Have a weekend of great sex

This kit sounds great, promising a most fabulous weekend, until you realize it’s really just a book and some melted candy. Then maybe your enthusiasm level dwindles. Mine did. I mean, reading is a wonderful activity, heartily endorsed for all the right reasons, but it kind of gets in the way of that potential weekend of great sex that was just dangled in front of me. How about if I read the book on weeknights?

To help you embark upon your great sex weekend you get some chocolate body paint and a brush (probably a weekend brush). There’s also a coupon which reads: when you give me this coupon, I will slather Chocolate Body Paint® all over any part of your body. Maybe it’s because I started dipping into the Halloween candy several days ago, but I’m kind of burnt out on chocolate right now. Maybe we could just cut straight to the chase?

We're all wasted

Expand your carbon footprint by purchasing a cup holder for your juice box, bag or can, which was already doing a relatively okay job of containing that corn syrup and dye. It even comes with an extra straw, which you can insert inside the straw that came with the juice container for even more landfill points. When you’re finished, throw everything away. You probably also use paper plates, wastrel. How about avoiding the middleman and just pouring some juice in a cup? Or, conversely, try going somewhere without a beverage in hand. Just once.

Salt of the earth and then some

Remember when everyone’s kitchen had the blue Morton salt container with the umbrella girl, and salt was just salt? Me, too, but salt hired a really good P.R. team and within the past few years it’s done a condimendible transformation. Every cook recommends a different salt and turns up his or her nose at all the other sub-standard salts, whereas some of us in the tastebud-deprived category feel bewildered and left out, unable to distinguish between the salt hierarchy. Never admit that you might belong to this group.

With chardonnay smoked fleur de sel, you’ll taste and feel the difference. The salt is smoked over oak barrels formerly used to age wine, imparting a flavor so refined, so superior to anything you thought salt could be, it must be tasted to be believed. It’s absolutely…saline.

Keeping up with the Joneses now involves being vaguely snobby about pretty much everything, not just the big ticket consumer items, so get with the program and make sure you’ve got superior salt before the neighbors start talking.

Something to believe in

When your life gets derailed, and it will, revivify and get back on track with a dropper-full of soul purpose. Maybe you’ve been going through the motions, doing what appear to be most of the right things (and only a few of the deliciously wrong ones), minding your own business, yet there’s something missing. You sense an irascible void that sometimes cries out for fulfillment at the most inopportune moments. A little soul purpose and you’ll be back at the top of your game within hours.




















But make sure you’re self-medicating with the proper product. You could simply be in need of a good strong shot of illumination, which works for the vast majority of the general public.

Make the most of it

You probably find going to work a hellish endurance test; studies show that as many as most of us dislike our jobs intensely and resent their intrusion upon our real lives. And even if you are enjoying yourself, you should be multi-tasking, just like your favorite products, and doing double-duty while you’re grinding away in that hamster wheel. Life’s too short not to be maximized and aggrandized whenever possible. Why go home stressed out, looking like you never see the light of day when instead you can be both tanned and high with Australian Gold Bearly Legal Bronzing Accelerator Plus Hemp? Plus hemp! Wasn’t it nice of them to throw that in?

Stash a bottle of this in your desk drawer. You’ll get twice as tan in half the time, and the hemp will yield a happy relaxed feeling you’ll probably find completely unfamiliar in the workplace. By Friday I plan to look as though I’ve been on vacation, and I’ll feel that way too. Everyone else will be swilling their five hour energy drinks and/or caffeine, trying desperately to get through the day, but I’ll be laughing in a relaxed and golden way, feeling a little paranoid and probably forgetting what we were just talking about. That’s how to get through a workday.

But your love won't pay my bills

And neither will most salaries, so it’s time to explore other options, such as this little life booster. Free yourself from the shackles of poverty with the hamper of prosperity, a feng shui luck and wealth enhancer. The hamper includes peaches, oranges and gold ingots, Chinese symbols of luck and wealth. There’s also a wu lou—these health and life promoters are all over the place, who knew?—just to further your lucky healthy wealth. Prominently display the hamper, make sure to spend lots of time in its presence, and mail the gold ingots to goldkit.com. You’ll soon be done skulking along the sidewalk of scarcity, and instead find yourself proudly perambulating the pavement of prosperity.

