you you build it all through connections. Right? You're you're putting things on conveyor belts to then process this, to process that. And when you take a big view of the out of it, you're kind of, like, just building these little kind of micro conditional loops that do this and that and then send it over here and then that. You're it's a lot of pattern development.

You're building a factory, essentially, of creating things to accomplish goals. So Factorio is one of those games where it feels like work, but it's not and, I mean, it doesn't feel like work. I should say it feels like it is programming, but it's not work. And it actually man, it I think it might even get you to be a little bit better at being a developer somehow because you're having to develop these systems and and think through what they could be like. We had a board game that was sick picked by one of our guests, and this board game is Cascadia.

Man, I bought this board game and, man, we, we really like to play this. I I don't the kids really enjoy it. Now there's, like, a more complex version of this game. It was it was sick picked by Anna Pobblets in episode 7 10.

And it's just a game where you're building ecosystems of animals. And you gotta put little chips for the different animals, and you have the different ecosystem cards. And it JS, again, a very pattern based game. So you're you're building patterns, and how you're building these ecosystems gets you more points. And it's supposed to be for, I don't know, kids 7 or 8 and up. But my 5 year old daughter, like, loves this game, and she can hang. She she does really good in it, and so does my son. They both, like, are able to pick it up. And because it's so animals based, the kids really like it to be like, oh, I'm building my eagle colony. I'm building my my elk or whatever, and it's a lot of fun.

Another board game is Azul. This is a board game we play a lot with, family. We we have my sister and brother-in-law.

When they come into town, they're always bringing board games. And this is another kind of, like, pattern y game. So I think developers will like this type of thing because you're you're trying to build out tiles and patterns of tiles and their strategy into it. So anybody who's got visual spatial you know, if they like visual spatial pattern kind of stuff, these, these games will both be right up your alley.

And, lastly, the last game thing I have on here is the Steam Deck. Now I think the Steam Deck has sold a ton of these things, so a lot of people have heard of the Steam Deck not by now. And many of the times people who, you know, wanted this thing already have it, but it's the coolest. It's this little it's a little computer. It runs Linux. You can side load. You can put Windows on it if you want. But it runs Tolinski, and it actually has, like, a full on the Steam OS UI, which JS, you know, it's like a video game UI. But I don't know what it is about Steam, but they understand tinkerers.

Because what do they do? Built into the OS is a go to desktop mode, and it just takes you to a regular old Linux desktop.

And Oh, man. You can use the touchscreen. You can use your keyboard. You can install packages on here. So you can install all kinds of stuff on here from Linux.

And, therefore, because of that, it's turned into, like, a major hacker device where people make all kinds of software for it and extensions onto it and UIs and things like that. So I was actually looking at this the other day because my kids came, and the their cousins got a switch.

And I was like they're like, we wanna switch. And I was like, oh, that's cool.

Like, how hackable is that? Because what I would love JS yeah. I realized that because I was, like, researching these, like you can buy these little, emulator sticks that you, like, plug ESLint to HDMI for, like, $29 or whatever. And I was like, that probably

is really laggy because of how small it is. Then I was like, what's the, like, best hardware you can run, like, n 64 games on and emulate all the stuff? And everyone says Steam Deck is is the move for that. I I have every every Nintendo 64 game on it. I have all the Super Nintendo games. Yeah. I run all the emulators on it. And I think you can I think there is even people running emulated Nintendo Switch on here, which I have not gotten into, but I believe Yeah? That's a little,

legally dubious in that area. Legally dubious. Yeah. Yeah. But, like, the n 64 emulators, I don't feel as bad because it's like Yeah. I'm not you're not selling that anymore. You know? Totally. Yeah. I don't really know much about video games, so maybe I should be talking.

Well, yeah, I I mean, I do run a 64 on mine, and I I do like that. I could run a Wii on here. I I don't know if there's any sort of Wii games I'm

dying to have on my I hacked our Wii, man. It was like going back in time. I was like like, putting custom OS on it, and, that was that was good.

I hacked our Wii, man. I hacked it.

Alright. Let's talk about under $30 gifts for the love of your life, a braided USB cable. There's something in me is just trying to replace every cable on my desk with a braided Vercel.

Because there's my cables are always an absolute mess, but there's something nice about when they're messy and braided at the same time.

And, also, when they're braided, I can tell what they're for because I remember in my head. Oh, yeah. The the the yellow and and green one is for my camera. And it just I feel like it makes things a little bit easier. And, like, everybody has so many crappy cables. Get somebody a Node, long, braided cable with a fast charger.

That's that's a good life. Yeah. That's a good life. I have on here a a thunderbolt cable with a right angle Oh. Which I didn't know I necessarily needed in my life. And I got 1, and it plugs into the side of my laptop as my, you know, my main laptop power and everything like that. And it's just so nice that it's at a right angle. It's just like a little l plugging into my computer and going straight out the back instead of, like, you know, like, sticking out like octopus arms out of my my computer.

Yeah. I like this thing. Yeah. Right. I was actually looking into that for my camera, HDMI angled.

Mhmm. Because the HDMI and the USB C comes out of my camera, like and I would love for it to go just straight back

or or straight up, actually, in my case. Well, sadly, I, you know, I want mine to go up or down because that's the way the angle one would be. Yeah. It depends on your device.

