Executive Gifts

There are 52 countries around the world with Islam as the predominant religion, which translates to around one-fifth of the world’s population categorized as Muslims and Muslimahs.  Beyond the media portrayal of Islam as a religion of fanatics and lunatics, which is grossly unfair considering that all religions have its share of crazies, you will agree that its laws on alcohol usage will drive Alcoholics Anonymous to extinction sooner than later.
But among all the Islamic countries, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may have the strictest enforcement of the Koran’s laws on the total ban on the manufacture, distribution, sale and use of alcoholic products.  If Egypt and Dubai, both Islamic countries too, have flexible laws on the matter, not so with Saudi Arabia.

That said, it is best never to bring your top-of-the-line leather wine carrier and your Swarovski-embedded liquor flask, even for bragging purposes, into the country.  Not even if your organized religion and personal inclination allow for the drinking of wine in any amount, in any occasion.

If you do, be prepared to face the Mutawwa’in.  If that is too Greek for you, Mutawwa’in is Saudi’s religious moral police, which is responsible for the enforcement of Sharia as defined by the government. Needless to say, you will observe that the government’s definition is, in turn, highly influenced by strict interpretations of the Koran.   Emphasis on down-to-the-last-dot strict, mind you.

Good for you if you only have to face the Mutawwa’in! The penalty for violating the laws on alcohol consumption can be severe by Western standards.  Case in point: As early as 1978, two British men were flogged in public for breaking the said law by as many as 70 strokes of the cane each!  Ouch! Thirty years on, nothing substantial has changed.

And that is just for public drunkenness.  You need only imagine the time spent in jails and additional floggings for the trafficking of alcohol.  Still, if you are thirsty for bacchanalian pleasures of the sly kind, you can always make your own brew using equipment that are not in themselves prohibited in the country.

Well, of course, alcohol and drugs can be had in Saudi Arabia. (What country does not have the scourge of these twin vices anyway?) But the prices along with the punishment are steep such that you are best to wait for your exit away from Saudian soil!

And don’t you dare whip out your leather money clip to bribe the Mutawwa’in either!  You can face more floggings and life imprisonment for your stupidity, er, audacity.

Spring break is traditionally the most anticipated school break for college students, not least because booze and bikinis are the theme of the day.  Indeed, who can forget movies about the romance and craziness of spring break like the classic “Where the Boys Are” and the dorky “Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise”?
However, spending spring break in your home city or hometown can be downright boring!  Why not visit the Caribbean instead?  Not only is the region accessible and affordable to student backpackers but you can actually be there sans the primary content of your passport cover - your passport.

Just be sure to bring along maximum contents of your money clip wallets to see you through the days and nights of booze and bikini, parties and pastimes, sun and sea during your spring break vacation in these Caribbean places.  (And, oh, this only applies to American citizens)

Puerto Rico

If the likes of Miss Universes Dayanara Torres and Denise Quiñones are indications of Puerto Rican beauty, then Puerto Rico is the place to be for bikini parades.  And of course, since this is a Commonwealth of the United States, you can leave your passport behind in the continental US.

In the tradition of spring break, you have many activities to do in Puerto Rico that will enrich your life in more ways than one and often in unexpected ways.  From historical tours, to nature rendezvous, to party till you drop venues, you will have good times within this island paradise.

U.S. Virgin Islands

This U.S. Commonwealth is no virgin to spring break hordes either.  You can hobnob with socialites and backpackers out to have good times along the white beaches and emerald seas, secluded coves and breathtaking coral reefs, virgin rainforests and magnificent vistas.

You can sway and groove to island music; eat very satisfying dishes combining the best of North American cuisine with tropical twists; dance the quadrille, meringue and salsa; learn Virgin Islands Creole and communicate with handsome men and women; camp in the rainforest with your current spring break fling; go shopping till your credit card maxes out; and just enjoy the romance of the Caribbean.

On a last, sweet note, these are the places where your collection of collectible mantel clocks used to wake you up during ungodly hours of schooldays are moot.  Why worry about time when you can pass the time most pleasantly?