If all else fails, get the Fuk prosperity tassel and swing it like you just don't care.

Give yourself a hand

Just the other day I was thinking, “Hey, isn’t it about time for some kind of revolutionary change in skin care?” Since revolutionary skin care changes are a relatively frequent phenomenon, and I’m pseudo-psychic, it was a pretty safe bet, but I didn’t know quite how drastic the change would be. This is not your mother’s hand lotion.

Fact is, you’ve probably never used a skin care product that works quite like Gloves in a Bottle. Okay, it’s not really gloves—but you probably figured that out. It’s a liquid (at first) that bonds with your skin, making it impenetrable. Impenetrable skin keeps drying irritants at bay and prevents sunburn and hangnails. It also maintains your sense of touch at an all-time low level, which will freak you out at first.

Best of all, the gloves do not need to be removed, ever. In fact, that’s impossible, as they’re both invisible and waterproof. What happens is that the gloves erode with time; the ad copy says they come off with exfoliated skin cells. Sooner or later you’ll notice your hands aren’t gloved, and that’s when it’s time to apply more. When you do, remember: a little goes a long way. If you're thrifty you can probably get fifty pairs of gloves from just one bottle!

Have a wine bag weekend

That’s right, you’re in need of a wine bag, whine bag. You drink so much that your booze needs its own luggage (and map), but that’s okay, since you do it only on the weekends. The rest of the time you make do with a little flask, or just go to that neighborhood bar where everyone knows you’re lame. But on weekends, when you’ve finally got 48 precious hours of you-time and no responsibilities, there’s nothing like packing up your wine bag and going out for six bottles’ worth of fun. We’ve cleverly inserted some insulated nylon so your bottles won’t break, or make a sound which might reveal their presence, since you might not feel like sharing. Please note: wine bag cannot contain more than three magnum-sized bottles at one time, and neither should you.

Finally, truth in advertising

Telling the truth is probably what makes this product so wildly popular. Also, many people enjoy products that come in pellet-dispensers. Lycopodium Clavatum = “bloated abdomen improved by passing gas.” If anyone out there knows of a better method of improving bloated abdomen (a method that doesn’t involve taking some kind of pre-meal gas-minimizer, or being in any way responsible or practical about what to ingest), I’m all ears. In fact, everyone's listening once you’ve taken your Lycopodium Clavatum.

Until mine shows up I guess I’ll have to resort to improving my bloated abdomen by passing gas without any homeopathic assistance. Good thing I’ve pretty much got the hang of it by now.

Blinded by the light

Another reason why I usually don’t let my better half do his own shopping. He came home the other day beaming, the proud owner of a new pair of Intimo Men’s Liquid Metallic Boxers, which, as the ad copy so aptly states, practically drip molten metal. He can barely tear himself away from the mirror. I can barely stop laughing behind his back.

Our aging pooch lucked out, because her new set of Doggles had just arrived. Her cataracts were glowing every time she looked at him, and she kept wincing in pain.





















Doggles protect dogs’ eyes from wind, UV light, and foreign objects. The dog and I both agreed that those shorts fall deeply into the “foreign objects” category.

Wily, like life

The 3D Coyote Lifelike, Full-Size Predator is durable, economical, versatile, safe and humane, diminished only by the relatively lifelike stick protruding from its belly. Its intended audience won’t even notice, because they’ll be frozen in their tracks like deer in the headlights of its piercing glare. (We selected particularly lifelike eyes.) In addition, its tail is made of real fur, adding immensely to the lifelike-itude.

Primarily intended for frightening geese (the bastards of the bird world who fully deserve everything bad that comes their way) the coyote is actually a large wind ornament. It lives out its days in stalking posture, moving with the slightest gust, or at least when there's enough of a breeze to blow something 37 inches long (a very lifelike dimension). It appears to be scanning your goose-infested area, which scares the bejesus out of most geese. And when they're scared, they leave; it's that simple.