Sadly, the only one they made was going straight up rather than going down, and I would prefer to it to go down. So now it's like up and over, which is still better than hanging out because then it gets pulled and and comes out. Now it doesn't come out at least. But, yeah, I do have one of those, and I do like it. I was I was looking at I went down even the the ribbon cable rabbit hole. So if you go on AliExpress Wes

there's, like, 3 versions of Node. Yeah. And you can essentially just make your own custom angled cable, which I think I might do to make it nice and low profile.

I love it. At least if you have, like, a TV that needs to go against the wall, that's probably a good idea. Grab one of these little angles.

Mhmm.

The battery daddy is something I'm gonna tell you to get. If you have a lot of batteries and you need to be able to organize them, the battery daddy is a awesome storage case. It comes with a little battery voltmeter inside of it. There's space for all of the different types of batteries. If you're if if you don't use, like, d and c batteries all that much anymore, I would probably look at some of the alternatives.

I know there's some nice zipper cases because I found that it could use a little bit more space for button cells and less space for c and d batteries.

But we have enough stuff around the house that I I still use c and d batteries, unfortunately.

You know what I need, Wes? What? I need a good rechargeable c r two battery.

These things, they go in my my smart lock for my door, and they burn out so quickly. Oh, c r two. That's a weird one. It's annoying because all of the rechargeable ones are apparently terrible. And so it's like, oh my god. Somebody's gotta get out there and make a good rechargeable one.

Because I'm buying batteries. That's crazy. I'm not buying rechargeable batteries. What am I doing? I I love rechargeable batteries. So It's crazy because c r twos are lithium. You know? Usually, you can't recharge batteries because there's some other chemistry.

What's up with that? Yeah. Can you not just charge? Just try put a whole bunch of power to one of them to see if it explodes.

They do make they do make, actually, what the heck? There's an Amazon Basics Node now. The I saw this was in here, like, 2 weeks ago. An Amazon Basics CR 2.

Man, I promise this was not here because I would have bought this already. Oh my god. Well, I got a little sick pick for myself this episode. Oh, man. Have you tried the rechargeable ones that have the USB

port in the battery itself?

The the reviews are super spotty on them, and then it says, like, at top of Amazon, frequently returned item. So Node I'm like, yeah.

Not nearly as good. Oh, man. Yeah. Is that, like, worth the the, you know, the hassle?

Yeah. That's that's true. You Node? It's it's you don't use batteries that much any well, I I still use batteries quite a bit, but a lot of stuff is, like, starting to have internal batteries, which is good, but also bummed me out when they die because

then people just throw them out instead of, like, open them up and replace the battery. My kids do not understand the external battery thing. They're just like, why can't you just charge it? Well, not every you can't just charge everything. They don't always have Node.

That's there's something about it. Froze. They know where to go in the office. They know how to open the battery daddy.

Oh, yeah. They know the double a, triple a. I'm gonna sick pick. Or she Npm gonna a holiday pick. I'm gonna reindeer pick a MagSafe PopSocket. So I've had a lot of MagSafe stuff. You know what? If you're on Android too, you can get little MagSafe ring adapters for the back of your phone. It's worth it, especially if your phone has wireless charging. And look at the how how well this thing snaps.

What was

Wow. God. That's amazing.

I was focusing on the I was focusing on the doing okay. There Wes go. Snaps.

Yeah. Look at that.

A like that. Yeah. The proper mag safe stuff Yarn not not necessarily proper, but, like, if you get good versions of magnet mounts Mhmm. They're very good. I have 1 on my

rack when I'm working out and just clip the whole phone clips into it, and you can put it anywhere on the rack. And it just isn't magnets are the best, man. Yeah. Magnets. I you know what I really like about this is that I don't rock a Kate. So for me, it's like, I'm not dropping it. It's risky. Yeah. Not dropping it. Yeah. So

I can't I I would like to do that, but I find, like, when I'm laying in bed on my phone, I find the phone slides out of my hand when I'm not using a case. It's too slippery. It's like a Oh, it's gonna slide out of your hand? No. I don't I don't do it above me. It's gonna slide out of your hand. Need a pop socket for bed, maybe. Yeah. It does not slide out of my hand. Go to sleep. Yeah. Yep.

Under $30 gift. Apple Cider and Nutmeg hand lotion. Man, this stuff smells amazing. If you want your hands to smell like apple cider I mean get a bottle of it. It's from it's from this company called Hemps, h e m p zed, which is a little bit sounds like recreational drugs, but it is really Node, and it smells amazing.

And, I'm highly for a lot of things, Wes. It's It it can be.

Wes. It's a yeah.

It's a highly useful material.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All kinds of stuff. Rope.

Rope. I actually had some hemp shoes one time. They were skate shoes, and they were made of hemp. They were I forget. Ipath was the brand, I believe. They were, like, my favorite shoes in the whole world.

I love those shoes. They were really super cool. Man, Ipath. I forgot about them. I know. I have an Ipath hoodie that I still do wear sometimes, but it's, like, mostly the paint's mostly off of it. I I do miss that brand. It looks like maybe they're still around.

Yeah. All those brands are still around. It's amazing how many people wear split shirts too, but you can buy it at

at Winners now, which is Winners in Canada is the equivalent to T. J. Maxx in the States. Yes. That's what that is. And it looks like they still do sell hemp shoes, not the ones that I had, but they still they do still sell hemp shoes. Well, so shout out to Ipath for that decision.

