Tong Family Blog

Well, its Christmas time again, so once again, here's some holiday recommendations from Rich. Hope you all buy early:

Household

• Cusinart Classic Style 2-Slice Chrome Toaster with free shipping from MetroKitchen.com. This is $50. Interesting to see how retro is so in. Just look at what Restoration Hardware has done. Here's a 1920s toaster about 100 years later. Or if you really want to go crazy spend $280 for a hand-made British toaster.
• Chef's Choice Sharpener. Besides amazingly great Wustof knives or All Clad cookware, nothing make cooking easier than a really sharp knife. The $129 CC-320 is a great unit. Three levels of sharpening and highly recommended.

Office gadgets

Since I've been travelling quite a bit, I've been in tune with the latest time saving gadgets:

• ipod. Yes, they are expensive, but they are really so neat. The best price performance right now seems to 20GB at $280 street suffices for 99% of all people.
• Zip Linq. They have a great set of retractable cables from USB to Ethernet. The coolest thing though are the USB to cell phone chargers, so you don't need to carry a separate charger, but can just slave off of a laptop or a AC to USB charger.
• Ultra Cord. Like the folks at Zip Linq, these guys also have retractable cables. I really like their kits as stocking stuffers that cost $50 and have 13 different components including a mini-mouse. Zipzoomfly has it for $35.
• iPod sync cable. Here's a retractable cable for iPod synchronization.
• "Bluetooth Mouse". For the person who doesn't like touchpads.