Color your world

With the BentWorld Vandals you can paint the town red, or leave your tag anywhere you please. Each character in the kit is its own marking device, and comes in two versions, new and used, so it can look like it’s preparing for or returning from a busy day of doing top-to-bottoms. The marker and spray paint characters come with removable caps, and some are splattered and scribbled upon, matching their sketchy personalities. Give the potential graffiti artist in your world a head start on property defacing and street life, but be prepared for some at-home practice. (With permanent markers and paints.)

Oh, right, you get only one character per kit, so if you’d like to own the entire gang, multiple purchases will be required—we’re unleashing our own inner plunderers in order to make the characters’ vandalistic qualities more obvious. Works for us!

We'd all want to change the world

But instead we’re usually stuck at our dead-end jobs, changing very little in the grand scheme of things. So why not get a desk toy and change at least a small corner of your static world? The Revolution purports to be a “near-perpetual motion device.” What this translates to depends upon how hard of a spin you give it, as well as how often you re-spin. (It’s pretty habit forming.)

The product also claims to demonstrate “many phenomena of physics.” We’re not really sure what those phenomena might be, or even if they’re good demonstrations. We do, however, know that the sound of the needle-like end scraping on that little piece of glass as the Revolution rotates can be so annoying that co-workers tend to keep their distance, and that’s change enough for me.

Games of bang and bash/Memory Lane #5

Before there were video games not many toys allowed children to vent their frustrations, unlike now, when they can wage war on an untold number of enemies with a great deal of bloodshed and gore, to their unending satisfaction and glee. But, believe me, kids were just as mean and violent back in the day, and so games like these were especially popular.













Bang Box was great. You put some balloons in the box labeled “danger explosive,” then hammered nails into them until they burst. And if you were a girl, you screamed in that shrill, high-pitched ear-piercing way each time you made contact with a balloon. Usually our mom would take this game away after only a few rounds.

Bash! was also a real knockout, as the package advertises. The commercial really made you want to play it, too. You’d stack disks of plastic between this poor man’s head and feet and take turns hammering at them, trying not to make the entire stack fall.

If you had both games, and at least one sibling, that means you had two plastic hammers; forget the games themselves. And we weren’t little sissies wearing protective gear or helmets, nor did we have any rules about not hitting above the waist. The hammers might not look like much, but they packed a wallop, especially on the still-forming skulls of the youngest players.

Have a knotty weekend

The bondage gear weekend escape kit includes an individualized selection of intimate relationship aids. Please allow us to surprise you, and trust that we know enough about your secret desires to make you squirm with both discomfort and glee. Our kits are tasteful, sensitive, respectful, and very well-made.

The package claims to include (among many other fantasy-fulfilling items) a silk sash (in midnight black—wow, it’s like we’re reading your mind, isn’t it?), some warming lube, icy hot body beads, and a fantasy booklet, whose contents will vary based upon your personal fantasy. Um, no, not that one. We’re trying to help you resurrect your relationship, not run it into the ground.

Chi key

The Dual Aqua Ion Ionic Detox Chi Cleanse Foot Spa Bath with MP3 comes with a power cord and a wrist strap so you can listen to MP3s while getting an internal cleansing. And unlike so many detoxification products on the market, this one doesn’t make you ingest anything that leads to colon cleansing. That’s because it soaks all that unclean foulness out of your feet. It’s kind of like the Kinoki pad concept, except that instead of wearing that dirt on a foot sticker, you’re soaking in it, as Madge used to say. The music's just there for distraction.

Once again, ions come heroically to our rescue. They’re not only calming, they’re cleansing and health-promoting as well. The product description says a healthy person should contain 80% negative electrons and 20% positive, and the restoration of this imbalanced equation forces the body to purge itself of various acids, such as diacetic, pyruvic, lactic, butyric, uric, carbonic, acetic and hepatic. You are going to feel so much better without that butyric acid.

Eventually this will restore both your body and mind, but probably not your equilibrium. Because after soaking in the water and listening to your favorite songs for about thirty minutes, your feet will appear to be in a cesspool of filth.





















