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We are not making these items up...

SANTA'S READY, ARE YOU?: From NipGuards nipple protection to the Nori Nasal Passage Cleaner, here's the list that gets to the heart of the matter Back to Dave's 2001 Holiday Gift Guide

Once again the holidays are upon us, and here at the Holiday Gift Guide Command Center, we are definitely feeling the ''spirit of the season.'' When our ''elves'' answer the telephone, they say: ''Ho! Ho! Ho!'' If they leave out even a single ''ho,'' we give them a jolt with our holiday cattle prod. That is how seriously we take the holidays.

It is that kind of discipline that enables us to produce our famous annual Holiday Gift Guide -- a collection of very special gift ideas that you will not find anywhere else in the world that has even the tiniest shred of good taste. These are not the kind of ''ho-hum'' gifts that get stuck away in a drawer somewhere. No sir, these are the kind of high-impact gifts that go straight into the dumpster.

Many people ask us: Where do you FIND these things? The answer is that we scour the globe. Every year, at tremendous tax-deductible expense, we travel to Paris, London, Rome, Hong Kong, Las Vegas and many other exotic foreign places in search of items that are suitable for the Gift Guide. But we never find any, so at the last minute we come home and use stuff we ordered by mail.

Bear in mind, as you read this Gift Guide, that every single item you see in it is real. That's correct: We are not making these items up. You can actually buy them! We know this because we personally bought all of them using money graciously provided by The Miami Herald. And if you don't think it's fun to be able to submit an expense report requesting reimbursement for a golf club made from the sexual organ of a bull, then you frankly don't know what fun is.

In addition to actually having our employer purchase these items, we here at the Gift Guide Command Center thoroughly test every item by opening the box and looking at the contents for several seconds. Sometimes we even touch the contents, unless they are meant to be inserted nasally.

It is because of this rigorous Quality Control procedure that we are able to offer our exclusive:

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE ''NO EXCUSES'' WARRANTY: If you purchase one of these Gift Guide items, and you for any reason whatsoever are not totally 100 percent satisfied, then simply send the item to us in its original packaging, along with the original paperwork, the original deed to your house and an original oil by the French postimpressionist painter Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). You will receive a full refund within six weeks or 125 years, whichever is later. We make no excuses for this warranty.

But enough of these legal technicalities! It's time to unveil this year's Gift Guide items, starting with the truly amazing: