Gift Ideas for Heads of State

Over on my “short post” blog today I linked a story about the gift President Obama gave to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown–25 of the awesomest DVDs this country has to offer. I mean, how cool is that? I wanted that for Christmas, but I don’t have any friends or relatives that can pull those kinds of strings.

It would have been cool if Mr. Obama could have swung a Wii Fit, but those are tough to find.

Ok, seriously? DVDs? I think, as a general rule, you should stray away from giving heads of state gifts that you can get on Amazon or in the White House Gift Shop, although the James Bond Blu-ray set or a Kindle 2 would be cool. But I’ve received better gifts than DVDs in the past year, and I couldn’t get elected to the board of my HOA.

So, of course, I have some ideas for future gifts that are better than DVDs if the President ever decides to actually give something thoughtful or significant. These are all things I think the President could actually pull off:

  1. An external hard drive with all the music he downloaded back in the Napster days
  2. Offer to help him move, and actually follow through
  3. Tickets to an Oprah taping (transportation to Chicago not included)–bonus if you can swing a lifetime membership to the Oprah Book Club
  4. Let him “ride bitch” on one of the motorcycles in the Presidential motorcade
  5. Offer to let him crash on the couch for the weekend
  6. Autographed photo of the cast of Facts of Life
  7. A couple of four day passes to Disney
  8. Cubs tickets
  9. Hook it up for him to ring the opening bell at the NYSE (on a non-trading day)
  10. Teach him how to work the teleprompter

Me Fit? Maybe Not. How About Wii Fit?

So the other night I was watching Chelsea Handler and she had Tina Yothers on. You know, the girl from Family Ties who wasn’t Mallory? Anyway, she was pretty hard core about being on Celebrity Fit Club, and seemed like a pretty cool woman, so the next time I saw Celebrity Fit Club was on I watched about 10 minutes of it.

Still with me? Ok, during the commercial break there was a commercial for the Wii Fit featuring Tina Yothers working out. I sort of assumed that the Wii Fit or something like it already existed, but the commercial said it was coming soon. I went over the Amazon to check out this video for the Wii, which isn’t quite as cool as the Tina Yothers commercial, mostly because Tina Yothers isn’t in it.

I watched the long version of the video, and I gotta tell you…I can’t see anyone getting fit with this thing for a few reasons. I can see where it’s better than just hanging out on the couch, but I don’t see it getting anyone truly fit.

The “heavy bag” is just punching the air. If you’ve ever spent any quality time with a heavy bag you know exactly why it wears you down–because it’s heavy. I don’t have the exact numbers, but the density of air probably isn’t anything close to the density of a heavy bag. How is this different from the regular Wii boxing game?

Then there’s the strength training program that has you doing push-ups and torso twists. Again, better than nothing, but do you need a trainer for this? And jogging in place? Really? The balance games looked pretty fun, but I don’t see how you can practice balance without actually having to balance. I mean, without actually feeling gravity, they’re more like leaning games than balance games.

I guess I’m saying that there’s no way I’d buy this game. Then again, I don’t even have a Wii.