'NY Times' Sunday Preview: Annual New Ideas Issue, Featuring 'The Beer-Gut Flask' and 'The E. Coli Wipe'

By: E&P Staff It's December, so that means the arrival of one of our favorite editions of The New York Times Magazine, coming this Sunday: The Year in Ideas.

The 6th annual issue includes 74 brilliant/wacko schemes, including:

-- The Beer-Gut Flask, which would let you tuck at leastr a six-pack under an oversized shirt, and as Joe Lovell notes, "look no different from any fun-loving American fending off morbid obesity."

--Hyperopia, an "excess of farsightedness."

--The Gyroball, allegedly in the arsenal of soon-to-arrive Japanese superstar pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Plus:

--The YouTube Referee Indictment

-- The Wheelchair Car

-- Spit Art

-- The Humane Flophouse

-- Homephily

-- The Comb That Listens

And much more.