I'm gonna say probably one of the only, like like, dude specific things. I was trying to keep it not dude focused.

But, man, I got this body wash. It's Chroma Bos wash. I'm I'm gonna talk about it a little bit more in the, next episode. But, yeah, it just smells really good. It smells like it just Scott, like, a very manly kind of dude Scott. And, they have all these different options. So if you're looking for, like, a men's body wash and you haven't found anything that you've enjoyed, I I do really like this one, this Cremo body wash. They have all sorts of different yeah. That that's a great gift. It's $8,

you know, stocking stuffer. Get get it for someone in your life. I would love to receive something like that.

Hint hint. Scott, just send me one. You have me to use a body wash? Okay.

That would be really weird.

Who's thinking of it? Body wash? Scott here.

Alright. Let's talk about clothing.

Some things I love in clothing is I've been wearing selvedge denim for probably twenty 22 years. I, like, went back in my Facebook at one point and, like, looked for the 1st pair of selvage jeans I ever wore. So if you aren't aware, selvage jeans are a type of denim that is extremely tough. It's knit in a certain way. It wears really nicely. Usually, it's raw, meaning that it's just dark blue. And then as you sit on someone's white couch, you leave a big white blue stain, but they start to look cool after after wearing them.

And I have worn several brands over the years. My favorite is Naked and Famous, and I've changed my cuts over the year just as as styles change. You know? But Naked and Famous jeans, they're from Canada, made of Japanese denim. Highly recommend it. They also have another brand where they make the exact same jeans, but they manufacture them Vercel, and it's called Unbranded.

And they are pretty much the same cuts, same quality. They're just manufactured elsewhere, you can look into that. And then I also have been wearing ever since I have kids, I've been wearing the uni glow stretch selvage a little bit, which is the just a little bit of stretch in it, because you're always kneeling down, doing shoes up and whatnot. It's it's funny because I used to blow out the crotch of my jeans very quickly. Not very quickly, but that was the first thing that Wes, which may be too much you for for jeans people, we talk about blowouts a lot. Right? It's when Do you? When the jeans rip or or something at at some spot. And, usually, between your legs is where they it goes first. Right? But now since I've had kids, the knees always blow out on them first because I'm always bending Node, doing shoes up or or something.

So the stretch one from UniGlo are very good and also very affordable. I think it's, like, $50 a pair Canadian for some like, I'm a I'm a bit of a jean snob, and, affordable jeans are usually not something that pops up in the salvage world. So this is a good pair.

Yeah. Well, I'm gonna my my pick is gonna be a little bit less crazy than the salvage jeans because it's I I I you wear Durer jeans, d u e r jeans, and they do they do stretch, so they have a bit of stretch in them. But I found that they're a nice a nice compromise between, like, price stretch jean and, like, they last a long time. I I'm not saying that the Uniqlo selvedge ones because I I've worn the Uniqlo stretch ones that aren't the salvage ones. And, they, like I I personally, like, wore out the knees really quickly in them, but I'm also really hard on my my jeans because Oh, yeah. I'm really hard on them too. And the the Uniqlo ones are I usually buy

2 or 3 pair at a time. Mhmm. And I I get about 9 to 12 months out of a pair.

Yeah. So pretty good. Every day, I wear the same pair of jeans every single day and never put them in the wash. Yeah. Well, I yeah. Man, I a funny story. The 1st time I gotten raw denim, I went it was like the the literal 1st day I wore them. I went to a University of Michigan football game, and anybody knows about University of Michigan. They have the largest stadium in, yeah, I think it's, like, the largest stadium in the US. It's massive.

And I had to walk up and down, like, 100 stairs, and these these raw denim tees out shape city. Scott even that. I, like, could they were so, like, tight that I could not it was like a episode of Friends with Ross and the the tight, pants or something. But I, like, could not get up the steps. I was, like, having to, like, assist my legs by the end. It was hilarious. I was like, I took 1 step at the beginning of the stadium, and I was like, this is gonna be a problem today.

So, yeah, I survived, though.

A wool toque or JS y'all say down south, a beanie? Yeah. Beanie.

I have never had, like, a proper wool toque in my life, and I was gifted one.

And I've I've had it for probably 5 years now, and I love it. It's so lightweight, but also warm at the same time. And my wife would probably kill me because she's always talking about my wife is in fashion, so she always talks about the actual materials that are used in things. And it always drives her crazy being when people come to her being like, my kid is so hot. It's like yeah. Because your kid's wearing plastic. You stop putting them in plastic shirts from Walmart. You know? It's not good.

But I got a wool toque and, man, for I don't even get one for 30, 40, $50, and they are super nice.

Yeah. You know what? For me, I go for because I wear a lot of beanies.

Here. I wear a lot of yeah. I'm just checking to see if I I have mine anywhere.

You could possibly beanie up, but I don't think I have mine in here. I I like, I'm a beanie guy myself.

It's kind of a b boy special.

But for me, since I dance in them and I get them all nasty and I'm rolling around on the floor with them, I I go to Target and I buy the cheapest beanies as possible. So I will sick pick or whatever. They're, like, $5 Target beanies that you can get. Because those those are they're not nice, but they're kind of disposable. You're gonna you're gonna need them. You're gonna need them. You'll rip through them.

