The next few months are loaded with holidays and occasions - graduations, bachelor parties, weddings, Father's Day, even Mother's Day - that are perfect for giving the gift that brings joy to so many: a bottle of booze.

And to set your bottle apart from the half dozen or so the groom-to-be or graduate will likely receive, present the lucky recipient with one personalized just for them.

As a service to loyal, registered "regulars", thebar.com, will let you order up to 5 personalized labels of your favorite spirits (as long as those favorites are Crown Royal, Johnnie Walker Black, Buchanan's, Bushmills, or Don Julio tequila), each month, for free.

Once you register (which is also free), you select the brand, the bottle size, and enter a 3-line custom message of up to 22 characters each. (You can see what the finished label will look like as you type.) In about two weeks your custom labels will arrive at your door, ready to stick on the bottle.

Now you can give dad a bottle of Johnnie Black with a label that reads "For Everything I Put You Through Growing Up Happy Fathers Day 2008", or give the groom a bottle of Don Julio that let's him know "In Case of Marital Emergency Break Out a Glass".

www.thebar.com

Ever been sitting for hours in bumper to bumper rush hour gridlock and thought, jeez traffic sucks? So did the guys over at Doc Johnson. Only their vision of traffic sucking is a little different than yours.

Designed for "lonely riders on long road trips", their Auto Suck (with hot-rod action!), is a "world famous road masturbator that plugs into any 12V car lighter" and features a mouth-like tube and a ribbed interior. A remote control operates the vacuum function, giving you a "lifelike experience behind the wheel". And one hell of an embarrassing police report after your rear-end the car in front of you, mid-"experience".

(Bonus: The box art alone sends it off the charts on the Gag Gift Meter. You've gotta love the 70's muscle car, the flaming logo, and the guy wearing what appears to be a silk bathrobe while driving. A classic.)

$38.88
www.DocJohnson.com

It was bound to happen. You couldn't have an iconic TV commercial for an iconic product without some enterprising business guy jumping all over it.

I give you the InterOffice Mac Envelope Sleeve, the functional version of the interoffice envelope used to unveil the MacBook Air in their ad that seems to have been constitutionally decreed to run every 7 minutes. (And don't get me started on the song. The first note plays and my spine locks up.)

The InterOffice sleeve isn't a marketing gimmick. It's a serious laptop sleeve made from waterproof vinyl loaded with a 1/2 inch of padding to keep that $3k, wafer-thin investment safe from coffee spills and desk drops. And that piece of red string is for decoration only. A zipper securely seals your laptop inside. Just do me one favor: please resist the urge to hum that song as you slide your Air out.

$29.95
www.interofficemac.com

Would you have believed 300 flabby, overindulged actors could hold off an angry horde of invading Persians? Me either. So the producers of the movie "300" had a choice: whip their cast into fighting shape, or use inexperienced gym rats who looked the part, but couldn't talk and hold a shield at the same time.

With a huge Hollywood budget on the line, they wisely decided having to listen to their actors whine and moan their way through a grueling fitness regimen was easier than trying to teach a bunch of jacked-up meatheads to emote. And the program they chose was CrossFit.

Developed by a former gymnast as a way to create the "quintessential athlete" - equal parts gymnast, weightlifter and sprinter - CrossFit doesn't use fancy equipment, but rather your own body's resistance with exercises such as squats, running, pull ups, sit ups, etc. performed at high intensity. Really high intensity. A typical workout lasts only about 20 minutes, but looks something like this: Three rounds of 21, 15 and 9 repetitions of Dumbbell Bench Press, Weighted Sit Ups, Push Ups, Kettlebell Snatches and Push Presses, back to back, as quickly as you can complete them. And your goal each workout is to beat last session's time.

Over 400 gyms across the country offer CrossFit training classes, with one of them being Petranek Fitness in Santa Monica. (Club motto: "No One Ever Drowned in Their Own Sweat." And I did not make that up.) Owner Andy Petranek (pictured), is a former Marine ...More

Their teams may not have been worth watching (unless you like blow outs), they may not have made the Sweet Sixteen, but the lovely ladies of the bottom bracket are invited to my dance anytime.

Over at Co-Ed Magazine they've put together a collection of galleries of girls at American University, Austin-Peay, Belmont, Mississippi Valley, Portland State, UMBC, UT-Arlington and Mount Mt. St. Mary’s that'll have you rooting for the 15 and 16 seeds all March long.

