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It is no secret that traveling since 9/11 has included many extra precautions. I have since started wearing sandals to the airport in order to appease both the security people and the aggravated travelers in line behind me that still find the security precautions and the request to remove their shoes both bothersome and surprising.
Many women have been forced to leave cosmetics behind or mail them home, thus giving men an excuse to take the rugged vacation look to a new extreme. Fret no more ladies, do you miss his soft, supple, fresh skin?
Menscience.com has heard your pleas and created a travel kit that is full of luxurious items for him, very pleasing to her, and appeasing to the TSA. What more can a girl ask for her man? Only that he use the items in the stunning kit while spoiling her on a tropical island.
The kit includes- Travel-sizes of Menscience.com’s most popular products; scientifically developed for men and free of fragrance, dyes and irritants to provide the highest levels of quality and results.
Contents:
• Advanced Shave Formula - 2 oz
• Daily Face Wash - 2 fl oz
• Advanced Face Lotion - 2 fl oz
• Post-Shave Repair - 2 fl oz
• Daily Shampoo - 2 fl oz
• Advanced Deodorant - 2.6 oz
• Advanced Lip Protection - 0.5 oz
• Night Sleep Mask
• Advanced Ear Plugs
• Personal Travel Bag

You can order the kit at MenScience for a reasonable price. In fact it is so reasonable you might convince him to stay away an extra night or two! In addition, to being foot loose and fancy free, in no time at all your man will have chosen his favorite items from the kit, for use all the time. For more about what the TSA allows on a plane visit TSA on the web.

Okay Ladies, so during football season you are a sports widow and a slave to the kitchen. Poker night starts the trend all over again, and don’t even start with the playoffs or World Series! Are there more hungry mouths in your house than ants at a picnic?

There is a solution. A gift that brings joy to everyone is the Pizza of the month club. The perfect answer to feeding the guys during Monday night football. We are not talking about your average pizza chain pizza. No calling a pizza place filled with underwhelmed teenagers with no idea what a good pizza tastes like, no more staring at the clock wondering how long 45 minutes really is in pizza delivery time and most of all no cardboard like crust oozing with to much sauce and not enough cheese.

Pizza of the month club offers pizza made fresh with gourmet ingredients, frozen immediately, and delivered right to your home or office. Each month your Pizza of the month recipient will receive two deep-dish pizzas and thin crust pizza. They will also receive a newsletter discussing key pizza topics and offering discounts on additional products. Among the pizza flavors are Italian Beef Pizza and shrimp Teriyaki Pizza.

Possibly the best feature of the Pizza of the Month Club is there are no commitments you can join for one month or ongoing until you decide to stop. This wonderfully edible gift for him is really the ultimate never wonder what to serve during Monday night football, poker night, the playoffs, the World Series, or other guy’s night in, again for you gift.

Bon Appétit!

I remember how I learned to drive. In my father’s prized sedan. He wouldn’t let me tough his sporty MG. I clipped a few curbs, but I did all right. I remember my first accident. It was a gorgeous sunny day in spring of my 18th year. ANYWAY, it wasn’t completely my fault, and no one got hurt. It was just a little mash-up that involved a pick-up truck, and a squirrel trying to make it back to its home tree. There was also an abandoned birthday cake in the road, when all was said and done. Long story. Anyway, the Road Tested Chair brought a lot of memories back– it’s the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a chair. But not just any chair– it’s made from an authentic, retired New York City Walk/Don’t Walk sign. The sign really works! The seat can be turned on or off by remote control, and the sturdy legs rest on self-leveling feet. The seat is made of glazed resin– it’s a solid feeling when you sit down. You can get your chair all gussied up in a fresh coat of new paint, or keep the dings and scrapes and scratches in tact. Now, this is what I call ART.

They’re phasing out plastic bags at the grocery store. The world’s going eco-crazy. Soon we’ll be carrying our groceries to the car IN OUR HANDS.

