Valentine’s Day is this Sunday. If you didn’t know, then PSA: Valentine’s Day is this Sunday. If you need a reminder, then, HEY, Valentine’s Day is this SUNDAY.
If you won’t be celebrating this year, then we hope you can join us in relaxing, hanging out, having a nice Sunday, and picking up some heavily discounted candy come Monday morning. But you can probably skip this post.
Because we’d like to highlight some places to get your geek a gift. Whether they’re a guy or a girl, whether its you or them (you can forward a link, right?). If it won’t ship in time, hopefully we can still provide some inspiration.
We’ll start off with the obvious: Geeky retailers!Â
ThinkGeek pops immediately to mind, and they do not disappoint. Their special Valentine’s section is full of great geeky ideas, like Cthulu Perfume, The Vampire Seduction Handbook, and for those who liked High Fidelity but know deep down that no one owns a tape player anymore, a tiny usb stick that comes in a tape-deck shaped case. Their Star Trek fragrances were not originally going to make a mention in the article, but then we realized that the cologne is called “Tiberius” and the perfume is called “Pon Farr.” We can’t argue with that.
Although ThinkGeek has a dedicated Valentine’s section, we encourage you to look outside it. There are plenty of appropriate gifts on the site that are not on the list, like these adorable Kirk and Spock plushies.
Speaking of plushies, a Giant Microbe is good for any occasion, but they currently have heart-shaped-box sets of “love” related mini-giant microbes. Sperm Cell, Egg Cell, Kissing Disease, and Penicillin in one; and Herpes, Pox, HPV, Chlamydia and Penicillin in the other.
In our search for neat geek stuff, we also ran across PerpetualKid.com (specifically, its brain-shaped ice cube tray). PerpetualKid has a Valentine’s section as well, and though there is some overlap with ThinkGeek’s inventory, there is also chocolate-chip cookie soap. Gift this with caution. Don’t let your significant other think you got them an engagement ring for too long. Unless you actually got them an engagement ring. That’s playing with fire, that is.
Moving along, there are also plenty of webcomics who’ve got your Valentine’s back, and by back, we mean shirt. Penny Arcade‘s Heartris Tee, Xkcd‘s Useless, Questionable Content‘s She Blinded Me With Library Science, or Hark! A Vagrant‘s Curies In Love. And if your geek doesn’t wear shirts, PvP offers nice prints of Jade and Brent’s wedding.
If a shirt sounds good, but they don’t read webcomics, then Threadless is always worth checking out.
But What if Nothing Here Fits?
Sadly, this is all too likely. Odds are, we all have someone in our lives who is a total geek for something that we don’t understand at all. Its not that we don’t support them, we just wouldn’t know a crampon from a carabiner, or maybe their collection is so big we have no way of knowing what they don’t have.
In this situation, we suggest hobby supplies. More long boxes are always handy to the comic collector. A home photo studio might be perfect for the eBay junkie or the Transformers fan. Tabletop gamers will never turn their noses up at dice. A little investigative reporting might be required for this kind of gift, but it can make it all the more special. If your geek paints miniatures, check what kind of brushes they have, etc. The people in hobby stores can be very helpful with this sort of thing. If there is something about their hobby that they regularly have to replace or get more of, a sweet personal gift can be a bunch of whatever that is.
It’s Valentine’s Day, so candy and flowers are obviously traditional. But nothing says love like letting someone know that you appreciate all of their features, including (or especially!) their geeky ones.