When you can no longer distinguish your toes, you’ve got some very clean chi, and a little tubful of stinky dirty chemicals. We ask that you not throw this away at home, but dispose of it in an environmentally responsible way so that your chi will stay clean a little longer.

The gift that keeps on giving

Give someone this petri dish of syphilis microbes, and you’ll probably never be far from his or her thoughts. But don’t wrap it up like a regular present; that’s too obvious. Keep your microbes in a warm, moist environment for a few weeks, then unleash them upon their recipient in some sly way—we trust you to think up an extra-clever method, because, remember, you’re not immune.

Take a quick peek inside—you get three microbes, see them? Okay, now slam the lid back on the jar, because microbes are not easily contained, particularly not syphilitic ones.

Also available: gonorrhea, chlamydia, e. coli, malaria, HIV, herpes, and most of your other favorite microbial friends. We’re sure to have something for everyone on your gift list, and can guarantee that by the next holiday season that list will be shorter.

Get caught reading

And you thought Stephen King books were scary. Meet the Necronomicon Book of the Dead Halloween prop puppet—yeah, you read that correctly, this is a puppet. You can put your hand in there and make its mouth move, and there is something really frightening about a big-toothed talking book. I wish I could share it with you in more detail, but Betty, our product model, refused to put her hand inside to give a proper demo.

On Halloween night I’m going to sit on the front porch with my Necronomicon book in my lap, my trusty singing frog candy bowl on a table beside me, filled to the brim with Snickers. My goal, as always, will be to keep at least half the candy for myself. This year I think I’ve got a pretty decent chance.

Gee, your clothes smell specific

Another intriguingly shaped wand product, this one allowing women to make their clothes smell like a French lavender field in full bloom—a scent that’s highly alluring to women. Maybe not so much for men, who tend to say it reminds them of their grandmothers. The wands are bunches of real lavender delicately interwoven with ribbon, hand-assembled by very clever French goats, who occasionally nibble at the profit margins. Hard to blame them, though. This lavender smells great—just like maracas!

Palm pilot

Now here’s a product with the inner strength to live up to its name, which is Guardian Angel. Its spiky gold-plated exterior hides some ion alloy, mineral stone powder, and a spring-loaded tip—a magical combination. Pick it up and it’s already at work, stimulating 344 pressure points (or fewer, depending upon how stressed your hand is). Simply being in its presence eliminates pain, stress, fatigue, insomnia, halitosis and acne, while simultaneously promoting organ regeneration. Just stop and think about that for a second or two, because there are not a lot of products on the market that can even resuscitate organs, much less regenerate them. Squeeze the guardian angel and carry it around with you for a while. You’re preventing colds, arthritis, strokes and heart disease. Gives a whole new meaning to the term “hand job,” doesn’t it?

Can you dig it?

Yes, you can, if you bought the Dead On Exhumer. Perfect for grave-digging, it’s practically a Swiss army knife, packed with extra features and functions which might be easily overlooked at first glance. This baby can pull nails, has a built-in saw wrench (my saw finds it absolutely gut-wrenching, but only when I use a lot of effort), a bottle opener (bottles are pretty much mandatory on my exhuming missions), a fingernail file, a solar calculator and a paper-cutter. Absolutely nothing uncovers a casket in less time. When there’s exhuming to be done, dead on’s the one! This week only: free replacement shroud with purchase. Offer good while supplies last.

Have an urban weekend

Here’s the perfect something for a weekend of warmth and seated activity. This kit includes knitting instructions, patterns, helpful hints, and eight sweaters for the “Urban Woman.” (Since it weighs only three ounces, they’re not really sending you the sweaters, just some signed 8x10 glossies.) This particular sweater is called the “softee chunky,” which is a strange coincidence because I think I had a candy bar last week with the exact same name.

Anyway, everyone knows that knitting is a very urban and urbane activity, so stop acting like you live in Cowtown and do something suave and citified with your weekend. You’ll have something softee chunky to show for it come Monday morning.