Click here to view the girls.

Well it appears a little flu can't keep us down. 82% of us would prefer to man up and let our illness run its course (46.5% - and include me in that group) or pop some pills and self medicate (35.3%), rather than let someone else nurse us back to health. And possibly question our manhood. Only a slim 6% would even consider going to the doc to get some help. (No wonder women outlive us.)

For this week's poll I want to know what you look for when buying a car. I spent last week at the New York Auto Show (posts to follow), and got into a discussion with American car makers about why the interiors of foreign cars look so much better and seem to have better gadgets for the money. Let's just say it was a long discussion.

I'm a bells and whistles guy. I want a lot of toys for my money. And since I'm going to spend the vast majority of my time inside the car, I want comfort and convenience. Exterior styling runs a close second. Some guys in the discussion only cared about the car's performance. Others didn't care what the car looked like, as long as they spent a minimal amount of time at the pump.

Let me know what drives you when buying a car. The new poll is on the right.

Relax, it's culture. The Museum of Sex just opened a new exhibition of elaborately designed sex toys that's taking place in New York. (See, even dildos can be art.)

You can see some examples of the "art" in the show over at Asylum.com, and get details on the exhibit's dates. Click here for their slide show.

Sure it's freezing in most of the country. But it's always hot and sunny in the land of Spring Break. Over at TastyBooze.com they've compiled a group of pics taken from MoviePhone's list of top celebs appearing in swimsuits on film. Not satisfied with MoviePhone's presentation (leave it to them to make something like hot celebs in bikinis completely unsexy), they selected a few of their favorites.

So click here to see TastyBooze's take on the whole thing. And to vote your your favorite celeb.

With the price of oil shattering the $100 per barrel mark - and continuing to climb - finding immediate, realistic alternative fuel choices has become the hot topic everywhere from water coolers to board rooms, cocktail parties to locker-rooms.

Will we ever wrench ourselves free of our decades-long dependence on fossil fuels? I have no idea. And it's a debate I'm not going to get into here. (Mainly because guys much, much smarter than me don't seem to have a clear answer.) Some of these options are available now. Some are just a year or two away. And some may take several years to show up, if ever at all.

But because we are guys, and according to the women in our lives, we're supposed to know everything about cars and what makes them go, here is a quick and simple guide to some of the alternatives being researched, developed and argued over. And a little info on the cars they power. So you can speak somewhat intelligently at that next cocktail party.

ETHANOL -
What it is: An alt fuel made by fermenting sugar with yeast, with corn being the most common choice right now. Essentially the same alcohol created when distilling sugars to use for spirits like vodka and granddad's moonshine, this version is created to fuel you car, not your libido. ...More

No, not what you think. An actual long board. As in surfing. Jenna's given up the adult thing since she started dating the UFC's Tito Ortiz. Which, given her new surgically altered face and Meth-Addict looking body, is probably a good thing. Come on Jenna, have a sandwich or something. It won't kill you.

There's no better use for that nasty green St. Patrick's Day beer than a little beer pong.

And the guys over at OfficialBeerPongTable.com have created the perfect table to host your tourney.

Their 8-foot portable table is decked out with a huge shamrock in the center, and green and orange re-racking graphics. And the no-stain surface is designed to repel green suds splashes.

Use the coupon code: beer-mi at checkout to save $5. Just enough for another pitcher.

$124.99 ($5 off with coupon code beer-mi)
www.officialbeerpongtable.com

If you have a young lass headed to your place tonight to shake her shamrocks, here's a quick, simple cocktail with couple of ingredients, a quick shake, and a cleverly carved garnish that'll get her kissing your Blarney Stone faster than a Leprechaun's little feet during a St. Patty's Day jig.

HERRADURA GREEN AGAVE
1 1/2 oz Tequila Herradura silver
3/4 oz Melon liqueur
Squeeze of lime

Fill a shaker with ice and add the tequila, melon liquor and lime. Shake and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a shamrock carved lime.

Monday may be the official date of St. Patrick's Day, but celebrations will be going on all weekend. And to get yours going, I'll be posting some drinks to help you get your Irish up.