Node place that I go to get a lot of clothes is Huckberry.

Now it's huckberry.com, and there is some expensive stuff on this site. I will say that. But you could find some deals on here too, especially because they're they'll do, like, the thing where they only have things like a limited Scott, and so you can get some cheaper prices on here. But I did some this kind of stuff on here, like this kind of pullover sweater that man, my my pullover sweater kinda game from this site is is pretty good because pullover game is strong.

Pullover game is strong, for sure. It is, it's nice stuff. All all nice qualities, nice brands. And, again, you're gonna hit you're gonna hit moments where you're like, gosh. Darn. Some of this stuff is expensive.

But there is deals to be had if you if you wait for them, for sure.

A wax jacket, which is something I've been thinking about for a long time. So jacket. Do you really? Yeah. That's that's big in the, like, salvage denim world is also get a wax jacket.

And but there's like like, a Filson wax jacket is, like, $800. So I don't know if I'll ever buy 1, but they've got 1 for $300 on here. Do you know where I got mine was? What?

We did a we did a sponsorship from a really incredible clothing company at armory.

Oh, that's where this painting is from, actually.

Really? Yeah. In New York. It's like a men's men's wear clothing.

That that was some that's some crazy fancy clothes. And Yeah. They let us pick out something, and I picked out a wax jacket. I gotta say I love it. Makes me look good. I went and visited them when I was in New York. And Cool.

Fancy. Such a cool I've I I've never been in such a nice store in my life. It was really kinda cool to see all the menswear things. I probably would never do it. You know? I'm I'm wearing a a $20 T shirt. But Yeah. Legit menswear. Like, actually legit menswear for sure. Totally.

Alright. Let's talk about desk items. These are things for your desk that you may want. One thing I upgraded recently too is the MX Master three s mouse.

I had used the MX Master 2 s for probably about 8 years, and it replaced the battery on it at one ESLint, and it started not working, one day. So I just went and bought the three s, which it's a the s means it's ESLint. So you don't hear the clicking in the microphone, which is kinda important to me.

And it is such a nice mouse. I'm such a big fan of the it's large it's from Logitech.

So if I honestly think it's people are always like, it's not a good gaming mouse. The Hertz is not fast enough for me. Like, I don't care about gaming. I care about the I'm a web developer who has lots of shortcuts and needs a nice comfortable mouse to use all day. And I think that the MX 3 Wes is the best mouse for web developers.

Word. Yeah. I I don't know. I'm a trackpad kinda guy, so I can't I can't meet you on that one. Oh, yeah. Something I can, though. Candles.

Man, you got an office or a desk? Your desk might not smell great.

I Scott these candles.

Man, I I got them from Target. Target has a big old candle selection. I used to work at Target. Let me tell you. I was stocking those candles.

But, man, I love having a good candle on my desk. So I got these ones from Target. They're these nice little glass ones. I I linked it to which ones specifically these are. Oh, it's a nice container too. Oh, it's nice. It's it's great. Yeah. I'm a I'm a big fan of having a candle on the desk. Man,

that container, Scott, when you're done, wash the thing out and then put salt in it. It's a nice little salt cellar, I think. You do need a lid for it, though. Actually Does it do have on there. There is a lid. I'm just looking at the website. Lid. Yes.

Beauty. Salt seller. When you're done, you have to, like, boil it or something to get all the wax out, but you can do it. It's wax. That should be easy. Yeah. Famously, wax melts. Yeah. I I got my wife last year a wax melter, which is it's kind of like a lamp with a halogen bulb, and it melts a candle.

And it makes the house smell really good, but it doesn't, it doesn't have a flame on all the time, which is is kinda cool. So I we use that That's nice. Quite a bit. We go to the body shop by the big round candles that they have, and the candles last way longer than if you were to burn them.

So I've been a big fan of that. That's it. I've never even heard of that. That's what I don't even know about. Yeah. Candle what is it called? A candle melter? Candle melter. No. Not a candle candle light.

It's called a candle warmer lamp. I'll link up the one that I got for my wife.

And, Yeah. It's basically just a lamp with a halogen bulb in it, and the bulb gets really hot

and will melt the wax underneath it. That is so much I'm I'm, like, prime for the type of guy who's gonna burn their house down because I didn't blow out a a candle. Yeah. That is in my personality. So scares me. Yes. That is something I should probably invest in. And there's, like, a timer on it too. So you can put it on for 8 hours, and then it it just kills itself.

I love that. Cool.

Laptop stand. This, I think, is crucial. If if you put your laptop on your desk, you're gonna dump a coffee on it, or at least I have in the past. So I always use a laptop stand just to get my laptop up and off of the Wes, and it also brings a little closer to to eyes eye level. I have one called the Pnpm m design stand. It's I've had it for 10 years now. It's like a solid piece of aluminum. But if I were to buy 1 now, I probably would buy 1 of the, like, foldable ones because then you can take it with you when you're traveling, and you can just, like, raise your laptop up a little bit if you're, like, a external keyboard kind of person when you're you're out. Yeah. We're we're different, man. We're different. You got the mouse. You got the keyboard. I got mine as flat as possible. I'm on the trackpad.

