{"id":30129,"date":"2017-11-30T02:00:38","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T09:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=30129"},"modified":"2017-11-29T18:04:27","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T01:04:27","slug":"cool-tools-2017-holiday-gift-guide-marks-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/cool-tools-2017-holiday-gift-guide-marks-picks\/","title":{"rendered":"Cool Tools 2017 Holiday Gift Guide: Mark’s Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The editors of Cool Tools have curated a number of gift suggestions selected from the pages of Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities<\/a> (which itself makes a great gift), and from the website. This week: Mark’s picks.<\/p>\n

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\nThere used to be two kinds of ukuleles: pressed cardboard junk for less than $50, and professional quality beauties for over $500. Now there is a third option \u2013 the Fluke<\/a> ($199), a half-plastic, half-wood ukulele that costs half that. As soon as my fingers hit the cute-as-a-bug instrument, I fell in love with it. It\u2019s a pleasure to play and the sound is strong and chipper. <\/p>\n

\n


\n“Since I spend a reasonable amount of time traveling for work (mostly via car) and I like my morning espresso I\u2019ve tried several portable espresso machines to get me my morning espresso fix. I\u2019ve found that the Wacaco Minipresso<\/a> ($58) is the best portable espresso machine available.” — Jason Reljac<\/p>\n

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\nThe Paderno spiral vegetable slicer<\/a> ($20) is made of plastic and it looks like it would snap into pieces as soon as the crank is turned, but don\u2019t let its appearance fool you. This thing has a set of three sharp blade attachments that make short work of sweet potatoes (and, I assume, the sweet potato\u2019s evil cousin, the white potato).<\/p>\n

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\n“The FiAir battery powered blower<\/a> ($25) has turned out to be quite good at fanning dying embers into a hot flaming fire again. Using three AAA batteries, it seems to last for a long time, in fact, I have not run the batteries low after at least three dozen extended uses.” — Kent Barnes<\/p>\n

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\n“It\u2019s so, so very much easier than playing a guitar, though I\u2019ll admit, the tuning is a tad tedious (36 strings). But the chord bars on an autoharp<\/a> ($358) vastly decrease your chances of hitting the wrong note, and there are none of those cramp-inducing finger contortions required for playing guitar. Just hold down a bar, and strum \u2014 and there\u2019s your chord!” — Barbara Dace<\/p>\n

\nWant more? Check out our other 2017 gift guide<\/a> picks, as well as our 2016 Gift Guide<\/a>, 2015 Gift Guide<\/a>, 2014 Gift Guide<\/a> and our 2103 Gift Guide<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Favorite gift ideas from Mark Frauenfelder, editor-in-chief of Cool Tools<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[41],"tags":[2357],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30129"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30139,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30129\/revisions\/30139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}