Adobe and Microsoft PDF printers retain some information. If you run it through ghostscript you'll get only the PostScript output. You can use a free utility like cutepdf to make it easy. Just install the latest gs release after installing cutepdf instead of the download they provide.
What's your budget? If your friend is into bourbon then most everything here he's probably tried. To get a unique gift bottle will cost a bit more, depending where you are.
Me too! The older I get the more I find fixing things is not as common as I thought. Just the other day I was at a friend's place and they were struggling opening a window. Five minutes later it was fixed. The sash spring fell off, super simple fix. They were cursing at it for months without any effort to figure it out, but that's most people it seems.