You? Oh, yeah. Right in front of me, but then I have a monitor right here. So I'm looking into a monitor that's at my my level here. So That's a that's a way to live. Sure. Yeah. It's a way to live. I I have another one here, the the desk treadmill.

The under the desk treadmill, it seems like it would be an inconvenience. It seems like it would be a bad idea. But let me tell you. What it ends up being is you end up walking on a treadmill for an hour and don't even realize it just because you kinda have to keep walking. You're you're I mean, if you stop walking, you're going to fall off the edge of it. So you gotta keep walking. Right? And you your body just kind of forgets that you're doing it if you're working on a coding problem. And for some reason, I also found that I, like like, really zone in on what I'm working on when I'm walking on this thing.

So a desk treadmill has been a net positive for me because as long as you actually use it, then you can get, like, a good hour of walking time in a day that you might not have if you have, like, a standing Wes, and they've gotten cheaper. They used to be, like, for a good or not a good one for you Node, the the the base level one was, like, 250.

And now you can get that same base level one for 150.

And if you sometimes they, like they'll they'll upcharge you so that it can go on an incline and stuff. Let me tell you a secret for putting it on an incline.

Just stack some 2 by fours underneath the front of it. Yes. That's exactly I actually have 2 by fours in my office so that I can put it on an incline. Oh, that's great. Yeah.

Oh, that's cool. Yeah. They've really come down. And you can also, like, find them on marketplace as well because people like me who think it's a good idea and then Oh, it's a Node of a buy. Yeah. 6 months later, you realize, oh, I'm not actually using this thing at all. Totally. That's that's a burned dream. I have a good webcam. So Hold on. But I got sent this from the folks at Insta 360, so full disclosure.

But this is a 4 k webcam that is actually really good. So I've tried I've had companies send me, like, 4 or 5 of their, like, HD webcams, and they're never very good. And and I'm saying this as someone who has a $5,000 camera as a webcam.

Obviously, it's not gonna be that good, but I am very impressed by this. It is really high quality.

It's on a swivel.

So what it does is you can as you you can move anywhere on you can move anywhere, like, in in here, and it will follow you around, like, on a little gimbal, like, 360 around the room. It's unbelievable how how good the quality JS, and then there's, like, a whole suite where you can, like, zoom in on yourself, or you can you can set it to just crop your face or crop your body or crop everything. And then the one thing I like it for is you can use it as a desk camera, meaning that it would you could put on top of your monitor, and it will Mhmm. If you wanna do, like, electronics or you wanted to show your your fingers on a keyboard or you wanna do anything where you show what's on your desk, it will just go into desk mode and and get your whole desk. It's a super wide lens on it. So check it out. It's called Insta 3 60 ESLint 2 AI powered webcam. Everything has AI in it.

I love it. Here's a fun one to go along with that.

If you have, like, a Sony or a Canon camera that you're using for anything really, I have this small rig. Small rig 1, they do really nice little pieces. Everything they do is good. Yeah. Yeah. I have this small rig, and I have it on my a 73.

And for us creators or whatever, you're oftentimes you're moving from landscape to portrait. This thing goes over the it, like, installs on the camera and then watch this. Rent. Oh. And so you do your tripod in here, and then now that's as simple as that. Now they have a separate one for, Canon cameras or Sony cameras. I can confirm that this works with the a 7 3 and the FX three that we have that we're shooting on.

So, yeah, it's super nice.

And it's small. Right? Yeah. It's it's That's cool. So I was I have on here, which JS a mini tripod, and this is like a tiny little compact tripod that gets fairly large, and it has a ball mount head, which I use it for when I need to turn my camera into vertical. Every now and then, I'll do a video where I want it to go vertical instead of horizontal, and I'll just ball mount, boop, bring it over. But that seems even better.

Yeah. I got a little mini tripod too. These things are great.

GitHub sent me this last year. So Oh, yeah. I had bought I bought that Node on Amazon, and it was it was not stout enough to handle the the FX 3. Oh, yeah. So I got the newer I forgot. I'll I'll look it up. It's a newer tripod, which is n e e w e r. They're another one of those companies that has has pretty good stuff. They do all my my lights. Yeah. Yeah. All my lights are newer. A lot of my tripods and whatnot are newer. And I like this one quite a bit because I can, like, pack it up and bring it with me, throw it in a backpack, but, also, it just sits on my desk here as well.

Thermal printer. So I did a bunch of work on, controlling a printer with JavaScript, and quite a few people bought them after I had posted my video on it. And if you want to tinker around the holidays, thermal printer is really fun fun thing to do with that. Word.

I have fish skin. It's my laptop. I I don't know if I can see it right now. I put stickers on my computer, and that can kinda leave a whole bunch of stuff. I actually have a a ESLint, like, a black skin all over my laptop, and then I have the stickers on top of that. That way, you could just pull the whole thing off. But it also would keep your laptop safe from scratches and dings and whatever that you get from just taking it around. I I like fish skin. I bought several of theirs. Alright. Let's move into the kids' picks that we have here.

If you do not have kids, you can skip ahead a couple of minutes, but a lot of people have to buy stuff for their kids or for some some kid in their life. I recently got my kids something called the Yoda player, which I know you sick picked the the Tony box a while ago. Kinda same idea.

Cool. And the way that it works is that it's this little I found it because I was like, my kid needs to listen to something while they fall asleep because they have trouble sleeping.