Do you know that leaving your leather briefcases inside your parked car increases your risk of becoming yet another unwitting victim of bag theft by at least 50 percent?  And why not?  You might as well wave the red flag in front of the bull with your bag-left-in-car action!
Unless your bag has got nothing in it but a few odds and ends of inconsequential value, leaving your briefcase and bag will be of little or no consequence.  Then again, being a victim of theft regardless of value can be frustrating, to say the least.

You can, however, prevent this pesky problem by actually having your briefcase and car in just one package!  Look at it this way:  You can rid yourself of parking difficulties, security problems and travel light considerations.

Ladies and gentlemen, please acquaint yourself with the toy for the little boy – the Mazda Suitcase Car!  Oh, sure. The basically unchanged contraption is old by automobile standards, 17 years old in an industry where models are changed at least once every five years, but like all classic cars, it is still as charming as it was way back in 1991.

But don’t be fooled by the toy for the little boy tag because the Mazda Suitcase Car can accommodate one red-blooded adult male quite comfortably.  And since boys will be boys, watch how these cynical big boys transform into gleeful little boys!

The Mazda Suitcase Car, by its name alone, is a brainchild of Japanese technology.  Today, however, it is maintained by Road/Race Engineering in California.  Yet another example of Japanese technology enjoyed by the American consumer, a case of the conquered conquering the conqueror.

You can even clock yourself in the assembly of this car-in-a-briefcase even with the most normal of desk clocks - an amazing 30 seconds at most!  Unfortunately, you cannot go far with this car enough to make full use of your of passport holder on cross-country border trips with speeds of only 24 miles per hour on a two-hour fuel tank.  At least, not as fast as fugitives from wives want to be.

Still, this car is an excellent bargain when you consider that your car will not be in danger of theft in the parking area simply because it is parked under your desk!  How is that for taking your mode of transportation right into your own hands?

So, which would you prefer - leather briefcases in cars or cars in leather briefcases?  I say go for the latter and watch your neighbors’ jaws go slack!  You know, just for the fun of it.

The senseless loss of life attributed to alcohol-impaired and alcohol-related accidents, more than 42,000 in the year 2006 for the United States alone, should be sufficient reason to absolutely avoid your liquor flask when planning to drive.  Even if it is just around the block, driving under the influence of alcohol must be a big no-no.
However, with these very dangerous, very deathly, very dreary roads, you will never think twice about never touching your liquor flasks.  What you need to do is stuff in your valid passport and cold cash inside your passport cover and fly off to these places to experience life and death in one heck of a car ride.  Ready, set, buckle up!

The North Yungas Road, Bolivia

Often cited by numerous sources as the most dangerous road today, the North Yungas Road in Bolivia will make any young ass turn into a young once with just one trip.  Or worse, become one of the more than a hundred fatalities claimed by the hairpin-dotted and cliff-bordered albeit kick-ass vista of this 40-mile Andean road.

Aptly named the “Road of Death”, it was built in the 1930s by Paraguayan prisoners of war.  Who knows?  Maybe they wanted revenge of the road kill kind.

And even if you are just a passenger, you have to avoid drinking lest you vomit all over the place.  It simply will not do to puke out of the car’s windows and have the sheer cliffs as your receptacle for green vomit.  Yuck and yikes combined!

The A44, United Kingdom

As any well-traveled driver knows, the most dangerous roads are often not the remote and roughly-hewn ones.  Instead, it is the busy highways and thoroughfares that pose the greater risk what with all those maniac drivers desiring to achieve Mach 1 speeds on cars even the Amish would be ashamed to drive much less ride in, venting their rage on the road like a woman scorned by Adonis himself, and being kings of the road with cars as old and as obsolete as the Roman Empire. Or worse, being all three.

That said, be very, very, very careful about driving, drunk or sober, on the A44 from Oxford, England to Aberystwyth, Wales.  The British government has very good reasons to install those much-hated-by-civil-liberties-advocates spy cameras, ostensibly to discourage speeding, encourage careful driving and catch on camera traffic accidents.

And if you do drink and drive over these roads, you have better start counting down to your death.  Use those unique wall clocks to advantage by employing them as your timer.

