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Sometimes I wake up in the morning, and the eyes just don’t line up with the holes.
Useless. Completely useless. I can hardly form sentences, and once, I yawned for so long I caught my kids counting my lower row of teeth. Slow and methodically. . . and in Spanish.

Did you know that you CAN sleep with your eyes open? While talking and reading the newspaper? Well, you can. I am walking medical proof. The only way my wife knows I’m awake is if I have the cup to my mouth, and I’m gulping the joy juice in my OFF/ON Mug. You pull the mug out of the cabinet– it’s 6:30 in the morning, and 59 degrees in the house. Yeah, the mug, and me we’re definitely OFF. But then you fill the mug (and me) with piping hot coffee. YESSSsss COFFEE, work your magic . . . NOW! Watch as the satisfying, heart-startin’ drink of the gods changes the OFF letters to ON (okay, it’s really heat sensitive pigments in the cup that change the color and the text but don’t get all scientific and geeky on me– just BELIEVE). Watch that frown turn upside side down in like one second. Now I can SEE! Yall, that’s the real magic.

A new Indiana Jones movie comes out this summer! I saw Harrison Ford on the cover of Vanity Fair and I squealed right there in the book store. Can’t you hear Indie’s theme music playing in the back of your mind right now? I hear it every time I have to do something really important, like my own laundry. Like our taxes. Like changing the oil in my car. Like carving up chunks of meat for the grill.

HMMMMMM. . . . grilling. . . . I can’t wait to go outside again. I have buffed the stainless steel on my grill in the garage so much it gleams like glass. It’s ridiculous. How many more months?

A while. A good long while. Until then, I will bide my time and imagine my new William Henry Maestro Collection of cutlery going to work on some serious meat. I don’t even know if I can use these knives– they are collector-quality beautiful. The wooden thingy they rest in is nothing short of art. Five precision cutting machines, hand-crafted handles and 45 layers of stainless steel alloys make these knives a real through back to your father’s father’s cutlery. “These knives belong in a museum!”

I live in a house divided. It’s Super Tuesday every day in my house! And in 9 months, we’re all going to have a new president, whether we like him (or her) or not. That said, I’ve been looking for ways to circumvent the occasional political tension that bubbles over the dinner table when my wife and I talk about the candidates. And I can tell you right now– my stars and bars boxers just don’t have the same jovial impact they did a few months ago. So, I’m trying a new political strategy– presidential trivia! I just bought the Secret Lives of U.S. Presidents Trivia Card Game. I mean, Heaven knows I’m tired of talking about the current bunch of elephants and donkeys– I want to talk about some real asses!

The Secret Lives of US Presidents Trivia Card Game comes with more than 150 questions you never thought to ask about the former leaders of the Free World. Which American president liked to swim nekkid in the Potomac River? Which former leader of the United States liked to greet high-ranking foreign visitors in his PJs? Which president surprise the first lady by blowing milk through his nostrils? Okay that’s not a real question. But which president tricked out his horses in leopard-skin robes, is. Talk about pimp my ride. . .

Phil, Punxsutawney’s well-fed (and quite frankly, drunk-lookin’) ground hog just made his prediction: SIX MORE WEEKS OF WINTER. Oh dang! I just bit the inside of my cheek. Noooooo! I don’t know if I can take one more day of icy-rain falling at a slant or white-out conditions– look, if we have another week of snow days, I’m just going to have to home school my kids. I practically have to pray for the courage to shovel the driveway so we can get on the road in the morning.

The worst part is trying to leave work when in the course of 8 hours my car has transformed into a four-wheeling popsicle. It’s 5:05 and I have to primp and prep that car like a model during fashion week– let her engine run, get her some new snow tires, get her a
cappuccino . . . and the car windshield. Nothing worse than trying to scrape sheets of ice off the windshield when your hands are also made of sheets of ICE! I buy one of those good-for-nothing scrapers every time I fill up the gas tank– just toss it in the back seat– but do you know I never can find one when I need it? I usually find at least one, months later, being used by one my kids as a makeshift shovel in the sandbox!

So, I bought the Rechargeable Ice Scraper, and I’m never letting it out of my sight. This scraper is cordless– it has a built-in heating conductor– heats up fast and melts ice and snow off the windows like a drippy ice cream cone on a summer’s day. Just charge up the battery in your car’s 12v outlet and you’ve got almost two hours of full-on heat in a New York minute. Take that Old Man Winter!