And I don't wanna give him an iPad because then they wanna play Minecraft or something like that. So I was like, like, what do I buy? Like, a m p 3 player or something like that? And it turns out there's this thing called the Yoda player Wes you take these little NFC, like, credit cards. You slide it in the top, and it just starts playing whatever book is on that card. And you can buy books, but they also sell blank cards that you can load up your own books on. So if you can get them from your library or if you wanna read a book aloud to your child and record it and put it on a card, and then it just stores it. It doesn't store it on a card. You have to upload it via their web system, and then it puts a little URL on the card.

And I have, like, a I feel like I'm burning CDs back in the day. I have a whole collection of these stories now. You just slot it in. You can do podcasts as Wes, some really cool kids' podcasts.

And I was I was very skeptical for a long time, and we got it. And it's it's so cool. And, like, kids absolutely love it. Yeah. This does look like an, newish kind of version of that that we I I will still shout out the Tony player because

our kids go nuts for the Tony player. It's got a fun little design in it. And the the stories, instead of coming on cards, they come on little figures so the kids really like them and they can trade them and whatever.

There is a lot more like Disney like Disney's on Tony box. So, you know, my daughter will get her frozen stuff on there. So, the Tony box in general, though, they my my since we've gotten these for our kids, like, what, when they were, like, 2 years old or something, they have used it every single night. They still do every night. I I it's we've gotten so much mileage out of these things. It's it's incredible. So, yeah, my kids go nuts for these. And, again, we had their grandpa read them stories on it and stuff like that too so they can, get some grandpa story time in while they're So do they have one where you could, like, just put your own content on it as well? Yeah. Okay. And I think it might even come with one of those. I'm not quite sure. We we bought something that came with one of those up from the Sanity. Did. I went I went deep into NFC

Yeah.

Hacking territory. I'm sure. Just trying to understand how it all works. Cool.

I'm also gonna sick pick a book, the 1st Scott in space. There's 3 of these, and I think the latest one's coming out in November here. So maybe out by the time. There's a band that I really like, The Matches. Wes, I don't know if you heard of The Matches. No. They were, they were like a, like a California punk band from the 2000.

They they kind of, like, barely just made it on to mainstream ish. Like, they were signed to Epitat for, like, maybe their last album.

And then they they broke up. And, man, The Matches was, like, really one of my favorite bands. I saw them in concert, like, a 1000000000 times. And the singer is a really interesting Node. The type of dude who you just want to follow whatever they do. And he's been writing kids books for a little while. And his latest thing was The 1st Cat in Space and they're kind of like a serial book. And they're just super cute.

So, you know, I really liked supporting this guy's work. So, his name JS Sean Harris. Anytime he comes out with anything, I I make sure I I scoop it up. But these are great. Kids love them. The merch is great too.

Yeah. It's all it's got a good vibe. Also, our kids love bath bombs, so there's a big old bath bomb set I have on here. Our kids fight over which ones they get to have every night.

They love the bath bombs. So kids bath bombs are are, you know, something they might really enjoy. We put them in their stockings and stuff. You could get the Khan Academy Kids app or the Codespark. We do a subscription for my son for Codespark, and it is like games where they don't even realize they're learning programming concepts.

And, again, my son goes nuts for it. So that's one of the the few subscription things we we buy for them on the iPad.

Stuff for the house.

We last Chris about a year ago, we got the Roborock S8 Ultra, which is a mop and vacuum in one. And then about 6 months ago, we got the Roborock Q Revo for our cottage.

The Q Revo is almost as good, and it's, like, half the price.

Not necessarily just these 2. I think they're they're the best out there, but a something that mops and vacuums your house, very, very nice thing to have. We use ours every single day, usually 2 or 3 times a day.

And it's amazing how nice it is. You don't stress about the kids making a mess anymore because Mhmm. After dinner, the thing goes and vacuums it on up. And, like, I feel like I'm living in the future having a robot

mop and and vacuum your house for you. Yeah. They've gotten a lot better. Ours I mean, ours is even, like, 4 or 5 years old, and it, like, detects, all this stuff and and seems to work just as good as it did when we first got it. We have also a Roborock.

And, yeah, they're they're nice, for sure.

We named ours, so we could call it by Node. So that's fun. Oh, yeah. We have Rocco and

I forget the other name.

What do you call yours? Ours is named Lomax.

He he is named after Bernie Lomax from the movie weekend at Bernie's, which is a favorite of ours.

Yeah.

I also picked this, Weemax cube projector. We have this other Weemax that apparently they stopped selling for some reason. I don't know why. So I don't have the cube Node. But I have this little Weemax, and it's powered by battery or USB c.

And, man, even if you're just tossing up a sheet on the side of the house, because we did that before I got a a nicer screen, even if you're just tossing a sheet on the side of the house, there are really rules to turn on the projector and outside and and watch some TV or a movie with the kids or something. That's just fun. That's that's great.

Kitchen stuff.

Absolutely.

Like, along with my Leatherman, one of my favorite things in the past 2 years is a carbon steel frying pan.

I have been a big cast iron guy for a long time, but cast iron is too heavy.

And it's I don't know. It's it's a pin in the pin in the butt sometimes. Right? And I love it, but you kinda just want like that plus a nonstick.