When man started attaching names to geographical places, which Moses could have done with markers to avoid wandering in the desert for 40 years, he came up with ordinary names and weird names.  The ordinary names you can understand. The weird names you must visit and see for yourself.
So, whip out your leather wallets, stuff in your passport in its passport holder and go see these places with weird names!  Just don’t go expecting to see weird stuff and weird people though; the weird place names are want you want to see.

Middelfart, Denmark

Think of it this way:  Just as there are parts to a story – beginning, middle and end – so does a fart have its own parts.  If you ask which one is the most malodorous, well, you can ask the flatulence odor judges! (We swear from the bottom of our farts, er, hearts that the job does exist)

The truth to the name, however, is a case of lost in translation.  Middelfart comes from the Danish word Mæthelfar, which means central passage.  Well, at least you got the middle equals central fart, oops, part correct!

Whakapapa, New Zealand

From the island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean that gave us Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahul, which is the longest recognized place name in the Guinness Book of World Records and don’t let me pronounce it for you, comes yet another weird name.  Well, weird if the sound and the meaning of the place name in the English language are anything to go by.

Consider this: The Maori language has two digraphs, which are two letters that combine to form one sound – wh and ng.  In this case, the wh in Whakapapa is pronounced like the English “f” sound.

Try saying Whakapapa aloud, properly if you please, and you get, uh, something best not said in polite and proper society.  Still, Whakapapa is the name to say when you want world-class, death-defying ski experience so that just about makes it even Steven.

And don’t get started on Shitterton, Dorset, England; Cockup, Cumbria, England; and Thong, Kent, England.  And here you were thinking that the British are prim and proper with a stiff upper lip!

But good old United States will not be left behind in coming up with otherworldly names.  Can you top Hell, Michigan?  Well, what the heck?  At least, you know that your engraved Zippo lighters will last you more than a lifetime if the place lives up to its name.

It’s a crazy world out there.  And those lawyers and those laws can create chaos where they intended order and injustice where they intended justice. In the process, the thinning and thickening of your money clip wallet and bank account can result, depending on which side of the law you are in.
That said, take a look at these beyond crazy lawsuits that only the vaunted American justice system can cook up in the interest of justice, liberty and truth.

Rob a House, Get Owner to Pay You

Unfortunately, this is not the case of the homeowner and the robber conspiring for insurance purpose.  Oh, no.  This is about the robber winning the suit against the homeowner for inconveniences caused during the theft.

While exiting through the garage after the theft, Terrence Dickson was caught between the garage doors due to a malfunctioning mechanism and his own stupidity.  Since the owners were on vacation and probably making good use of their passport cover and its contents, he was stuck for eight days, during which time he survived on a case of soda and a bag of dog food.

Ending to the story: He was awarded half a million dollars in damages.  The defense lawyer must have been one heck of a genius to pull this off!  How can somebody be awarded damages for things he brought upon himself? “What the hell?” must have passed through your mind by now.

Bring Toddler, Bring In Money

If you think your hyperactive toddler can be a financial burden, drop the thought like a dirty diaper pronto!  In the American justice system, you can actually produce financial assets out of ‘em babies and not when they graduate from Harvard and become another Wall Street whiz either.

Kathleen Robertson sued the furniture store where she tripped over a toddler running amuck in the store and consequently broken her delicate ankles.  Needless to say but you need to hear it anyway, she won the suit and was awarded the cool sum of $780,000 by the jury.

The twist: She fell over her own toddler son! You are probably thinking about the absurdness of the situation considering that she should be made responsible for her son’s actions.  Will the wonders of the American justice system and its obsession with respecting the rights of each and every citizen, never mind the ridiculous aspects at face value, never cease?

It just makes you want to drink the calming draught of humanity from your liquor flask to prevent tempers from boiling over.  Then again, you might be thinking twice about doing so in the similarly crazy liquor laws of Utah!  But that is another story.

