Like the three-martini lunch, the hip flask has, sadly, fallen out of favor in these sober times. And while, if tastelessly displayed, a flask can say ‘I’m an alcoholic, but an old money alcoholic’, it can also be immensely practical.

For struggling artist types in a city like New York, where bar-owners have the gumption to charge $10 for drinks mixed from Popov vodka, a flask can yield far better drinking at a vastly reduced price. Further, topping off a bar-ordered coke with flasked rum, rather than (correctly) making you look like a cheap bastard, instead gives a hint of luxurious Èlan paired with a mischievous streak of devil-may-care.

It’s outside of bars where flasks really shine, because careless designers the world over seem to have forgotten to install wet bars on commuter trains, in taxi cabs, seat-back in opera houses, or in the bathroom of your girlfriend’s puritanical parents.

A few further tips: when buying a flask, steer clear of anything ‘clever’, decorated, or made from a material other than silver, pewter, stainless steel or leather-bound glass. Also feel free to give flasks liberally as gifts – men love them for their practicality, women for the Bond girl lifestyle they seem to imply. In either case, monogramming is a nice touch.

And, finally, as wisely observed by Tesauro & Mollod in The Modern Gentleman, “carry a flask in a breast or coat pocket; if this in not possible, you are underdressed for flasking.”

Pick one up, and be prepared, wherever you happen to be, when dipsomania next hits.

Dear iPod Owners:

You are idiots. Or, at least 95% of you are. Because 95% of you are still using those little white freebie earbuds that Apple tosses in the box.

And those little white freebie earbuds suck monkey.

I won’t plug the Etymotic ER-4‘s again here; if you’d appreciate them, you probably already own a pair.

Instead, you need something a bit more practical. Something you can haul to the gym, ride with on the subway. Something that seals out the whir of a treadmill or the screech of train tracks. Something sturdy, small, and cheap enough not to break the bank.

And, most importantly, something that sounds so good you’ll kick yourself for every day you wasted listening to those little white freebie monkey-suckers Apple stuck you with.

In short, you want a pair of Shure earbuds.

The cheaper choice is their e2c, which goes for as little as $70 street.

Or, forgo the extra iPod case, armband, dock and car charger on your wish list, using the saved $100 to bump up to the Shute e4c‘s, which CNET’s seasoned reviewers called “simply the best in-ear headphones we’ve ever heard.”

Either way, pick up a pair, and experience actually hearing your music, like it was meant to be heard, for the very first time.

Arthur C. Clarke once observed that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser is a case in point.

Because, even as a dyed-in-the-wool tech dork, I have absolutely no clue why the Magic Eraser works. All I know is, holy crap, it does.

About the size of decks of cards, these white squishy squares don’t inspire much confidence out of the box; I wouldn’t even have given them a try, had a free sample not recently appeared in my mailbox.

But, as most of my family and friends can attest, I’ve grown increasingly anal about keeping my house scoured clean. After nearly a year in my current apartment, wear and tear had begun to show in ways that, I assumed, were only arduously reparable: dark streaks left from heavy objects banged up against white walls or dragged across wood floors; scratches in the porcelain of the bathtub and kitchen sink.

All of them resisted a parade of home-cleaning products, from Fantastik and Formula 409 to Scrubbing Bubbles and Orange Glo. None were a match for Mr. Clean and his magic erasing.

Despite it’s super powers, the Magic Eraser is actually one of the easiest cleaning products I’ve ever used: simply rinse it in water, squeeze out the excess, then rub away any stain on pretty much anything at all. No additional cleaning agent, no preparation, just rub.

Why does it work? Is it also secretly eating away layers of my skin in the process? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’m not one to look gift horses in the mouth, or gift sponges in the whatever is metaphorically equivalent to a mouth on a sponge.

These things are solid gold, though far cheaper ounce-for-ounce. Pick up a two-pack for $2.50, and observe your smile shining back off any previously crud-marred surface.

After another, rather unexpected, trip out West – to lock Cyan’s partnership with animation studio Blur for an indie CG film – I’m back in NYC. And, to keep me on a more regular blogging schedule, I’m kicking off Consumer Whore Week, wherein, over the next seven days, I spill the beans on a number of items you’ll shortly realize you can’t possibly live without.

Gentlemen, start your checkbooks.