So a carbon steel frying pan properly seasoned has been, like, a game changer in in my life. I have a 12 inch, which is as big as you can get. I'm almost wondering if I should get a wok or find, like, a even bigger one because

I absolutely love it. I wouldn't mind getting a carbon steel wok. We have a cast iron wok that is just, like, so heavy. It's so massive.

I mean, it rules to cook in, but, yeah, it JS also massive.

Next one is a viral egg cooker.

So I've said in the past, I do not like unitaskers, meaning that I don't like stuff in the kitchen that does one thing. But this my wife got me this for Christmas last year, and I was like, this is kinda silly. And it's freaking amazing. So what it is is tiny little egg cooker where it's essentially a electric kettle. You put water in it, and you depending on what you're doing, if you Yarn, boiling eggs or if you're doing an omelet, you just put eggs in there, put a little bit of water in, push the button, perfect eggs absolutely every single time. So if you want, like, a super healthy breakfast, get grab one of these things. They're they're dirt cheap,

and they make perfect eggs absolutely every single time. It's if you're boiling eggs or whatever, not worth it. I I do soft boiled eggs, and I I actually really pride myself in how good I am at soft boiling eggs. Yeah.

But, man, if you could just stick it in this thing and say go, then It's so you like the the measuring cup comes with, like, lines on it, and it says, like like, soft boiled egg. You fill it up to that line perfect every single time. It's amazing. Man, that's great. Yeah. Sick.

I'll I'll have a glass straws, which you know what? You like straws? You don't wanna have the 1,000,000,000 plastic straws around the house. I like straws. So we have glass straws. They're way nice. They don't break. The kids really like them. You clean them. You just toss them in the dishwasher. They come with a little brush if you need to clean out the inside for whatever reason. But, yeah, glass straws have been pretty nice.

I I'll I'll go alongside that JS stainless steel straws and stainless steel what do you what do you call them? Asian spoons? What do you what do you call those spoons that you eat, like, faux with? Oh, like the big the dipper spoons? Yeah.

Chinese Asian stainless steel spoon. Yeah. Getting a stainless version of that so it just matches the rest of your cutlery. And Yeah. They're like, that's a better spoon than what we have. I always give my kids those when we're having soup or anything because, like, that's a better design of a spoon versus the crappy one we have.

Yeah. For real. I hear you.

Danish whisk, very cool. If you have someone who makes pancakes or bread or something like that, somebody gifted me a Danish whisk a couple years ago, and I'm surprised at how much I like it. It looks kinda silly, but the Danes know what they're doing.

OXO salt and pepper grinders.

Again, I did the research for way too long on what the best salt and pepper grinder is, and I found it. It's the OXO one. It's not a beautiful set of pepper grinders, but it is the best. Every day I use that. I'm like, this is nice.

A Wusthof Nikkiri knife. My wife gave me this probably 4 years ago, and it's the perfect amount of you want a nice knife, but you don't wanna be a knife guy. You know? Wanna be a knife guy. You don't wanna be those those people that have to, like, don't don't leave the knife in the sink or don't put the knife in the dishwasher.

I don't care that much. I just want a really nice warp knife that is is really enjoyable to use. And I got the 7 inch Nikkiri knife, and it's like the ultimate slice and dice, chopping, pretty much all around good kitchen knife. Big fan of that.

I really want at least just 1 good knife. We have the same knives that we got when we were married. And Yeah. They're they were not great then in there. You know? Especially not great after we put them through the dishwasher a 100 times. So yeah.

Yeah. Wes didn't know that. Through the dishwasher probably, like, every day for 4 years, probably thousands of times. And it's it's amazing. But you know why people think that knives don't get good? It's because they don't sharpen them. My next pick There there is actual reasons why you don't wanna put anything in the dishwasher.

I don't get time for that.

Yeah.

I I agree. I really wanna get a fancy knife from this place, Carbon Knife Co in in Denver. I I follow this place on Instagram, and they have all these fancy Japanese knives. And I just think one day, I'm a get one of these nice knives. One day.

One day.

Alongside that, if you do like having sharp knives, get these this is pretty big buy in, but you get paper wheels for a bench grinder. So you you go get a bench grinder or whatever, and you put these wheels on to on top. And they're they're made of paper, and you put a little bit of a sharpening rouge on it, and you can get the, like, most killer warp edge on your knives, using this these paper wheels. It's unbelievable how good it is. It's you have to have, like, a workshop where you can set up a a whole bench grinder.

But if you're if you're not like that, you could get a get a normal whetstone. And I had a whetstone here. I use my whetstone. And in fact, you inspired me to sharpen my knives more. So, man, I sharpen my knives, and, I just did it the other day, and I gotta say, make such an impact whenever you do it, for sure. Yeah. And, like, bring the whetstone

to family and friends.

Start on vacation.

That that's something so we rent out our cottage a couple times a year, and I pride myself on having good knives because I've rented so many cottages over the Yarn, and they always have crappy knives in there. And it's like, I'm on vacation. If you enjoy cooking, don't you want nice things when you're on vacation?

Yeah. It's a thing you might notice. Yeah. Yes.