Here are three from thebar.com, that include traditional ingredients straight from the Emerald Isle. Sláinte!
(For more recipes go to www.thebar.com)

Guinness Shandy
3/4 pint Guinness Draught
1/4 pint Lemon-lime soda

Add Guinness Draught beer to a pint glass and ...More

It was 20 years ago today that the one pound, four-and-a-half-inch wide Bloomin' Onion hit the tables at the first Outback Steakhouse in Tampa, FL.

A battered and deep-fried monster made to feed 4-6 people (or 2-3 Steelers fans), this signature app helped put the Aussie-styled steakhouse on the map, and let guys feel better for eating their vegetables. (Big, greasy, fried vegetables.)

In honor of this auspicious occasion, here are some little known facts about the Bloomin' Onion you can use to impress your date when you take her for some shrimp on the barbie.

- The first night of business at the original store, only two Bloomin' Onions were sold.
- Outback now averages about 15 million Bloomin' Onions sold every year, or about 40,000 per day. Crikey!
- The recipe is based on a dish the founder saw in a Japanese cookbook. (So much for Aussie cuisine...)
- The onion used is a special breed grown especially for this use and is called a "Spanish Colossal" or "Super Colossal".
- A special cutting device, called a "Gloria", was invented to carve the onion into its signature bloom shape. (Which is why you can't get it to look the same at home.)
- The onion's batter contains the exact same 17 spices, and the dipping sauce the same 37 spices, they did the day the dish debuted 20 years ago.

For those of us who've always wondered why lollipops only come in the traditional "favorite" candy flavors like cherry, grape, watermelon, and the occasional licorice, (not counting the novelty tequila lollipops sold in souvenir shops), comes some lick-able stick candy guys can really wrap their tastebuds around.

With chunks of real bacon encased in the sugary amber goodness of pure hardened maple syrup, the Maple-Bacon lollypop from Lollyphile.com is enough to turn even the toughest guy into a lolly-sucking kid. (A pork loving 5-year-old kid on a sugar high.)

And speaking of high... Lollyphile also offers an Absinth lollipop, made with 100% real (and newly legal), absinth. The perfect party favor to liven up your next dinner party. Your guests will go crazy (literally) for them.

$24 for a dozen
www.lollyphile.com

Power tie? Check. Firm handshake? Check. Great work ethic? Check. In depth knowledge of your office's politics and basic etiquette? Maybe not.

While you may have all the right moves when it comes to general workplace fashion, grooming and presentation, navigating the murky waters of acceptable behavior and unwritten rules can be tricky. Every office has its own "culture", and you could unwittingly commit an embarrassing faux-pas.

To help avoid this, the guys over at JustaGuyThing.com, have created The Ultimate Office Etiquette Guide to keep you from tripping over your tie and landing on the unemployment line.

You'll find tips on General Office Etiquette (Ask before you borrow anything), how to handle Colleague Relationships (Office politics is unavoidable), Verbal Communication (Although you may hate the idea of being formal, it is a necessity in the workplace), and even how to conduct yourself when biz takes you outside the office walls (Turn your phone off during any business lunch you go to).

To read the entire guide, click here.

From the guys over at TastyBooze.com: It's a bad day when you get nailed by the cops. It's an even worse day when your own tshirt rats you out.

The guy's not alone in his poor choice of apparel. Click here to see the shirt worn by a not-so-lovely young lady who was also caught by the fuzz.

He proved you don't have to look like a rock star to front a legendary rock band. (With help from a tub of makeup.) Or sleep with thousands of women. (With help from being a rock star.) And on his reality show "Gene Simmons Family Jewels", he proves even multimillionaire rock gods can have a (somewhat) normal family life, be unmarried for 23 years to former Playmate of the Year Shannon Tweed, while raising two teenage kids in a massive California mansion.

In honor of their new season starting tonight at 10pm on A&E, I'm giving away a Family Jewels Prize Pack.

One lucky winner, chosen at random, will win a SIGNED copy of Gene's book, Sex Money Kiss, where he dispenses advice on success: "work hard, save your money, don't smoke, don't drink, don't get high, equate time with money and know that being rich is better than being poor", and on relationships: "The worst thing a man can do, financially and biologically speaking, is to get married."

Also in the pack is the Family Jewels The Best of Seasons 1 & 2 DVD Set. 176 minutes of the best scenes of the first two seasons, including Happily Unmarried, Next Generation Rock Star, Master Gene Theater and a bonus episode, Under the Knife.

