Well, our Holiday Guides were so effective and so popular, that we figured we should do some more of these things. Therefore, welcome to the first of our Extreme Non-Holiday Shopping Guides. Because, let's face it, you have to buy stuff for people all the year round. And just like coffee, we'll always be there for you.

So above and beyond simple Recommendations comes...The Extreme Shopping Guide. Go to, go to.

You know, Bob the Angry Flower isn't just a comic strip of sick, twisted, surreal proportions that makes me spurt coffee out of my nostrils with laughter. No, no. It's very educational as well. Dig it--in the first three books I learned that: skeletons are deathly afraid of raisins; if you blow up the Earth your friends will never let you live it down; it's not a good idea to milk an invisible cow in public; you should be very careful when eating cream of terror soup; Garry Kasparov isn't a very good cab driver and lastly, you can fit more than four people in a Mechagodzilla. Which is useful, since I haven't been driving mine to tailgate parties because we have a lot of people here on staff and I didn't think we could all cram in there. Confessed Canadian Stephen Notley brings you the titular character, his roommate Stumpy (a bit of wood), and his other roommate, Freddie (a flying fetus). In a nutshell, I laughed my ass off. In fact, I'm sitting on nothing but pelvic bone right now as I type this. Now...his fourth book is about to hit, so if you're really smart you'll buy the uber-deal and get all four at one time for a hella price--click on the covers up top to go to Stephen's site. When you get there, spend money. Don't miss out, because Bob sure as hell won't pity you.

Come on...it was the 80s, dammit. You loved these movies. And with good reason. No man among you can honestly say you didn't drool over Kelly LeBrock. No one among you can honestly say you didn't relate to the kids stuck in detention in that library. No one among you can honestly say you didn't feel the pain of Molly Ringwald lusting after the School Cool Guy (or, perhaps, Anthony Michael Hall lusting after Ringwald). And...well, very few of you probably saw Three O'Clock High so referencing that film would be pointless. But regardless, since they're all out on DVD now (complete with original music where before it had been excised and replaced with PD stuff), you can grab the Anthony Michael Hall trifecta in a nice boxed set or snag the titles that you need on an individual basis. Thank Universal for putting them out in this High School Reunion Collection.

If you or someone you love (or hell, someone you just kind of tolerate) is a fan of Rowan Atkinson as Bean, then A&E Home Video has another gift problem solved: not only is the complete series available on a three-disc set, but you can also get the first two volumes of the animated series. On The Whole Bean, you get all fourteen episodes of the series, a forty-minute docu, two brand-new (or at least brand-new to you) sketches and the Comic Relief sketches Atkinson did. On the the animated side of the house, you get nine shows (with two segments each), a making-of, and a photo gallery. Granted, neither one has the feature that I'd like to see--a commentary track with Atkinson in character--but I'm just strange like that.

Some coffee drinkers are concerned about how the coffee industry treats the farmers who grow the coffee. Some coffee drinkers are also worried about the environment. Some coffee drinkers...couldn't care less, and would you pass the freaking sugar, please? Now, thanks to Millstone, everybody wins. With their new Signature Collection of whole bean goodness, you can satisfy everyone on your "Buy Coffee for These People or They Won't Let My Family Go" list. For the socially minded among you, snag Mountain Moonlight Fair Trade Certified--not only does it take care of the families and the farms by making sure they get a fair price for the beans, it's also very, very smooth going down. Then there's the Rainforest Alliance Certified Signature Roast, which balances high quality bean action with responsible nature-friendly use of the environment. Lastly, there's the Cup of Excellence Signature Roast--get this: it's an award given out to the best speciality coffee from Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, or Nicaragua. 2003, the winner was Jinotega, Nicaragua. They provide great coffee beans, Millstone turns around and helps them build schools and health clinics in the community. I told you everybody wins. And did we mention the coffee was good?

Ah, the beauty of comedy where nothing, absolutely nothing, is sacred. From Guns n Roses to Star Wars to Marilyn Monroe to Lord of the Rings--all are skewered on the petards of these two ladies, who, you know, did this little thing called Absolutely Fabulous as well. The discs come with full-length bonus specials, so you getting more yuk for your buck, so to speak. Order them individually for your friends, or, if you love somebody lots, go ahead and snag the entire collection of all four discs from BBC Home Video.

There's just no animated television quite like The Simpsons. Oh sure, you can turn the knobs up to eleven with stuff like The Critic and Family Guy, but you can't quite get the balance between cultural references, outrageous humor and glimpses of humanity like you do with Matt Groening's children. Let's face it: if you had to buy the boxed sets for a friend or family member, you'd do it even if they only had the episodes on there. But never fear. These sets from Fox are so jam packed with bonus stuff, it's freaking ridiculous. Commentaries on every episode, scripts, unaired stuff, sketches, interviews, music, music videos, featurettes, and more is what you get with each of the season boxed sets. They are massive--and if you can't think of anybody on your gift list to buy them for (so you can borrow them, naturally), then for God's sake, get them for yourself. And--bonus--just in case you love somebody deeply but your wallet is not deep,y you can drop the Halloween disc on them for a lower price--and hey, soon twill be the season to scare the crap out of people, right?

There are some shows you just have to own, and I Love Lucy is one of them. Any fan of television on DVD is going to want this under the pumpkin--or whatever excuse you use for next month to give people things. Paramount has just released the Season One boxed set of the show. Nine discs are what you have to deal with, with four episodes on each. You also get some bonus bits, including special footage, radio show excerpts, flubs, photos and more. Is it pricey? Yes. Can you live without it? Not as such, no.