For sure. I get that. I'm also gonna I only have 2 things here. I've I've sick picked these multiple times, which is the Sanity tumbler glasses. They're glasses that look like a can. They're nice and thick. I use these things for everything. This is the, like, the only drinking glass I use for anything. It's perfect size, size of a can. It's like, here's a here's a LaCroix can. Here it is. Same shape, just about the same size. So I really like these, and they're fairly cheap. I also like this. This is so funny. I was just using this the other day, and I was thinking my mom got this for us. And I was thinking this is the nicest thing that you wouldn't expect. It's a squirrel shaped rice paddle. And the reason why this is is cool is not because it's a squirrel shaped, but because it is this shape.

When you put it on its little feet, the paddle never touches the counter. So you could scoop and set it down on its little feet, and then the paddle, which is its tail, just kinda hangs in the air. And I love this thing. It's it's super cute. Our kids love it, but most importantly, it's super practical.

Man, so I'm gonna get that because I'm a big fan of the splatypus, which is a jar scraper splash. We have that as well. Yes. Man, my sister gave me a splatypus maybe 3 years ago. It's it's kind of like a, I don't know. What would you would you call it? Like a spatula.

Oh, it's spatula that's shaped like a platypus bill. And if you're putting butter on something, making a peanut butter and jam, or you need to scrape a jar out nice and cleanly.

Splatypus.

Major. I didn't realize there was a is this by the same company?

I have no idea.

No. It's not.

Rice cooking I'm gonna get this. This is great.

Yeah. Love it.

Eatables.

Here are my top 5, 4 hot sauces.

I don't know if they're my top ones, but these are great gifts where it's not like you're giving somebody Frank's. You know? Truff hot sauce, truffle flavored, very good. Secret aardvark is kind of a thick, almost like, almost like a salsa one, and they're all of these have, like, have packs where, like, if you have somebody in your life that likes hot sauce, get them a pack of several. That's the best gift ever.

But get them, like, nice ones. I've I've had people get me, like, a TJ Maxx hot sauce pack, and it's like, these are not very good. Cholula gift pack is really good. Big fan of Cholula, which is a pretty accessible hot sauce, but they have, like, 6 different flavors, and you can have a little taster.

Yeah. I like these Murphs ones from, Denver. They're kinda local to us. So we we see Murphs around and about, in Denver, but the jalapeno lime hot sauce is, like, one of my favorite things. It's very nice and refreshing. Yeah. Love that.

And then, Bakans, this is something you turned me on too. We didn't have it in Canada for the longest time, so I had to get it when I was in the States.

But it's like this, what, Japanese barbecue sauce. It's almost like a like a flavored soy sauce.

Yeah. It kinda it's like a thin teriyaki kinda. Man, I we make salmon and broccoli and rice. I just pour it all over there. Man, it is my favorite. I wear my Bakken shirt all the time. In fact, I was at a I was at a a breaking battle, and I was wearing my Bakken shirt. And somebody looked at me, and they go, dude.

Yeah. Like like, woah. I love Bakkens.

That's that's the buy for someone in your life who's a condiment enthusiast.

They probably already have Bakken's, but they don't have the tea, I bet.

Alright. Let's wrap it up here with Scott home. Probably the best gift you can give somebody, I think, is a smart dimmer.

I'm a big fan of the Leviton ones. Lutron makes some really good ones. Do not buy Wyze ones. I don't even know if they make it dimmer, but the the Wyze switches I love Wyze products, but their switches have terrible Wi Fi chips in them, and they're always disconnected.

So the Leviton ones are fantastic, and they go really low as well, which is, kind of important. When you have LED lights, you wanna get them as low as you can. And then if you have a hacker in your life, buy them, an Wes p 32, which is a a Wi Fi little little board. They're, like, $5 apiece and then a bunch of w s Wes 15 LED strips.

That's a very fun thing to hack on. I've done that many times where you build custom lighting with LED strips.

Yeah. You gotta kinda know that the person is into that, though, because If you yeah. You gotta make sure they're hackers. But, also, people listening to this are probably thinking, what should I ask for? And if you need, like, a Totally. Like, a $25 gift to ask somebody for them, that's the move right there. Yeah. I do the Lutron Caseta, I think the Diva dimmers, which, like, they're expensive. So you do, like, 1 or 2 every now and then. And, eventually, you know, you hope the whole house will get done. But, yeah, I'm doing kinda 1 at a time here and there. And,

yeah, I really like the dimmers. But, yeah, the Bos are good as well. I have a bunch of MiROS stuff, and they are going pretty heavily into, like, the matter, smart home protocol. Oh, really? Yeah. So I haven't switched anything over to matter yet, but I know eventually everything will be better, I hope. So I'm I'm always trying to think, okay. Is this feature compatible? Because the last thing I want is a incompatible light switch. What a nightmare that is.

Word. Yeah. That's the best part about the Diva ones is that they work like normal ass light switches. If you're they're not smart, you, like, would never know. Yeah. I know.

Alright. Okay. Cool. Well, that that's jam packed.

Wes.

So, hopefully, your your stockings are as packed as this episode was.

I don't we're not gonna do sick pics today because this whole episode was sick. The whole sick pic episode. Yeah. Yeah. Shamelessly plug, head out, to on YouTube. We're on YouTube, folks. Youtube.comforward/at syntaxfm.

We release all kinds of stuff from deep dives to full on tutorials to video episodes of this podcast. If you wanna just see Wes and I shoving stuff into the camera like we did in this episode, you Scott it on the Syntax YouTube channel. So check us out. Sweet. Alright. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Happy holidays. Peace.