I've been at my company for 3 years this month, so I get to pick out a 3 year service award. I have it narrowed down to two items, but one is audio related, so why not post here.

OK, so I know its a boom box so I'm not expecting great sound quality, but how bad is it? Does anyone have experience with the iLive IB289 ?

We are having our first child in December and thought this might be good for the baby's room, to have some music while being up late at night.

If I don't go with that, option #2 looks like a smoker.

I like the idea of having a smoker, but I'm not sure how much I'll use it. Anyone use this one? For those that do have smokers and grills, do your smokers get used?

Please, we need some more options before we decide what you should get.

There's pages of options, but I had to do some narrowing down. Jewelry, watches, the "lifestyle" category, which these both come from, and the last category was called traditional I think.

Lifestyle seems to be the way to go.

Where's the option: "Big wad of cash"?

I would not recommend that type of smoker. I do not like those desings. It is really hard to control the temp/smoke. I find the food from those smokers to taste "ashy" as well because the coals, ash, woodchips and smoke etc are underneath the food and only seperated by a foot or so. It is very difficult to get good quality food from them and even tougher if you have never smoked food before. It takes a lot of work and patience.

You really need to spend some cash on good equipment to get good smoked food. They are designed better to control the temp and smoke and the heat/smoke is indirect as opposed to being directly underneath which makes all the difference.

Cleaning the resin in the inside after use is also a pain and messy. You want to get that stuff off because the food can take on that flavour if you let it build up....gross.

As far as these items go, we're in the 50-60 dollar range, so it would be not so big wad of cash.

Thanks for the input on the smoker. It sounds like its not worth getting.

I'm guessing we all like audio too much to have tried the boom box, but we'll see. Assuming the wife thinks it would be good to have one of those for the room, I'll probably just go that route. Some feedback would be helpful though. I'm sure it doesn't sound great, but how bad is bad.

Maybe Axiom should make one and they should offer that instead!

The boombox you can enjoy right out of the box. The smoker can be a real PITA and requires work and maintenance. That boombox might be nice for a bathroom, garage/workshop or just for some tunes while you are working outside/backyard.

Zarak, it sounds like you can have a good use for the boombox in the baby's room. You might also lug it out to the garage or outside when you are puttering around and need some background noise.

Alternatively, there is the Logitech, (Squeezebox family) Boombox.

Very similar to the your link but you can still access all the tunes from your PC without having to remember where you set your ipod down last. The trade off, is that you have to leave a PC running. Although you can still access Internet radio and music services without a PC on, just a connection to the Internet.

Just depends on the lesser of your two weevils.

The one I'm looking at is free from work though...that's why I picked that one. My wife didn't think we'd use it much, but then she heard it was free and thought it might not be so bad. I'm going to take another look at the awards and make sure there isn't something else I missed. If I don't come up with something, I'll likely go with the boom box.

Thanks to all.

OK....so I looked at the items again with my wife tonight and we went a different direction all together.

We got a tent.

She had marked that and an igloo cooler set and we settled on the tent. We aren't much into camping, but with our first kid on the way we thought it could come in handy for going on camping trip or even just setting it up in the backyard for them to play in someday.

Good choice! I really like Coleman tents. They are solidly built.

If they're built solidly, how do you fold them up to bring them anywhere?

D'Oh!!

*smacks forehead*

Brilliant!

I'm glad we were all here to see Sean learn something new about tents.

Now all I gotta do is hope that everybody stops posting in this thread and let it disappear to the second page. . . .


Wait. . .



D'OH!!!

You're not helping!!

Oh, shi. . .

What was that about not posting here anymore?

I have to agree with Sean, I like firm tents too.