The Map Magazine

Are you a bargain shopper? After growing up around various women, I’ve come to believe that most women are. You can deem this bogus if you like, but how many women do you know that aren’t always in search of those great deals on clothing and shoes? I have to laugh at my wife and daughters when they tell me that they found this great deal of a pair of boots, or a new jacket. It’s funny because they already have a number of them. How many pairs of shoes do you need? Well, apparently many women need a pair for each outfit. I have come to the simple conclusion that this ritual will not be ending any time soon, so I just thank goodness each one of my girls is a bargain shopper.

There are infinite places to shop these days. Whether you’re a bargain shopper downtown, or in the local mall, probably limits your selection a great deal. When I say this, I am basically referring to the World-Wide-Web. A bargain shopper can truly have a blast in cyberspace. I noticed after teaching my mother the ways of the Internet, she suddenly became an online bargain shopper. Oh well, it was probably inevitable. Now she turns to her computer for all of her clothing and trinket needs. She is one of those few who even shop for her groceries online. At least I know that she saves some serious dough in cyberspace.

Where do you go for the absolute best deals on any and everything? If you are a mall walker or outlet store browser, this is fine; but don’t disregard the World-Wide-Web. When you hop on your laptop at home, you put the entire world at your fingertips. If you are a true bargain shopper, then this is the epitome of places to browse. Only online will you find tons of web stores vying for your business and offering the best selection, hands down. By comparing the various websites, you can easily pinpoint the best price on whatever you’re looking for. Now that’s being a great bargain shopper. In addition, there are wonderful selections that can’t be found in the actual store at your local mall. For example, if you love Victoria’s Secret and do your routine bargain shopper thing there once a week, then you’re sadly missing out on a lot. Now get online and look at Victoria’s Secret. You’ll be amazed at how much more there truly is. This is the new millennium. It’s time to conform to the new bargain shopper mentality, and get on the Internet.

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When looking for a present for sports fans, there is a convenient way of getting something that they will really appreciate. Sports Gift Baskets are full of fun items for the sports lover to practice his or her sport or to sit at home and watch from the sofa. Most of them involve tasty snacks. After all, no-one wants to interrupt an exciting game by having to go into the kitchen and cook something! The baskets also make terrific corporate gifts.

The Sports Fan Gourmet Snacks basket provides a bit of style with apple cinnamon cookies, pretzels, sausage and black bean tortilla chips. The Football Fanatic includes sausages, popcorn, peanuts and salsa. Some Sports Gift Baskets are for fans of specific teams in baseball, football, basketball and ice hockey. The Home Town Heroes basket comes in two versions with a choice of mini lunch boxes for the Mets or the Yankees. The boxes are packed with baseball trivia fortune cookies, a wooden baseball bat pen, a souvenir baseball and cookies.

Golf is immensely popular of course and golf related Sports Gift Baskets are both practical and fun. The Golfing Around basket has a golf shaped ice cooler, practice balls, golf tees and snacks. The Ace Putter Set is ideal for someone that wants to get some secret practice in, at home or in the hotel room. The set comes in a smart, wooden travel case and contains a four piece travel putter, two golf balls and a metal practice cup.

Fishing too is a favorite pastime and long mornings at the side of a river in the wind and rain can be cheered by Sports Gift Baskets. If the catch is small, at least there are the snacks to look forward to! The Fisherman’s Fishing Creel is a rustic looking woven basket with a leather strap and contains lots of treats, including sausage, pretzels and cheese wedges. There are sweet things too and include fruit gems and caramels.

The fish are not forgotten and they have gummi worms for bait. The basket also contains a fishing book and a fishing cooler cup. If it’s a good day, there is a photo frame for that photograph of the proud fisherman with his catch and a ruler to measure the fish with. The Gone Fishing Gift comes in a wooden box and has a Gone Fishing teddy bear, roasted almonds, cheese sticks, coffee, antique watering can and a book on fishing.

Racing fans are not forgotten and there is a NASCAR Racing Lovers Gift Chest, which has an ice cooler, cooler cup, a book on the history of stock car racing, a NASCAR racing pad and pen and an adjustable NASCAR hat. Of course there are snacks, including pistachios, candy, crackers and cheese.

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I am definitely an avid Internet shopper. If it weren’t for the fact that I make a comfortable living, I would say that it bordered on an addiction. With all kinds of interesting products from all over the world just a few clicks away, it is hard not to get addicted to exploring all of the varied goods that the Internet has to offer.

One of the reasons I like online gift shopping so much is that it allows me to indulge my passion for shopping online without feeling too guilty about it. Most of my friends are not that traveled, cultured, or Web savvy, so I can always surprise them with the neat and unusual things that I manage to find online. I let other people go down to the local bookstore and buy the latest new release - I would always rather do something fanciful like find a collectible antique ornament on eBay or a handwoven rug from Guatemala. Although it can be hard to match such exotic choices with the tastes that my friends have, usually I can come up with a pretty good match.