Have you seen Wayne Newton lately? You can bounce a quarter off his face. Seriously. He looks the same as he did twenty years ago, but . . . shinier. That’s what I call good livin’. I saw him when I was in Vegas for that gadget conference. What?! I had to. Look, he’s been doing old school, before old school was cool. Excuse my French, but the lady cougars were screaming in there like teens at Zac Efron concert. Mr. Newton might look like a delicate, seamless lounge lizard action figure in all those sequined suits, but dang it, he could probably take me in a street fight– he’s been around. NOT IN THE FACE! And DON’T touch my hair.

After seeing Wayne Newton live and up close, I’ve been thinking about my skin, and what I want it too look like in 20 years. Okay, somewhere BETWEEN the Crypt Keeper and Wayne is a happy medium, and I think Men Science Eye Rescue Formula will help get me there. Now I know we’re only suppose to use Irish Spring for all our beauty needs– right, men? Well, if you want to look like jerky in a few years, you go with that. I want to look. . . distinguished— a little grey around the temples, smile lines here and there. . . I might even wear an ascot and a tweed jacket– but BY GOD I’m going to keep my strapping good looks.

Look, the skin around eyes is some of the most sensitive on your body. The Eye Rescue Formula has a matte finish, no one knows you’re wearing it and why not look like you got a good night’s sleep after working late at the office– people will think you’re super human AND a Vegas showman, or something. Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful (sorry. . . I had to).

Okay, I’m just going to say it: there’s no recess in RECESSION, people. I’m just going to say it: the US dollar is neck and neck with the Canadian dollar, which hasn’t happened in a whole bunch of years, and the Euro trumps all. You know how hard it’s going to be to turn a profit if the bottom completely falls out? I don’t think I have to say it.

So, I’m trying to be proactive. No, I haven’t hired a pirate crew to hunt for riches using an ancient treasure map, though that was my first thought. I’m starting a kick-butt coin collection, and I’m starting with a $5 Gold Half Eagle coin. It’s a coin that was minted in San Francisco, between Wild West gold rush, just after the Civil War and the year of the infamous San Francisco earth quake in 1906. That’s it. No more. We’re talking rare. This coin comes with REAL history– somehow these solid gold coins survived destruction, stock-market crashes and meltdowns. This coin was once just gleaming fragments found by a prospector with tin pan and a dream. In a time when so many things are disposable, the Half Eagle coin is a reminder of American prosperity and good-old sweat-equity to get there. Sorry to get all poignant on ya– but for some reason, this shiny coin makes me proud to work hard for the money.

One day, when I find myself stranded on a desert island (and every man thinks about this scenario at some point in his life, sometimes, DAILY) there are just a few things I really really want to have on hand: a life-time subscription to McGyver Magazine, chocked-full of recipes for building a raft out of coconut skin, or something, my puchi puchi (the key-ring sized, simulated bubble wrap sound machine I mentioned in a previous post) and the Max Benjamin Mini Cigar Bar, FULLY-LOADED.

Deserted island. . .
Scratch that. . .
I want my Max Benjamin Mini Cigar bar as my carry-on when I take the Orient Express! Like the famous train ride from Paris to Istanbul, this mini cigar bar is synonymous with luxury– I mean if a man’s got to carry a purse, it better be this ultra masculine thing. The first time I picked it up I felt the hairs in my beard start to sprout! This rich, dark chocolate leather with deeply studded antique-like hardware and three cavernous compartments put most cigar bags to shame. This thing is a fist with pockets– it has a cedar-lined, cylindrical humidor and another insulated cylindrical pocket to house a container of ice! It comes with a torch lighter, and four acrylic tumblers. All you need is a sterling silver flask, a handful of buddies, and time to relax and enjoy some tasty cigars.

Back in olden days, when I met my wife, I was the quintessential bachelor. Not like today’s metro-sexual who exfoliates and watches Project Runway. I mean, I slept on the floor on a mattress, used out-door patio furniture INDOORS, because it was easy to clean, and, I kept my collection of books, stacked along the wall, like a friggin’ caveman. Yes, my mother taught me better than that– but I moved out of her house and into the college dorms where all the furniture sprouted out of the walls and was bolted to the floor. People, there WAS NO IKEA, okay?! There was just all this fine-crafted, colonial-looking stuff that was perfect, if you were one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence. That was just never my style.

