May 30: Muy Caliente mug and "100 Leos: Wit and Wisdom from Leo Burnett"

Given to Mike from Karen.

I'm getting this mug's design tattooed on my left butt cheek

Let me tell you about the day I lost control of any family decision making. It was 1992. My brother and I were friends with the Haas brothers, whom we often traded sports trading cards with--predominately baseball, but also some football and, toward the later years of our collecting, a little basketball. It was sometime in July of that year when it was only my friend Mike and me who got together for the trading, while brother Mike and his friend Steve went to an amusement park.

I'll spare you the blow-by-blow of the afternoon's proposed trades, but I ended up trading our Topps Jerry Rice rookie card for something like Paul Molitor's Topps rookie trio card and a bunch of prospect rookie cards, including Yankee's third basemen Mike Blowers, who I thought was going to be the next Don Mattingly. Well, that trade didn't sit well with any of us Hatfields and it set off this painstakingly long series of re-trades to get back the Jerry Rice rookie card. It got so bad, Mike had to offer one of his prized Atlanta Braves star Steve Avery signed cards to sweeten the pot enough for the Haas brothers to bite.

The gifts: The mug should be self-explanatory, but for all of you non-Spanish speakers out there, 'muy caliente' means 'witch's tit' in English. And the book is by Leo Burnett, founder of the famed advertising firm, where he offers his own personal Lamaze tips.

Mike
-Profession: Marketing Analytics

-Favorite last name of someone you know: Eagleeye-Lord

-Do you think anyone feels left out (i.e. three wise men, hotel inn keeper) that they don't have their own or get included in the curse "Jesus, Mary and Joseph--three good people"?: They get enough publicity already, so I wouldn't worry about them.

-I'm taller, but you're older. Who should really make the family decisions?: Me because you have no frame of reference for the critical years 1976 to 1980.

-Outside of Hall & Oates, is there another more well-loved tandem than us?: Probably the Bash Brothers of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire. And somedays, like them, I don't think we're related.