I know that for every one of you who will be heading to the cold snowy slopes over the holiday season, there will be one who opts for a warm weather vacation– the beach perhaps? Flips (as I call them) are staples for any warm climate adventure, and Reef makes some great ones. Reef has made a name for themselves over the years by making durable sandals and using the most gifted female posteriors in the world to sell them. They have definitely been getting more creative with their materials and designs in recent years, and I have to say, I was quite impressed with their vast selection. The sandals pictured above have to be my favorites right now. The ‘Dealer‘ is Reef’s casino inspired design (Josh and I could have really used these a few weeks ago in Vegas), the ‘Chewy‘ is lined with cozy Chewbacca fur (not really), and the ‘Fanning Supreme‘ features a full grain leather and hemp upper and, of course, a bottle opener built into the sole (inspired by Aussie surfer extraordinaire Mick Fanning).

Technology is a pervasive part of our daily lives, and increasingly so. It seems as though with each passing year, technology engulfs another portion of each of us. It is an evolution for which I am fearful and uncomfortable, but I also realize it is inevitable; I am evolving as well. Brendan Koerner, who is a contributing editor for Wired, a columnist for the New York Times and Slate, and is a fellow at the New America Foundation, has put together a must-have book, called The Best of Technology Writing 2006. The book assembles some of the most notable and timely writing in the field of technology in 2006, featuring pieces from best-selling authors, noted academics, indie journalists and bloggers, and the like. The book’s content resulted from an open and candid online nominating process, and covers the gamut from cloning ethics, to jetpacks, to the meaning of life in the information age. You can buy it online for $18– a great gift idea if you ask me.

As a young lad, I became accustomed to those tortured Christmas Carol albums– you Christmas observers out there know which ones I am talking about. Your parents would dig them out and play them over and over, year after year. Don’t get me wrong– I enjoy the spirit of Christmas, but always thought there was a better way to do the ‘music part.’ Sufjan Stevens is coming to the rescue this year and is bringing us ‘Songs for Christmas,’ a 5-disc indie rock Christmas sing-along box set (he recorded the first 4 discs for friends and family over the past 5 years). I have always enjoyed Sufjan’s music, but I have to give him special props for adding a little indie flavor to Christmas music. In ‘Songs for Christmas,’ you’ll find some classics and you’ll find some more secular Sufjan originals (e.g. ‘Come On! Let’s Boogey to the Elf Dance’)– either way, it makes for a great gift for that person you know that enjoys Christmas, but is tired of conventional Christmas music. It’s available online ($19), directly from Asthmatic Kitty Records.

There are a lot of online gift guides out there that make it easier for you all to (1) find gifts and (2) buy them online so that you don’t have to mess with deadlocked stores during the holiday season. We really like how Imagini works– first, it calculates your VisualDNA by prompting you to choose from various photos within certain categories. For example, it may show you a matrix of photos of different vacations, foods, gadgets, houses; you get the idea. Depending on which choices you make — what your specific VisualDNA looks like — Imagini feeds a results page back to you that is tailored directly to your visual preferences. For Imagini, visual communication trumps textual communication, and the result is a novel gift finding device. Note: the beta version of Imagini only searches for gifts available in the U.K., but it will at the very least drum up some ideas for those of you who live elsewhere.

Rather than putting together a full fledged gift guide this year, we thought we’d dig into the archives and share our favorite items from the past. One thing we notice every year is a vast majority of our ‘finds’ are timeless. So with that said, here are a handful of our favorites from the past few years our design category.

• Pillows By Eat: Luxury– Desire–Sore Loser–Little sewn on patches of skulls, couples having sex, these handmade pillows by EAT are sure to spark conversation… Continue Reading

• Potion Brand Holiday Cards: If you’re like me, you don’t have the stomach for cheesy holiday greeting cards. It’s one thing to receive such a card, but it’s an entirely different proposition to send one… Continue Reading

• Ball of Whacks: The Ball of Whacks is made up of 30 magnetic ‘golden ratio’ rhombic pyramids– they can be taken apart and rearranged in endless ways. It’s billed as a ‘creative tool for innovators’ and a ‘creativity workshop in a ball’… Continue Reading

• The Nooka Zub Watch: Nooka, one of our favorite alternative watch makers just announced a handful of stunning new time-pieces. The Nooka Zub’s as they’re called are the first ever rubber band… Continue Reading

• ShuffleArt Koobniks: ShuffleArt, originally the makers of the cute vinyl stickers used to decorate your iPod collection, recently released what they’re calling Koobniks: Soft vinyl film to protect against scratches on… Continue Reading

• Delfonics Tokyo: Wallet, keys, mobile, bag. There seems to be an over-saturation of the market with these quirky yet ordinary objects. However our comrades at Delfonics have provided us with one more piece to worry about for our daily… Continue Reading

• Maki Sushi Plates: Each dish has a pod like built-in dipping dish for wasabi, ginger, soy sauce or the like. They’re also only $5.95, and while I rarely post mass-market finds and products on this site, the sushi-fanatic inside me needed to give these well designed plates a special nod… Continue Reading

• Tokidoki for Le Sportsac: The line of hand bags, totes, and travel bags created for Le Sportsac are bright, colorful and full of characters that include laughing flowers, winking stars, and coy babies… Continue Reading

• Maiko Kuzunishi: It appears she mostly does illustrations which appear on her t-shirts, accessories and few prints available in her new online store. These plates are my favorite in her body of work and believe it or not totally affordable… Continue Reading

• Accoustical Art: The Acoustical Art speakers are neat modified PVC piping with high fidelity speakers built in. These look very well made, and are precisely fabricated by hand . They are available in a few different styles, as well as a full surround sound… Continue Reading

• Ideation Taks: Ideation’s new Taks, make me wonder why it took this long to make new taks, rounded, friendly, and this cool looking. They were chosen from the RAW show “Metropolis Next Generation” competition… Continue Reading

Graffiti artists are not exactly popular in the context of the civilized society– many view them as cost creators rather than benefit providers. In recent years, however, many have gained recognition as both talented artists and astute strategists of information dissemination. Felix Beck went a step further, and transformed the graffiti medium from visual into audio with his Soundbombs project. Soundbombs are not exactly technologically advanced (you could probably find all the parts at RadioShack), but the message is the power behind Soundbombs. With a pre-recorded message working in concert with the unit’s motion sensor, Soundbombs make it possible to tag locations ‘in an acoustic form.’ Felix Beck’s goal: to draw attention to street art by using audio — rather than visual — means. According to Felix: ‘Sound jars people into awareness of their surroundings.’ You can apply (that’s right, apply) for a Soundbomb here.
Via Wired

Tango pointed me to this genius new Hulger PIP* phone last week, shown here. It’s fashioned from grained African hardwood Ziricote– apparently some fancy type of Blackwood. It comes in a wooden box which also has a wooden container of wax to treat the natural wood over time. Their slogan for this one is “this phone is designed to wear in, not wear out”, if you splurge for it you can probably be sure the wood will last a lot longer than the technology inside. This one-of-a-kind piece will put you back about $3850, but it’s a perfect blend of “innovation and tradition”– truly a Flinstone meets Jetson statement here, we want one!

This shirt is solid holiday-time update from the guys at I-Manifest. They call the design ‘Cupid‘, and it’s the first of hopefully many collaboration t-shirts with the one and only Nessim Higson, whose portfolio “I Am Always Hungry” we covered a few times before. It’s done in a one-of-a-kind blue glow in the dark ink and is reversible– that’s like a 2 for 1 deal, right?