Of course, there are other, more practical ways to buy gifts online. A lot of the most devoted fans of online gift shopping use it as a way to get bargains, rather than a means to find rare and exotic presents. Amazon, of course, is a great way to get good deals, but there are many other sites as well. You can get wholesale gifts at places like Deep Discount DVD and eBay, if you are willing to keep an eye out for sales and rare bargains. It is all a matter of how deeply you are willing to look. If you really put some effort into finding the very best deals in online gift shopping, the sky is the limit!

When you are online gift shopping, it is important to use common sense. Although you can shop at the last minutes from the big commercial vendors, you need to leave a little bit more time if you are using a less dependable shipper. Different vendors on eBay have different procedures, and some of them are a lot more reliable than others. Until you really know who you are dealing with, it can’t hurt to leave a little bit of extra time. After all, there is no bigger disappointment than not having the gift in time for whatever special event you are shopping for.,

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Easter Gifts

Easter gifts are always fun, but I am tried of getting a big basket full of candy for my child. When I buy her Easter gifts, I only get her a small amount of candy, but the rest of my family thinks it’s funny to get her more candy than any child could possibly eat. I worry about her becoming a sugar junky, and I worry about how the children of America seem to be getting heavier and heavier. My goal is to introduce her to healthy foods, and to let her know candy is OK, but it should be something you have once in a while, and something that should be eaten in small portions.

When I was a kid, my Easter gifts were very simple, and I was not loaded down with candy. Normally, my mother got my brother and me a small basket with a chocolate bunny and some other pieces of candy. The amount of candy was not overwhelming, and it often took us months to finish it simple because we didn’t eat a lot at a time. Along with that small basket, we also got something else like a new pair of shoes, dress clothes, or a kite as Easter gifts. We were happy.

Today, if you look in stores around this holiday, you will see enormous baskets meant to be Easter gifts. The amount of candy there is to give our child is astounding to me, and I can’t imagine why any parent would want to give their child ten pounds of candy. Some Easter gifts I see have more toys than anything, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The problem seems to be the size of the baskets. Why is it that everything seems to be getting bigger and bigger? Is bigger really better?

For my daughter, I made my own Easter gifts for her. I buy a small basket and I get a small chocolate bunny. I might get one or two small packets of candy, and then a few toys. That’s all she gets and that’s certainly all she needs. I usually get something like sidewalk chalk or bubbles. These are toys she can use outside. Last year, we also got her a kite to go along with the rest of her Easter gifts. The mounds of candy my family decided to give her immediately went into the cupboard. She had a little, and as soon as she forgot about it, it was thrown out.

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bachelorette gifts

My sister is getting married a little later this year, and as her sister I have lots of planning to do. One of the big events will be a bachelorette party along with bachelorette gifts. We’ll probably have a little shindig at my house, followed by some sort of gallavanting thereafter. I have a feeling her bachelorette gifts will lean towards the naughty and the risque to make her good and embarrassed and put on the spot in a way only a sister can orchestrate.

Some ideas for bachelorette gifts that we will likely bestow upon her include: all sorts of jellies and powders and creams and sprays to enhance her love life, teeny tiny items of material that resemble dental floss and yet are meant for wearing, and of course some heftier items including a lightweight whip, and maybe a pair of handcuffs for good measure. Most of these bachelorette gifts will be meant as pranks and jokes, however, I’m sure she will also receive some valuable items including lingerie, bath items and possibly some actual items that the happy couple can enjoy together.

I’ve had to buy bachelorette gifts in the past. One of the funniest bachelorette gifts I ever purchased was a cardboard carton called ‘Make-out Take-out’ which contained a variety of naughty toys and gags. The actual carton was similar to the old-style Chinese food cartons, and it really made for a novel bachelorette gift.

I doubt we will include strippers in our evening. The bachelorette gifts will be naughty and good for a laugh, but none of us are likely to go so far as to create a potential problem for the couple. Marriage is pretty serious business - it’s okay to lighten things up a bit - but we’re of the opinion that including strippers (even as a joke) is going too far and it undermines the seriousness of marriage.

Even still, we love a good joke, and I quite look forward to terrorizing my sister will all manner crazy, risque and off-the-wall bachelorette gifts. After all, she is my sister and part of my job is to embarrass her and get her laughing. We have many close friends who will also be dying to get in on the action. I have no doubt that the bachelorette gifts that they purchase will be right out-on-a-limb and we will have an evening full of laughter, embarrassment and fun. My sister is nearly 29 and she has waited a long time to find just the right guy to marry. We are all very relieved that the big day if coming up quickly. This should be a bachelorette party and a pile of bachelorette gifts to remember for a good long while!

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