Christmas Gift Idea for Men

Discover one of the most spectacular wildernesses on our planet without leaving home as BBC Earth brings to DVD and Blu-ray the breathtaking natural history series -Yellowstone: Battle for Life. In this BBC/Animal Planet and Discovery co-production, viewers will follow the intertwining stories of Yellowstone’s iconic inhabitants – including America’s last great bison herds, the grizzly bear, the grey wolf, antelope and more – as they battle to survive. An ideal stocking stuffer for all nature lovers, this release contains all three hour-long episodes and 30 minutes of behind-the-scenes special features.

I received a copy of Yellowstone: Battle for Life for review.  The movie captures a full year of what animals must endure living in these subzero terrain in the winter and the scorching sun in the summer.  I am an animal and nature lover, and I loved seeing all the beautiful scenery in Yellowstone.  The bright colours that the natural hot springslakes create is absolutely incredible scene.  My young daughter really enjoyed the animals in the documentary as well.  She especially loved the baby bear cubs, and the otters which are light enough to scurry along the top of the snow in the wintertime.   I didn’t even know there were otters in Yellowstone.

Yellowstone: Battle for Life includes some history and has a lot of facts which anyone can appreciate, being part of the Rocky Mountain I shouldn’t have expected any less.  Although I live in a wintry climate half the year, Nova Scotia would not compare to the -66 degrees Fahrenheit that Yellowstone encounters.  It’s amazing to see what the bison, wolves and elk have to do year round to survive.  It’s a surprise that any wildlife is able to call such a place “home”.   Some wildlife such as the birds, only live in Yellowstone in the spring.  The Canada Geese make their way down there just for the summer – which is completely opposite to other “Canadian snowbirds”.

The movie was fantastic and kept us intrigued, with it’s amazing footage of Yellowstone.  I would suggest this as a Christmas Gift for anyone who likes wildlife (men), or nature (Women).

Buy it: To purchase, Visit Amazon.com

Christmas Gift Idea for Men

The Governator – who would have ever thought that an Austrian body builder would become and actor, and then move on to be the Governor – of California – of all states!  Arnold Schwarzenegger has made quite a name for himself in the good ol’ US of A.

In my mind, Arnold will always be the Terminator although he has played many roles in successful movies such as Total Recall, Red Heat and the Running Man.  Most of his roles and action packed, and tend to show off some great muscles (keeps the ladies interested in the action movies too).  If you are an action fan or more specifically an Arnold Schwarzenegger fan, then you have to get new 4 disk DVD collection which came out in 2009.

The box set includes the actions movies Total Recall, Red Heat and the Running Man, and Terminator 2: Judgement Day.  Of these, my favourite is Terminator 2: Judgement Day.  I remember in 1991 when this movie was released, I was just 11 years old.  The movie was rated R, but this did not stop me from sneaking into the theater at least 10 times to watch the movie.  I was in love with Eddie Furlong, who played John Connor.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day is a classic movie, and continues to be referred to in almost every day language.  People are still using terms like “I’ll be back”, and “Hasta La Vista, Baby”, nearly 20 years later (eekkk, where has the time gone).  It won many awards including the People’s Choice Award for best picture.  Terminator 2: Judgement Day is one of my favourite movies (in my top 5 for sure), and I am very happy to have it on DVD, so is my husband.

Total Recall, which was released in 1990 was also a huge hit for Arnold Schwarzenegger, winning 5 awards and being nominated 13 times.  Sharon Stone is also in this film so it’s sure to get the mens blood pumping.  If action isn’t enough to get men excited, I’m sure the sight of Sharon Stone is.

Red Heat (1988) and The Running Man (1987)  are some Arnold Schwarzenegger earlier work, but do not lack the typical Arnold action  and even a bit of humor.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a great actor, and has charisma that captures everyone – men love action, and women love muscles (and accents).  This box set of some of Arnold’s greatest movies is sure to be a hit with everyone this holiday season.

Buy it: To purchase, visit Amazon.com

Christmas Gift Idea for Men

My husband seems to know a lot of useless facts – which end up being really quite interesting.   Most of which have come from something he came across the internet or something he read in the paper. But now he has a new method to add to his unlimited amount of facts – the Guinness World Records 2010 Book.

The hard covered Guinness World Records 2010 book, comes complete with 287 coloured pages worth of amazing, odd, fascinating and just plain stupid world records.  You will find interesting facts like, the most amount of dogs getting married at one time, the ever popular longest fingernails, and the fastest 1/2 marathon – with a stroller.  Nearly each Guinness Book of World Records has a picture of the record holder, and in some cases also mentions when the record was attempted to be broken, but was not.

The Guinness World Records 2010 book is well laid out with sections such as Planet Earth, The Body, Animals, Arts & Media and sports just to name a few.  There is also a an introduction in the first page of “Firsts”, for example, did you know the first email was sent in 1971?!?  There is also an unbreakable section that lists many records that are unlikely to be broken, for example, the largest diamond is 3,106 carats and was found in 1905 – imagine carrying that on your finger.

If you want to become a record breaker, there is also a detailed section that has a step by step guide on how to be a part of the Guinness World Records.

The Guinness World Records 2010 is a very fun book, you will learn so many crazy and amazing things that have happened around the world – some are unbelievable, while others are just plain strange.  But overall, it will create lots of conversation and makes a great coffee table book.

I gave the Guinness World Records book to my brother-in-law a few years ago as a Christmas gift, and he spent lots of time sifting through the pages telling us all about the crazy things people have done.  Men seem to love this sort of thing, because as soon as this book made it into our home, my husband was doing the same thing.

Christmas Gift Idea for Men

I grew up with The Simpsons, in fact, when the first episode aired, I was in grade 4 just like Bart.  I had a really strong connection with Bart “Don’t have a Cow Man” and “Cowabunga” really meant something to me.  What 10 year old didn’t get Bart’s rebellion? As the show continued on for years (and years and years), it continued to appeal to my generation.  Slowly, as we got older the focus left Bart and become Homer, because the generation watching The Simpsons were getting older (Ah,,, that’s me, and I am about to turn the BIG 3-0)

When we had the opportunity to review the new Simpsons Scene it?  game, I must say my husband and I were pretty pumped.  The Simpsons were on every day at 5 o’clock on CBC, so needless to say we watched every episode at least 100 times.

We’d played other Scene it? games so we knew what to expect, a great mix of questions on our television and cards.  The Scene it? questions include clips, trivia questions and puzzlers like crosswords, each are introduced with a different Simpson scene.  Although we have watched the show over and over again for 20 years (OMG – I am so old), the questions were really tough.  There are so many characters that we have met on the Simpsons, it’s hard to remember all their names, and put them into certain contexts.

My husband and I did have a lot of fun playing.  Despite a lot of the hard questions that we did not know, there were lots of questions that were hard and we did know.  The Simpsons Scene it? Edition really got our brains thinking.  We had lots of laughs and talked about old episodes.  It is really quite amazing how much of the Simpsons are engraved into our brains.

Whether or not you are a huge Simpsons fan, everyone will have fun playing this game.  If your brain doesn’t seem to retain useless information, not to worry there are questions that can be answered just by watching the video clips, and uses memory, and observation to answer different questions so everyone can be on the same playing field.

The Simpsons Scene it? game is also great just to have playing in the back ground during a party.  There is a party feature on the DVD that will continually play trivia questions, and puzzlers over and over again without having to be restarted.