I saw on the news how some kid wired his bedroom with solar power, then got his dad to do the whole house, NOW he’s going to back up a truck to the sun and hook up his school, maybe even the town. I’m still trying to remember to turn off lights when I leave a room. Baby steps. I recycle, remember? Anyway, I am trying to find new ways to shrink my utility bill. . . I mean, my carbon footprint. Summer is coming on, and with at least 100 days of sunshine, ahead, I figure I’ll try harnessing some sun power of my own, which my wife will appreciate since she’s all eco-momma these days. She set up a cistern outside to catch rainwater for the garden. I mean, (secretly) I can’t let her show me up like that. So I got a bunch of solar patio lights, to line the garden. And I found a solar-lit patio umbrella for the deck. The umbrella stores buckets of sunshine all day. At night, the umbrella, with its 24 LED lights built into the spreader rods provides up to eight hours of soft light. It even has an on/off switch. I mean I don’t need flood lights when I’m hanging out on the patio. Not gonna be reading War and Peace out there, just need a little light to the enjoy the late evenings with my wife after we put the kids down. It’ll be pretty romantic. And, think about it– no electrical cords to trip over, no miners have to go into the coal mine to light my patio. Now I don’t have to feel as bad about powering up the margarita maker. Hmmm margaritas.

Time keeps on ticking. . .
Tickin’ . . .
Tickin’. . .
Recession. I said that MONTHS ago. And here we are. People, we have to do something. Who do I mean WE. Look, I hear the words JOB SECURITY uttered over cubical walls, above the constant hum of the copier, and in the halls at least three, four, five times a day. People disappearing, temps, sprouting out of the breakroom furniture– it’s CRAZY! I’m keeping my head down, my nose to the grindstone, and all the other things you’re supposed to do in situations like this. At this rate, I don’t think I’m getting the good ‘ol gold watch and the hearty handshake we’re all promised when we’re old and grey and ready to retire. I feel like I’m on some kind of new employment reality show. It’s like a nightmare combination of The Office, Survivor, and Project Runway or something. Insult to injury, you still have to look good at work– you can’t roll up in a humvee, wearing body armor. But you can have a sense of determination. The Antique Jewel Box Watch Movement Cufflinks make me not take the day too seriously. These links, styled after the work of the old masters of European timepieces reveal the inner workings of a watch, the art of mechanical design, all polished up and shiny, like me. I’m not just a cog in the wheel, brother. Got to keep on ticking on.

Let me tell you, there’s nothing better than a hot towel on your face after a close shave at the barber shop. It’s like stepping back in time or something. The Barber’s chair might be the only place a fella can share his troubles with another man and not walk out drunk. A place to really relax– as long as your barber isn’t Sweeney Todd of Fleet Street.

But, I don’t always have time to get to the barber shop twice a week. My version of shaving is mowing my face with an electric shaver, while sprinting around the house, trying to wrangle my kids while I look for my keys to the car. Once I missed a whole section of my face and didn’t notice until I made my first trip to the restroom, at work. Nutty.

So, I have decided to invest in The Greatest Shave Ever Kit. It’s like color by numbers, but for shaving. Step by step I can give myself a great shave, without feeling like I just ripped a layer of skin off. Look, it’s just like Christmas goose, you gotta fatten the thing up before you have for dinner- you gotta prep you face. The Greatest Shave Ever Kit comes with cleanser, beard oil, a kick-butt shaving cream, and a soothing aftershave lotion. You’ll be smoother than Ralph Macchio in the Karate Kid. Did you know he was like 30 when he made those movies?
Okay, not really. . .

Every week day morning, the steady parade of business men and women, and their assistants, stream out of the coffee shop with these pristine, white cups with plastic lids. Most mornings, I’m one of those people, too. Go ahead, you try to get on a moving train with a cup of scalding hot coffee. Half the time I make my brew, and leave it on the counter at home, which is a major drag. Yeah, I think about the environment everyday I don’t bring my lunch to work, you know? I imagine the amount of trash I make in an eight-hour day: 4 plastic coffee stirs things, 3 paper cups with plastic lids, a paper bag, wax paper, and several napkins, from the deli, a few yards of toilet paper, and if it’s birthday cake day, 1. . . okay, 2 paper plates, and 2 forks. And that’s just the stuff I consume. What about all the paper I generate at work? It’s enough to make you go all Green Peace, get off the grid and grow a strike beard.