Oh, and you'll also get a Family Jewels Tshirt.

All you have to do is click here, and enter your email address for a chance to win. And get one step closer to living the rock star dream.

Click to enter.
Contest ends on Friday, March 17, 2008.

Your dad packed his hard-sided leather briefcase with the essentials he needed for life in middle management, but that didn't include a laptop, PDA, iPod, or compact external harddrives. You need to skip the old-school attaché, and upgrade to one of the new all-purpose business bags packed with pockets, features and functionality.

One of my favorites is from bag maker Ogio. Known for thinking of everything and anything you might want or need in your bag - their trademark is loading their stuff with features - the Boss SS is no exception, and adds a feature you're more likely to see on a golf bag, a yak hauling a load, or a Sherpa heading up Mt. Everest.

Designed for the guy who lugs a lot of stuff through city streets and crowded airports, the Boss features their patented Shling System, an over-the-shoulder sling that distributes the weight across your upper back and shoulders, making the heaviest load feel feather-light. Which is good, because with a multitude of pockets for all your gear — including a padded sleeve that fits up to 17-inch laptops, fleece-lined audio and media pockets, cell phone pocket, dual water bottle holders, internal file separators, airline ticket sleeve, sunglasses sleeve, power cord and mouse storage, and a key clip - you'll be tempted to take your whole office with you.

Available in black
$219
$139 without the Shling
www.ogio.com

Keep the rest of your furniture from mouthing off by adding this intimidating enforcer to your living room set.

From the maniacs with welding torches over at FistFire, The Brass Knuckle Chair is the perfect gift for the capo de tutti capi you need to pay some respect to.

Outfitted with what looks like white fur (to show its softer side?), and four rolling casters so you can ram deadbeats while seated comfortably, the chair is perfect for any guy who wants to make a statement with his living room decor.

And I'm guessing that statement is "What the f*ck are you looking at?"

www.fistfire.com VIA Asylum.com

Shameless Self Promotion: The Bachelor Guy Overnight and Road Trip Kits are finally here.

Developed by me and the guys over at Minimus.biz - experts in everything travel size - these kits were put together with traveling (and bar hopping) guys in mind.

"His Overnight Bag" ($28.79), was designed to fit in your carry-on bag for hassle-free biz trip packing, or to be kept in your car, should you wake up in a strange bed. Fourteen essential items come in a black, dual-zippered bag, including Old Spice Red Zone Body Wash and Pert Plus Shampoo and Conditioner to clean your hide and head, Gillette Foamy Regular Shaving Cream, a Bic Twin Blade Razor to lose the shadow, Mennen Speed Stick Deodorant, Dep Sport Styling Gel to tame that bed head, a travel toothbrush and Colgate toothpaste, a plastic comb, dental floss, Scope Mouthwash, AXE Deodorant Body Spray, and a nail clipper.

If you're hitting the road, grab a "Road Trip Kit" ($36.66). Packed in an insulated bag that can hold a couple of cans, are 19 essentials for every road warrior including, a Kodak disposable camera with flash to capture bizarre roadside attractions or flashing Spring Break chicks, ...More

Mixologist Bobby G set a Guinness World Record last week by shaking up 253 cocktails in 60 minutes.

How come this guy is never behind the bar when it's six drunks deep and I've got a couple of honeys craving Cosmos to unleash their inhibitions?

Click to see the video.

Of all the recent polls, I was the furthest off on this one with my prediction of the results. I figured it was going to be close. Not so.

Money, in a landslide, won out over status. When almost 85% of you would be willing to spend your career inhaling the exhaust fumes of hundreds of strange guys, day in and day out, for the long green, rather than sit pretty in the fresh air of the executive suite for a mediocre take, that's gotta be a statement of how our economy is going. Or proof that having the ability to pay the bills and have a little left over, is more important than merely looking like you do. So I salute you. [Because I was one of the 15% who voted for status over salary.]

On to this week's poll. I got that flu that's going around, and it knocked me on my ass all weekend. My girl was trying to feed me over the counter meds and, like a lot of guys do, I refused. As if it was an insult to my masculinity to take something to actually make me feel better.

So I want to know: when you get sick, how do you handle it? Answer in the box to the right.