So, now I’m all grown up and sitting on actual furniture– yeah it’s GREAT. But my books. Still piling up and sliding all over the shelves. I hate those metal, library-issue bookends– either they shock me, when I touch them, after shuffling across the carpet, or I end up nicking my hand on them or something. One year my wife bought me carved busts of Abraham Lincoln that were also bookends. I don’t know– they kind of scared me. You know, walking by the home office on the they way bed, when out of the corner of my eye, there’s honest Abe, but just his stone face gazing at me– and he’s managed to cloned himself. Shivers. Shivers down my spine.

So, after much hunting, I found these quote unquote bookends. Your first thought might be, “Oh, that’s whimsical.” No. Whimsical would be two, tiny ceramic Yorkshire Terriers trying to support your long-winded, antique, twelve-volume Mark Twain collection. Ridiculous. The quote unquote bookends are understated, but eye-catching. The matte finish, concrete quotation marks coated in a seamless layer of black rubber, say, “Handsome, Smart, Modern War Correspondent.” These 2lbs. quote unquote marks in a bold font say, “Welcome to my NEWSEUM!” Abe, you’re history!

Can I just tell you how many times I’ve had to toss out liquid carry-ons because they didn’t satisfy TSA regulations? PLENTY. And in the interest of public safety, I grin and bear it.
But I’m totally sick of using a funnel to measure out the proper ounces to put in a nondescript, container and then try cramming the now slippery bottles into one quart size clear plastic zip-lock bag. It’s just a mess. I always wait until the very last minute to pack, so there I am, scooping lotion, shampoo and stuff into little plastic things, and by the time I get where I’m going, I wash my hair with the lotion and brush my teeth with the facial cleanser– all the bottles look the same! Why don’t you put it all in your checked luggage? Sure, why don’t I do that? Because, I don’t check my luggage anymore. My luggage has been to more cities on this planet than I have. My luggage has its own passport, so I carry the dang thing with me. That’s it. I’m just tired of measuring everything out! Do I look like an apothecary to you?

Thanks to Anthony Logistics Grab and Go Portables Kit, all I have to do get myself to the airport on time! This kit comes with high-quality basics like shampoo, shaving cream, and body cleanser, which I definitely use. It also comes with a few more sassy, manscaping things like astringent, and facial scrub and cleanser, which I will never admit to using. . . but I do.
Anyway. . . this handy little kit comes with its own quart-size zip top plastic bag and peace of mind, which is completely weightless, fits into the zip top bag, AND meets TSA standards.
So there.

This is a hard thing for a grown man to admit but. . . I love bubble wrap. Yeah, I know it’s a questionable vice. What can I say, it relaxes me. I love the sound of exploding, manufactured air. What?! I like to pop it. Popping bubble wrap is just one of those things I like to do, okay?! In private, thanks. Like taking pleasure in a particularly good burp. There, I said it.

So, I went to the 2008 International CES gadget conference in Las Vegas last month, you won’t believe what I found. YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT. God, I love Japanese ingenuity. Well. . . I think all those Amigurumi, crocheted ducks and cakes and stuff that my wife likes are just ridiculous but, I have to say they DO think of just about everything. That said, I found the ultimate thing. The most amazing thing! I found a cute little product called the Puchi Puchi. Yes, you heard me– the Puchi Puchi (which is the Japanese word for the sound bubble wrap makes when you pop it, if you didn’t already know)! It’s basically eight bubbles in a square piece of plastic, small enough to fit on your key ring, that when you squeeze it with your thumbs . . . it POPS . . . and makes the sound of bubble wrap! I’m serious– there’s a tiny speaker in there and this little thing sounds just like authentic bubble wrap! And, can you believe it almost feels exactly like popping real bubble wrap? How many times can I say bubble wrap in one post– that’s how excited I am– I might need to take a nap. Okay, okay, calm down. I know you’re excited about this too, folks. Don’t deny it. Get the black one– it’s respectable, and doesn’t look like a toy. Pop on the way to the copier, pop on the way back to your desk. Pop after a particularly tedious staff meeting– no one will notice– it’s just Kathy, mailing something or other. Think about how great it will be to pop while you’re stuck in traffic! Oh man!