You’ve seen the video for Dick-in-a-Box featuring Justin Timberlake, now you can give a Dick-in-the-Box as a gift. WoodyinaBox.com is now offering a variety of phallic gifts packaged in a box, ranging from a keychain to a bottle opener. Woodyinabox.com is a subsidiary of Flat Earth Trading, a company specializing in importing goods from Bali, home of the finest wood carvers in the world.

Flat Earth Trading’s president Greg Puhler says “It seemed kind of obvious to do. We already had the wooden penises in stock, so why not put them in a box? So far the keychain and the bottle opener have been the best sellers. It will be interesting to see how many go for the Christmas season”. He also stated that the product has been more popular with smaller retailers – Wal Mart hasn’t called yet.

The video “Dick in a box” has experienced viral media exposure with over 27 million views on Youtube. The video was first aired in December 2006 and features Justin Timberlake and Adam Samberg performing in New York with strategically-placed gift-boxes. A parody of the video from a female perspective, “My box in a box” has also seen recent popularity on the internet, with singer Leah Kauffman signing a recording contract with Rock Ridge music. Cosmopolitan magazine’s July 2007 issue named Kaufman one of the top four female stars of the internet.

What fun! I buy a liquidation of many thousands of parts and get and education in trademark law for a small extra fee. When buying the remains of the entity formerly known as Smittybilt, how was I to know all the fun adventures that would happen?

Now we are required to put the following at the bottom of each page on our retail site, LiquidParts.net

The subject discontinued products do not carry a factory warranty. Replacement parts for the discontinued products are not available and all technical questions must be directed to Liquid Parts at 1-800-785-8077. Smittybilt is a registered trademark of Smittybilt Automotive Products, LLC. Liquid Parts is a liquidator of inventory and is not affiliated or associated in any manner with Smittybilt Automotive Products, LLC.

So just in case there was any confusion - Smittybilt is a registered trademark of Smittybilt Automotive Products.

My friend Greg is getting his new Tiki site off the ground. Go to Go tiki to see it. He is importing thousands of Tiki products with each container he gets in and the stuff is incredible.

My friend Dave and I have purchased a huge amount of Smittybilt tube steps for trucks, as well as grille guards, nerf bars, tail light guards, bumpers and more. All the Smittybilt stuff that a person could ever want. Go to Smittybilt.net to see it all. There are around 11,000 peices of inventory that are marked down 50-80% off from the retail price that the steps were formerly sold for.

There is a picture of all the stuff in the “about us” page - for reference, the white poles in the picture are 50 feet apart.

I came across this site that lists all the sites that you can bookmark your favorite sites on. Make sense? 3spots.blogspot.com is what it is called. Maybe one day I can invento something that will rate being there… probably not.

I am getting kind of crazy, trying to find ERP software that meets our needs. We are using Quickbooks for orders and accounting, SugarCRM for customer management, and UPS Worldship for shipping. None of them talk to each other, and this is a big headache.

I have looked at Netsuite, MySAP, Everest and about a dozen others and have yet to find one that meets our needs.

Ok, end of the venting session and back to work.

I was reading the latest issue of Business 2.0 the other night, and a VC wants to put a Blackberry on the steering wheel of your car with a heads-up display. Not a bad idea, I thought, since people are using the things while driving anyway, laws be damned.

The part that gets me is that he is willing to back it with a COUPLE OF MILLION dollars to see if it works. Why not just give me a Blackberry and a hacksaw? A little careful cutting, some duct tape, and a mirror to reflect the screen image onto the windshield and the proof-of-concept is done. It would take two days and less than a thousand bucks to see if the idea works. Why the need for millions?

I moved back home. Not in the sense that I am living with my mom - in the sense that I moved my work location to home. My office is a gigantic two miles away, but it is filled with very competent people, so there is no need for me to be there everyday. So now I work from home, on all the big picture, important but not urgent projects that have been piling up for the last two years.

I bet everyone at work is happy I am gone too.

The change has been interesting. There is far less going on at home, despite the fact my wife works here, the nanny and Troy “work” here - but it seems much much quieter. So I get more done. And then I worry about the office, and call, and they tell me not to worry, and then I get more done.

At least there is always something to eat here.

Since I have started several businesses now, I recognize great advice when I read it. Go to Entrepeneurial Proverbs and read it for yourselves. Another good companion to this article is Guy Kawasaki’s book, the Art of the Start.

I have found that keeping track of customers is pretty useful if you want to provide them with good service. There are many choices, but I have been using SugarCRM. Another useful site is this one because they actually have all the patches, upgrades and different versions available for downloading.