In addition to the underestimated benefits of alcoholic drinks – drunken boys and girls being easier on the eyes and on the body and drunken ramblings sound like quantum physics – they definitely make for outrageously fun drinking games on your bachelor’s party. Of course, you need not fill your liquor flask to the brim to engage in drinking games.
What you need is a good set of fun-loving friends who will do almost anything and everything for a good laugh over drinks.  Almost, that is.  Add in a relaxed atmosphere in a private setting, preferably one that is as far away from nosey neighbors and pesky policemen, not to mention frazzled brides, and you can engage in these drinking games.

The Tuck Game

For lack of print-friendly and rhyming words to the most used of four-letter words denoting vulgarity in the most intimate physical sense (See? It is just too long, this family friendly business), you can call this the Tuck Game.

You arrange everybody in a circle.  Each participant chooses a name with a “tuck” at the end of it; you can be as imaginative, as difficult, and as mnemonic as you want.  For example, Tock-Tock Tuck, Crap Tuck, Truck Tuck.

To start the game, everybody claps their hands twice and then twice on the table and then clap twice again.  When the rhythm is established, you can start the game by chanting “Tock-Tock Tuck (clap hands twice) what the tuck (clap hands on table twice), how about a (clap hands twice) Crap Tuck (clap hands on table twice)”.  Then Crap tuck takes up the chant and so on until one makes a mistake and drinks up.

Rules: You cannot pass on the chant to the person who passed the chant to you.  You must follow the correct hand movements.  Beyond that, you can be as loud as you want.

Anything Goes

Well, you can always make anything and everything a drinking game!  You just need to put imagination into it, make up rules as you go, and just have fun of the uninhibited kind.

But never drink and drive and do drink moderately and responsibly.  Call a cab home when necessary rather than risk the neck of an innocent pedestrian.

With drinking games, your bachelor’s party will have more fun that the usual giving of groomsman gifts like that passport holder.  And since this is your last night of freedom, drinking games are worth the noise!

In the United States alone, there are over 390,000 individual workstations with jobs ranging from the part-time to the full-time, the blue collar to the white collar, the entry level to the executive level, not to mention the work at home opportunities.  Add in the figures of the other 194 countries of the world and you have millions of jobs out there.
But among all these jobs, a few stand out for being bizarre and dangerous enough to warrant equally bizarre and dangerous custom business card holders.  You know, just to reflect the status of the job itself.

Toothpick Artist for Bizarre

Just imagine sticking 1.5 million toothpicks to make an artwork of a galloping horse.  Many questions will be racing through your amazed mind: How many trees were sacrificed in the process? How did all those 1.5 million toothpick users react? How do you retain your sanity in a nervous breakdown inducing activity of sticking toothpicks over an 8m2 canvas for 40 days? Did the artist forego toothpicks in the meantime?

So many questions, so little time and this bizarre job have to add to the mix! But since Saimir Strati is still out and about, you can surmise that this bizarre job might be well worth the try.  And try a Chinese man did with his own version of a toothpick-studded portrait of Kwan-Yin!

Why not put your seldom used and moth smelling passport wallet to the use?  Visit these artists in Albania and China to learn their secrets!

Sewer Cleaners for Dangerous

No, not the sewer checkers of the industrialized countries with their high-tech equipment and safe practices.  You are looking at the sewer cleaners of Third World countries where jumping into the septic tank is a common albeit stomach-turning occurrence.

If you were one, you have to jump right into a very dirty, very black, very putrid septic tank that, if the gods are with you, reaches to your waist.  Think if the gods turn your back on you!  Believe me, the threat of the likes of Pepe la Pew is nothing compared to this malodorous work.

How dangerous? Does the threat of deadly diseases, gaping wounds, unidentifiable animals and very bad body odor sound dangerous enough for you? But this work does put much needed and much welcome dough in your money clip wallet, which is definitely better than nothing.

Besides, beggars cannot be choosers in these recessionary times, right?  And these jobs definitely make for interesting business cards, if they do need one, just in case others need their portraits in toothpicks and their septic tanks cleaned the old-fashioned way.