Toddling toward tomorrow

Today’s kids have to grow up in a tough world, and many experts recommend exposing them to toys that supply a healthy dose of street smarts. Others prefer preventing exposure to any harsh reality until they’re well into their thirties; it’s up to each parent out there to think this through and purchase accordingly.

Remember the little mock-ups of adult life that used to be available?

















These toys provide an excellent way for children to explore their future options and limitations while still in their formative years. Might as well get used to it now, kid; this is your life.

Fast forward to today and the concept hasn’t changed. It’s just that the execution’s a little more 21st century now that we’re in the 21st century. Today’s kids get to play with things like this nifty little set of safecrackers:




















Because, after all, with the economy they’ll be facing as adults, it’s best to let their imaginations run free and not tether them to a career path.

There are also still job-oriented toys out there, although manufacturers often resort to a little glamorization. Turns out, some apple polishing and a pair of rose-colored glasses often work wonders in transforming youthful career aspirations.



















For example, here’s a toy showing exactly what it’s like to be a policeman. Yes, there’s a dangerous criminal or drug dealer lurking behind the pretty foliage, but the policeman shows that his job is a walk in the park. He’s just doing some casual cordoning and enjoying being outside with his canine companion. It’s all good.

Hit me with your best shot

Next time you’re looking for an outlet for that unmitigated pent-up frustration, why not take it out on a blow-up doll who’s got it coming in spades, and keep that karma flowing in the right direction? Spend just a few minutes trying to turn Charles Manson into a grease stain and see how much better you’ll feel. And it’s about time he took one for the team, so don’t give him the Mr. Nice Guy treatment; really pummel him into the ground. Then hide him before someone sees him and thinks he’s your new inflatable friend.

Future's so bright

No, this is not an ornament, although hanging one on your holiday tree might not be the worst idea you ever had. It’s certainly festive, and has every right to be. Maybe you can’t party like there’s no tomorrow, but this little golden nugget can. It's the Wu Lou of Longevity, whose interior is believed to hold the elixir of health and vitality. But not so fast, Grasshopper. You’ll lose all potency if you break it open; then you’re left with the Wu Lou of Brevity, a sorry state of affairs. So be good to this little talisman, keep it somewhere safe, admire its shinitude (but not too intently, because that’s paint, not gold), and, hey, maybe you’ll stick around a little longer.

Forget chill pills

Do Monday mornings keep sneaking up on you, usually finding you in your most vulnerable and least-prepared state? Even when you don’t do a lot over the weekend, you feel extremely drained and are an unwilling participant in your day. And this is before the week even kicks into medium gear.

One of our current top ten scapegoats in the “lousy quality of life” department is lack of relaxation. It’s something we all suffer from in varying degrees, and finally there’s a product that can tackle the problem and give it the full-on body slam it so richly deserves. See, the reason you’re not relaxed is that you’re not relaxing. You’re doing way too much, all the time, which gets your neurons all fired up and your atoms running with scissors when they should be chillin’ poolside. You need to slow down all your internal gyrations, and that starts with lying down and being still. With the Relaxman Relaxation Capsule there are no other options.

Lie down, close the capsule door and you’re encased in total, soundproofed darkness. Once you stop frantically trying to find where the door handle is and become still and quiet, some music and lights start doing relaxation-inducing things while the atmosphere becomes ionically enriched, and therefore ultra-relaxing. Messing with ions is one of our current top ten scientific linchpins; their manipulation helps with hair care, air purification, and so many other applications that they must ensure relaxation as well. You’ll barely be able to get the DeLorean-esque door back open, you’ll be so calmly mellow.

After just a few sessions with the Relaxman, you’ll find your other ionic products have been trying to soothe you all along. Sometimes when I don’t have the time for the full treatment, I pull out my ionic hair dryer and within minutes I’m much, much better.

The girl with the most cake

You know you’ve been meaning to pick up a bag of doll parts, and we’ve made it easier for you by narrowing it down to the two most vital doll components: heads and arms. The heads come mounted on wires, and the arms are about half the size of the heads, so the resulting dolls might look sort of disproportionate, not to mention lacking other vital body parts, like legs, torsos and necks. But when it comes to dolls it’s really all about the head. And the little arms. The rest is just eye candy.

