October 2005 Archives

It's the Adrian Goodwill As-Is, circa several years ago! (I just got a scanner).

I had this idea the other night when I was very sleepy -- maybe someone was channeling to me from the future in my vulnerable state.

In the future, everyone will have even more stuff than they do now. And some of it will be a lot nicer than the stuff we have now. Still, we will have stuff that they covet, just like us and the 19th century.

I predict that time travel on a regular basis will start with objects and trade, not people. People from the future will send us their used robots, ray guns, their off-brand elixirs of youth, and even though by their standards those things will be old, worn out, or close to the expiration date, for us, it will be great! We will welcome their gifts. But in exchange, they might ask us to send them the things that they no longer have, or think are cool in some kind of ironic or antiquarian sense, like our iPods or our Taco Bell wrappers. Hopefully it will be the Taco Bell wrappers they want, although an iPod for a ray gun would be a pretty fair exchange. Eventually this gifting will become a regular exchange, trade, and commerce.

Goodwill Industries might end up on the forefront of time travel. Maybe a time travel machine will be invented by one of their temp employees, thought to be mentally handicapped by everyone else, but actually a genius of such awesome powers that we don't even recognize his or her form of intelligence -- some kind of super- Aspergers. He or she will use old bits of computers, clothing, and Little Debbie Snackcakes to fashion a time travel device. And maybe it will only work for objects. And then Goodwill Industries will steal the idea from their employee, or insist that it’s their intellectual property because it was done while the Aspergers-time-travel genius was on the clock (Goodwill will definitely be a villain in the future).

And we will be able to go back in time to get things from the past, too. Collectors will love it. Ebay will install a time-travel plug in. But then the market for everything will collapse, and we will be stuck in some kind of timeless free-market dystopia.

This is sounding more like a screen play than an idea, so that's what I'll call it.

With respects to Online Time Travel Pharmacy.

I had a pumpkin spice latte the other day. It's not all that often that I buy things like that (I'm a timid consumer) and when I do, I feel decadent, i.e, rich. It was Tim who taught me to appreciate flavors in my lattes -- indeed, who got me into the habit of buying lattes at all in my early 30s. Before that I would have said that I couldn't tell the difference between a latte and a coffee with plenty of cream in a blind taste test -- and truthfully, I probably still couldn't -- but the appeal of buying lattes comes from the emotional sense of well being it gives me: luxery, devil-may-care,"let myself eat cake!" So, when I saw the chalk board sign for a pumpkin spice latte I thought, "yuck -- who would waste their money on that?" And as soon as I thought it, I wanted one. So I plunked down my $3.25 for 16 ounces of non-fat, extra hot, half decaf, pumpkin spice latte.

What did it taste like? Well, it tasted like lipstick, as so many things do to a lipstick wearer.

This gave me my idea:

Gourmet lipstick.

This would appeal to foodies who wanted to look and taste fabulous.

Think about it: You go out for a fancy pants meal, and you want to look great, but you don't want your meal tasting like chemical fruits and waxy eau d'bourgeoisie.

So, voila: gourmet lipstick (this idea seems very French to me). Maybe you'd package it in courses: aperatif, soup, salad, meat, cheese? (with a tasty cheese lipstick, you'd have your beautiful woman with both eyes!). Then the beautiful woman would excuse herself between courses to freshen up and change lipsticks. (Honestly, btw, I think restaurants are missing out on a lot of drink sales by not having nicer bathrooms. Because if they did, ladies would be more inspired to go to the bathroom more to freshen up or whatever, leaving their dates with nothing to do but order more drinks. Then again, most of the time when I go out now it's with at least three other people, so maybe I'm wrong about this. And no one drinks like they used to. But seriously: nicer bathrooms would be good.)

I don't think this would take a whole lot to catch on -- there's plenty of low-brow precident in those nasty soda-flavored lip glosses that girls of a certain generation -- my generation, approximately -- used to swap around when they were 8-12 years old. I never did.

For flavors, I'm mostly thinking herbs, like thyme, marjorem, stuff like that. Maybe cinnamin, vanilla for dessert. Parmesean? Gorgenzola? Not chicken. But maybe something smokey, like bacon. A dark red, bacon-maple lipstick would definitely get you kissed. Which brings up the other potential market: foodie's girlfriends.

I could buy my own lip gloss maker and add some merlot, I guess.

I'll just add that it's Interesting that the second page of google results for "gourmet lipstick" brings me so many of the same page for engagement rings -- personally, I would be touched if someone got me an engagement ring at swollenballs.com -- nice to know they're putting that swell URL to good use.

Bleh. I'm sick. I just woke up after hours of fitful sleep -- the kind where you can still hear the radio but can't make your limbs move or be sure that you're actually yelling at the dog out loud as opposed to dreaming it.

Anyway, while in Montana we discussed the idea of splicing genes together to create a plum that would have an almond in the middle instead of a pit, or a peach with a walnut pit, or a bannana with a core of delicious peanut butter. You get the idea. Tasty and handy. Like an all-natural applet or cotlet, which I love, btw. If we don't have the technology now, it's just a matter of time.

On other matters, I'm fascinated by the story of the alligator-eating python. A year ago they were hopeful that the reverse would happen, and that the alligators would help control the python invasion. Too bad. Makes me think, though: if you had an alligator inside a python and cooked it, that could be tasty like a pestducken.

So then just now I had another idea, which is for a sick delivery service. It would be a service you could call if you were sick. They could bring you:

• hot soup
• aspirin
• magazines
• ice cream
• applets and cotlets
• a thermometer
• videos
• flowers

It would be very handy for people like me who are sick and all alone in the world -- or anyway, sick and hungry while everyone they know is at work. They would also walk your dog.