The inexorable tick-tock of those decorative desk clocks keeping time with your biological clock can put pangs of pure panic where none are needed.  And the fact that the fabled fountain of youth remains just that – a fable – in no way stems the tide of worrying over appearing ancient.  Definitely, wrinkly and dry only apply to raisins and raisins you are not!
What then is a vain girl to do? Well, you can always save yourself the trouble of becoming the female counterpart of Indiana Jones by absolute avoidance of looking for the elusive fountain of youth.  Instead, you can dust off your passport holder, stuff in your passport and go to these places for some good old cosmetic surgery.  Or better yet, excellent new cosmetic surgery.

Word of caution: Better bring substantial cash and credit more than your money clip wallets can hold; cosmetic surgery never did come cheap even in foreign lands.

Venezuela’s Cult of Beauty

Fact:  Venezuela is a country of with the most beauty queens with four Miss Universe, five Miss World and countless other beauty titles to its name.  No other country comes close to its beauty cult.

Indeed, if there is a country where cosmetic surgery to make you look and feel good is highly acceptable, then Venezuela is it. You can have everything from face lift and rhinoplasty, breast and buttocks augmentation, to liposuction and liposculpture and everything else in between.

No recuperating in sterile hospitals here either.  You can choose from the many spa-cum-cosmetic clinics that abound in the country, which offer Caribbean atmosphere while you recover from the latest round of face and body sculpting.   Vacation and beautification in one, indeed!

Singapore’s Roaring Beauty

The Lion City boasts of world-class health care system that the World Health Organization has ranked among the top ten in recent years, 6th in the year 2000, to be exact.  In Singapore, appropriate cosmetic surgery can turn you into a whimpering cat to a roaring lioness of beauty.

Consider these:  You can have body and face reshaping/enhancements of all kinds, removal of varicose veins and spider veins, Botox, fillers, thermage, and laser treatments and other beauty treatments to make you look young again.  Or at least, as young as can be under the aging circumstances.

With luck and liposuction and lifts, you can put off looking like a dried up prune before your time!

Lest you have guilt pangs over engaging in wagers, and therefore affecting the contents of your men’s wallets, in the belief that the Devil himself would love to toast your soul in Hell if you do so, just remember that even God himself wagered with the Devil.  Does the story of God and Satan betting each other that Job will never cross to the Dark Side sound familiar?
That said, you can always bet your bottom dollar, or at least get bottoms-up free drinks and eat-all-you-can free food at the neighborhood deli, with these winnable bets.  You just have to make sure that you are the one hoodwinking your buddies’ leather money clips, not the other way around, by knowing the rules of the game.

Race to The Last Glass

The Bet: You can down three pints of any beverage of choice in less time than your opponent can down his three 1 ounce drink.

The Rules:  First, you have to be given a one-pint head start.  Second, there will be no touching of each other’s glasses in any way.  Third, whoever violates the rules has to pay up.

The Strategy:  First, do a bottoms-up on your first pint, mate.  Second, cover one of your opponent’s shot glasses with your empty one-pint glass.  Third, finish the last two pints however long you choose.

Even if your opponent finishes his first two shots, he will still be one shot short because that one is covered by your glass. Since the rules state that neither can touch the other’s glasses, you would have finished your third pint before he can finish his third ounce.  Game, set, match!

Drink like a Cowboy

The bet:  You can drink the contents of the glass without touching your hat, which completely covers the glass.

The Rules: First, you cannot touch your hat when it already covers the glass.  Second, you are allowed to use a straw to drink the contents of the glass.  Third, and very important, everybody must be a good sport.

The Strategy:  You have to slide the straw under the rim of your hat.  Pretend with all your Oscar-worthy acting skills that you are drinking the contents and then declare that you are finished.  Amidst incredulous protests and insistent demands for proof, tell your buddies that you don’t need to prove because “I know so”.

Per pop psychology, they will demand that you lift the hat to show proof.  Instead, you should dare them to do so since they are the ones who are insistent on proof.  When they do, and they will in time, you can then drink from the glass without touching the hat!

Whatever you do, be sure that your opponents are your friends because you definitely do not want to dust off your passport cover to become a fugitive.  After all, bets among friends are for fun and there is no need to go all hot-headed, right?