So, to lighten the mood, on days when I need to remind my self that I’m a consumer with a sense of humor, I drink my coffee in the I’m Not a Papercup coffee cup. It’s a porcelain version of the paper cup, with a silicone lid. It looks like the real thing, but it helps to keep you conscious of what you’re doing when you’re in a hurry. Since I got the I’m Not A Papercup, I noticed that I plan my meals away from home with more of an effort– I haul my stuff in, and my recyclables out more often. Think of the 9 to 5 as urban camping, because haste really does make waste.

Our family dog, kind of a cross between a beagle and a pug is in service to Her Majesty, The Queen. Okay, maybe not. But our dog (who’s identity I must protect, let’s just call him Pierce) likes to tunnel, chew through his leash, and has made a draw bridge out of a section of my wooden fence. He doesn’t seem that interested in getting messages out to his comrades by escaping through the space in the fence (too cold for spy action, I guess) but I suspect that in the spring the espionage will continue, and I’ll find him sharing “secrets” with the girl poodle across the way. With this in mind, I will soon install the Pets Observation Porthole in the south west side of my fence, which faces the nearby puppy park. The porthole is an acrylic, concave dome that makes it easy for your canine pet to see what’s going on in the world, without being in the middle of the fray, like most spies, you know. I’ll probably put in about three of them, at different heights, so it’s not all random-looking. You know, make it a bit like architecture.

Look, dogs are curious creatures. When I say curious I mean nosy. The porthole provides the opportunity for my pet to monitor doggy business without tearing up my dang-gum fence. I mean, I thought having opposable thumbs gave me the advantage, but I am shocked at the number of things he has demolished without the use of human tools. That white picket fence is the only remnant of the America from my childhood, I’d like to pass it on to my kids, instead of barbed wire and bars, and I’ll be darned if I let my cuddly, snobby English beagle take that away from me!

Spring, spring is a marvelous thing, and summer, summer’s no bummer. . .
Sorry, my singing sucks. But what doesn’t suck is the fact that it’s about to get hot up in here. And that means. . . BAR-BA-Q. That’s right. Meat, meet my grill. . .

But you know, after years of grillin’ then chilln’ you lose some of your utensils. They get mixed up in the day-to-day kitchen ware, taunting you, teasing you. Flattening grilled cheese sandwiches with a burger press might seem like you’re working, but you know, those are empty calories. You need MEAT on the barbie, mate.

So, to keep me from whining about the misuse of my grilling tools, my wife bought me a new set. She got me the Sharper Image 17-Piece BBQ Tool Set. Seventeen tools in stainless steel with rubberized Sure Grip handles that cover the full-length of your hand, and stay cool when things heat up. And, with the rubberized handles, you can be sure these babies ain’t gonna slip into the grill when you’re covered in sweat, fighting a piece of beast meat. The set comes with corn cob holders and salt and pepper shakers, a grill cleaner . . .DANG, I’m in tenderloin heaven! The tools even come in a water-resistant case. Call me crazy, but shouldn’t the case be fire-proof? I’m not complaining . . .

Have you ever had a dropped call? You know how much that sucks. Have you ever had a dropped call to. . . BEJING? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

My company is working with the Olympics to do something or other, and I have chats with my Chinese counterpart at least once a week. Sometimes he can’t get me on the work phone, you know that time difference and all. So my firm gave me a cell (thanks– now I’m on-call 24/7). Anyway, Mr. Cheung shouldn’t have to deal with crappy dropped calls. The last time we talked, it sounded like one of us was calling from 20,000 Leagues under the sea, in a figgin’ submarine, so I got my job to get me a Cellphone Signal Extender. This thing can keep you connected to a call from Mars. Just put the sandwich-sized booster near a window and talk until you run out of juice. Now that Mr. Cheung can hear me crystal clearly, my Mandarin has improved. Do you know how embarrassing it is to say, “Hello, Mr. Cheung, your mother is a horse?” Well, it’s EMBARRASSING. Thank God this guy’s got a sense of humor