Face it, my brothers and sisters, it's been a good year. World uncertainties aside, the markets have been generous to most of us.
Bounty on this grand scale creates, well, a problem: What ridiculously extravagant gift are you going to give someone (or yourself) in 2006? And since kids know the truth -- if one present is good, seven presents are better -- what better time, then, for a Borat-titled story: "The Seven Best Money-Is-No-Object Gifts to Get"? Go ahead. Go wild. You deserve it.Best Game Platform
There are those in the world for whom $600 is a lot of money. And there has been much twittering out there over which is the best gaming platform: The Sony (SNE) PlayStation 3, the Nintendo Wii or the Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox 360. But money is, blissfully, not the issue here. So the choice is simple. If you want to game, do what the professional gamers do: Get a gaming PC. Good brands are the Voodoo Envy notebook PC or the Vicious PC; but my pick is the Alienware mALX ($9,900). The mALX is a beast of a laptop, with a 19-inch screen that is -- just barely -- portable. The thing has unimaginable power and features. I will spare you the techno details, other than to say this: Spend three minutes playing Battlefield, Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto on the mALX, and you'll never mess around with a dorky old PlayStation again.Best Disc Player
The supposed big story of the year is the "war" between the two competing high-definition video disc standards: HD digital video discs and Blu-ray discs. But there's really no story, and there is no war. Blu-ray disc players are better. They offer more storage, more features and better image quality. So get a Blu-ray player, cost and compatibility be damned. The trick with Blu-ray is not to mess around with also-rans from the likes of Samsung, Philips Electronics (PHG) or Panasonic. Get a Blu-ray player from the company that invented Blu-ray players, Sony Electronics -- the BDP S-1 ($1,000), to be exact. The S-1 comes with excellent controls, a nice array of connectivity options and a superbly designed user interface that embarrasses the competition. Timeless classics, like Lawrence of Arabia, are simply astounding on the S-1.Best Display
| Runco PL61 | ||
Best Camera
This has been the year of cheapskate cameras. Digital single-lens reflex cameras with high-end features like auto exposure and focus are coming from the likes of Olympus, Pentax and others for less than $500.| Horseman L Series | ||
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| Dow Jones | S&P 500 | NASDAQ | 10-Year Note | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12,783.82 | 1,351.95 | 2,927.23 | 19.84 |
Oil *
116.89
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DOWN
106.64 |
UP
1.99 |
UP
11.37 |
DOWN
0.63 |
10 Yr
1.98%
SPDR Gold
168.02
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-0.83%
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+0.15%
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+0.39%
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-3.08%
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