The ad copy suggests one use for this product is decorating cakes or vegetables, which really got me excited and ready to purchase. I can already envision my next birthday cake, strewn with a few inedible little arms, my guests eagerly vying for doll heads and licking the frosting from their blond hair as though they were delicious rosettes. And what artichoke or broccoli wouldn’t taste better with a doll head topper?

Instructions for making dresses for these pipe cleaners with heads and arms are also included, for you crafty types. If you think they’re cute as is, wait ‘til you see them in their urban wasteland outfits.

Elite feet treat

As we’ve mentioned before, there’s nothing like having to deal with weak or sensitive toes; it’s truly an unfortunate experience. Something as insubstantial as a blanket can feel like a dropped cannonball, rendering a restful night of recuperative sleep nearly impossible. This condition is a direct reversal of the Princess and the Pea complex, commonly referred to as prissiness. Here's something that allows you to relax in bed without suffering under all that cumbersome blanket poundage, poor baby. The resulting tent-like area traps body heat and odors, so your feet are in an environment to which they’re accustomed, and happily unrestrained. Coming soon: the ability to keep your blanket away from other sensitive body parts. My elbows can’t wait.

Have a fatwoody weekend

It’s that wonderful time of year when we’re all caught up in a heady mixture of cider-pressing, hay rides, leaf raking, and gathering wood for those cozy winter evenings by the fireplace. At least that’s how it used to be. These days the focus has shifted—fall is football season, the rest be damned. There’s cider at the grocery store, you own a leaf blower, hay makes you sneeze, and you buy your wood and have it delivered like everyone else on your street. But your wood’s just a little bit superior to theirs, because you ordered the fatwood weekend kit

This kit delivers about as much bang as your wood-buying buck can expect. You get some fatwood, two fire drops and some cinnamon-scented pinecones known as kindle cones. Fatwood is pine that’s infused with enough resin to make it a natural fire-starter. Fire drops and kindle cones are then tossed into the flames for added volume, texture, and sheen. You also get some colored ribbons (more than just the one that’s used to tie the package) and they’re really pretty when they burn. It’s an ignescent, combustible bag of potential conflagration—start telling people that’s what you want for Christmas. Meanwhile, enjoy the cinnamon-scented blaze.

I'm OK, you're OK

Assuage, or at least diminish, your fears of being caught off guard by an alien invasion with the UFO detector.




















Next time you encounter any being seemingly not of this world, subject him/her/it to its powers of detection. The device senses disturbances in both magnetic and electromagnetic fields, and if you know the difference between the two, you’re a geek.

When the detector beeps, you’ve encountered a verified alien. If the LED light also flashes, the alien is similarly scanning you with an object so advanced it’s laughing at your little yo-yo of a gadget.

Once you’re mutually convinced of each other’s alien status, and/or your LED light turns from green to red, either run like hell or prove you’re a proud Earthling by flashing your




















seal of the Earth amulet. You might not recognize it, but this seal has been approved by most of the cosmos, and is the intergalactic equivalent of a get out of jail free card.

Light a single candle

Feeling a little blue? Or maybe you’re in kind of a life rut these days, or worse. Maybe you’re barely able to drag yourself from bed to work and back, finding nothing particularly sparky or compelling, miserably eking out a subsistence existence, your only companions loneliness, angst, and sadness. You’re asking yourself existential questions and sporadically bursting into tears. You can’t focus on anything. Why are we even here?

My friend, you are not alone. Even the most mentally composed suffer sporadic bouts of depression. It’s part and parcel of the human condition, at least for anyone who’s paying attention.

But now there’s a product that offers relief, gives you the ability to pull yourself out of the abyss and re-join the human race. With the ritually charged overcome depression candle, you can “magically awaken yourself to see the beauty in the world once again.” Simply light the candle and hang around while it burns. It doesn’t even involve pharmaceuticals, at least we don’t think it does. We’re suddenly too happy and carefree to bother reading the ingredient list.