Ahh kitties, you even make something as gross and sad as the BP oil spill a little better:

P.S. New tee, Paris at Night:

Does the thought of going some place boring like a wedding, baby shower or the office make you crave a martini? Do you often utter the phrase “it’s always after 5 o’clock somewhere”? You just might be a lush. And in that case, you’ll want to consider these handy products:

1. For really lazy drunks
If you don’t want to be bothered with fixing your own drinks and that darn court-ordered in-car breathalyzer is keeping you from hitting the bars, you may want to consider the Cocktail Box. Their website proudly claims “it’s like having your own bartender in your fridge.” Is it just me or is that a little creepy? Please don’t put a bartender in your fridge. Any way, for about $3 per serving, Cocktail Box will bring you 3 liters of freshly made cocktail in a fridge-friendly box. Convenient and klassy!

2. For sloppy drunks
Do you often find yourself standing at your front door after a night of boozing and realize you’re too hammered to get that darn key into that teeny tiny keyhole? In that case, you’ll want this creative keyhole (it’s designed to guide your key into the lock, even for those times when your motor skills are less than optimal):

3. For the stealthy drunk
If you’re going to get your drink on no matter where you are, you probably need the “Booze Belly.” This under-the-shirt, fanny pack-looking thing holds 750 milliliters of liquid comfortably and securely around your mid-section, and you can access your drink via a hose. It’s like transforming yourself into a walking mini-keg. Finally, you can enjoy things like your kid’s school plays and jury duty with a relaxing adult beverage, and without the judgey stares of onlookers and bailiffs. Check out the product demo below:

Hey guys, ever come home from a long day at the office to your clean house and Glade Plugins and think “this place smells too clean, you know what would make things more homey? If this place smelled like a fishing dock, or better yet, like someone just farted.” Sure your wife or girlfriend might bristle at these suggestions, but you can just tell her to take her “lilac fields” Febreeze and shove it. It’s time to man up your digs.

And how will you make this dream a reality? With Mandles of course. These man candles come in a variety of tantalizing scents like sawdust, pot roast, and yes, even “fart.” I can feel more hair growing on my chest just thinking about it.

I’m mixing things up on Tuesdays and doing top ten lists. Won’t you share yours too? It needn’t be 10 things, any random number is welcome, because lists are always fun. Below are ten celebrities I’d like to get a beer with. There are a lot of celebs I’d put on my list of favorites, but this list is just a list of the ones I think would be most amusing to share a drink with.

1. Rachel Maddow*
2. Morgan Spurlock
3. Alton Brown
4. Chris Rock
5. Woody Harrelson
6. Patton Oswalt
7. The Clintons
8. Bruce Campbell
9. Nick Hornby
10. David Sedaris

*If I got a drink with Rachel Maddow we’d have to have cocktails.

Who’d be on your list?

P.S. Fan photos and interviews resume next week. If you want to appear on this blog just send me a snapshot of yourself with your Ex-Boyfriend tee or messenger bag. Be sure to include your mailing address so I can send you a thank you.

I’ve been so busy catching up on stuff since I got back from my trip overseas that I forgot to tell you all about how the rest of it went. In our last installment, the heroes were trapped by a diabolic ash cloud in a land of ice. Thankfully the natives were friendly and we went out boozing with a fellow stranded passenger from Norway. The Icelanders were an affable bunch and we had as good of a time as one can have while being stranded.

Unfortunately, things mostly got worse before they got better. Iceland Air refused to fly us over to London until Saturday afternoon, putting us in London after 11pm on Saturday night. This means we really only got about 24 hours to hang out in London. Further exacerbating our already raised ire, the London guest house gave away our room! You see, as soon as we realized we were going to get to London a day late, we called the guest house there and told them we’d be late. They said okay. I assumed we’d be stuck paying for the room for Friday night, but what can you do at that point?

So we arrived in London at 11pm on Saturday night and that’s when the guest house owner chose to inform us that he’d given away our room! This was a pretty huge deal because the room we reserved was the nicest one they had. It was the only one with a proper king-sized bed and private bath. The guest house owner tried to pawn another room off on us, but my princess wife wasn’t having it. I think I saw actual steam come out of her ears.

The alternate room was really not an acceptable substitute. It had cracked dirty walls, a bed that was really more of a cot with a paper thin mattress. It had a shared bathroom with some filthy creature who littered the space with their toiletries and didn’t believe in flushing the toilet. There was no wastebasket in the place at all. There was trash scattered around the apartment. It was more suitable as a crack den than an actual hospitality venue one might pay money for. The wife insisted we find a proper hotel immediately, despite having already paid for guesthouse from hell. I can’t say I disagreed with her.

We tried to salvage the night, and our moods, with a drink at a bar. The place we checked out was full of surly aggressive locals who all seemed to be one inadvertent glance away from starting a fight. One of them loudly berated me for a good 60 seconds for “interrupting” her when I hadn’t even spoken to her. She seemed to be crazy. I also overheard her accuse the bartender of stealing her credit card, which later turned up in her purse.

We ended up just spending a lot of time in the hotel, hiding out from what felt like a city full of angry drunks, even during the day. London’s one saving grace was dinner at Saf. It was probably the best meal we had on our trip, though there were other good ones. I guess overall, London was too much like NYC for our taste. Here in Charm City, people are, well, mostly charming. You don’t run into a lot of angry aggressive types where we live, so the scene in London was kind of a culture shock. We did get to take a walk around Primrose Hill (very cute neighborhood) and took a spin on the London Eye.

Thankfully, we made our way to Amsterdam on Monday and from there it was all smooth sailing. Amsterdam was amazing. We’ll definitely go back. It was clean, laid back, pretty and full of fun things to do. We saw tons of amazing art, drank really good beer, checked out the kitties at the Cat Cabinet and got some unbelievably delicious Indonesian food. Despite it’s reputation for dope and hookers, the city didn’t really have a seedy vibe. The other fun thing was the 24 hour access to spectacular junk food. You can get ahold of pizza, falafel, pastries, pretty much anything, at any time of day. I was in carbohydrate heaven.

We wrapped up our trip in Iceland. We rented a car and drove around the southern part of the country, checking out the exotic landscape, geysers, hot springs and waterfalls. Iceland had a lot of spectacular scenery and uncrowded, easy-to-navigate roadways. The bars were full of friendly beautiful people and the local brew, Viking, was even pretty tasty on tap.

Below are a few photos from the trip:

This photo is so damn cute it might make your head explode:

The precious little cub’s name is Chase and he is a 3 week old lion who was taken away from his mother after her milk dried up. Chase is now being reared by two adorable tykes in New Zealand. Because small children make excellent substitute lion mommies?

According to Splash News, this big kitty loves getting his tummy rubbed, and enjoys kitty naps in front of the fire, sometimes on a beanbag. Aww, just like my cats.

“He still loves sucking your thumb – he just sticks it between his teeth and sucks away gently,” the children’s father – and manager of the park – Hayden Sanders said. Having a lion of any size sucking your thumb sounds both adorable and totally safe.

Hopefully the fam has plans to return Chase to a more natural habitat before his taste for mother’s milk is replaced by a taste for um, mothers?

Via Best Week Ever

We had friends over this past weekend and whipped up a brand new recipe. This creation comes via my wife who is terrible at taking notes on what she makes or measuring things. She’s like a mad scientist with a cocktail shaker. Any way, she made these perfectly refreshing martinis for a crowd of 6 and here’s approximately how.

15 basil leaves, muddled
1 cup strawberries, sliced and muddled
3 Tbs balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1 liter club soda
vodka

Combine first 5 ingredients in a pitcher and chill until you’re ready to serve. Before serving add 1 ounce vodka to each martini glass and then fill the rest of the glass with the strawberry basil mix. Garnish with a basil spring and/or a fresh strawberry.

Hans Jørgen Olsen, a 12-year-old Norwegian boy, saved himself and his sister from a moose using the valuable lessons he learned playing World of Warcraft. Apparently these two little moppets stumbled into a the moose’s territory while out for a walk and the moose didn’t appreciate the intrusion.

Hans got rid of the moose by alternately taunting it and playing dead. I am not sure what to make of this. On one hand this moose not only has children in his lair, but now he’s got kids taunting him? (How does one taunt a moose any way? Tell him he looks fat?) On the other hand, this moose was “taunted” by a small child and then actually believed the child dropped dead for no apparent reason. This can’t be the smartest moose in the forest.

P.S. New tee design today: Vegetables Gone Bad

I’ve been designing lots of new shirts lately. Below are two of the newest ones:

Also, we now have tote bags! They’re perfect for the beach, overnights and of course as reusable grocery totes. (Guys: Let’s be honest, tote bags that look manly are few and far between. If we’re lucky they’ve got some tomatoes on them and if we’re not they’re pink and covered in flowers, right? The new totes collection is chock full of manly designs featuring stuff like hammers, Bigfoot and zombies. MAN STUFF!)

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Photo via malingering on Flickr