March 2006 Archives

Jamie was one of the best inventors I met in SF/LA, and her Temptress Bra was one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time -- not that I need one. She also had a lot of data and a great story to back it up, too (she didn't get a chance to tell her back story on TV -- maybe she'll tell it on her website.) Those American Inventor judges were nuts not to pass her along.

But their nuttiness is an integral part of the show. Melissa noted that each episode seems to chose a particular judge to make look like a Grade A ass or nutcase. I'm not saying that they aren't Grade A asses or nutcases to begin with, but clearly decisions were made during the editing process to show them in the worst possible light (or who knows, maybe it could be even worse?)

A couple of friends have said they find the show almost unwatchable because of its cruelty, and now we can say that at least it's cruel to the judges as well as the contestants.

But I still enjoy it. My intellectual rationale is that I think it actually does a good job of illustrating:

A) The endless creativity and heartbreaking optimism of the "common man." Who knows what "common man" means, but I think I noted before that I didn't see many people who looked like CEOs or millionaires, and was impressed by the number of women and minorities I did see. Sure, many of the contestents are made to look like crazy people or fools, and many of them aren't "in" on the joke, but I think that as an audience, we're also genuinely moved to feel empathy for them.

B) The total absurdity of consumer culture. Most of these inventions aren't any crazier than what's on the shelf at Walgreens, and the show encourages us to laugh at them, and I think that's a good thing. I've long said (or maybe just mumbled to myself under my breath) that my blog is my way of improvising on the comic themes of consumer culture. I think this show does a pretty good job of the same thing.

C) The absolute cruelty and inhumanity of capitalism, as personified by the judges and illustrated by the stories of the contesents, as well as the very existence of the show itself. Granted, it's perpetuating it at the same time as it's making it visible.

I enjoyed some of these pretentious video games at somethingawful, maybe most of all because I feel satisfaction when I do well at name drop.

My semi-regular round-up of my favorite search terms bringing people to marysgreatideas.com (courtesy of google analytics):

• is+american+inventor+a+joke

• "american+inventor"+depressing

• dating+a+nerd+forums

• semi+flush+entry+light+pineapple+etching

• boyfriend+wearing+your+bra

• super+duper+air+scooper+aftermarket+retrofitted+vent+window

At the American Inventor website.

(Thanks to Mike and April for pointing this out, and to Mark for pointing out the same picture on the Washington Post website.)

It's not all that often that I get around to making actual prototypes of my ideas, but I liked the iBunny idea so much that I gave them away for Christmas, and I'll be putting these for sale on eBay soon. The idea is, cute fuzzy covers for your iPods. I made them for laptops, too. I have been trying to come up with a good name for them -- for awhile I was flirting with "I Wuv My Waptop" but that only worked for the fuzzy laptop covers. And the fuzzy iPod cases make more sense. Anyhoo, they are cute -- actually, the ones I made for Christmas were a little more cute, but I lost my pictures of those in the Hard Drive Failure of Ought Six. You put your iPod in them and then a little elastic strap wraps around the tail to keep them inside.

That's it!

Here's a backview of two ...

It was a beautiful day for a rally, and I've heard estimates ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 for the number of us who showed up to show our opposition to the war.

There are some good photographs showing the crowds here. I'm kind of surprised there aren't more available at flickr -- of the Portland march, that is.

(Credit for the photo goes to Justin -- thanks, Justin!)

This is Chris's idea, so I don't think I'm doing it justice, but it would be an address book that would look like a regular old fashioned Rolodex, but instead of having cards, it would project the numbers in the air using lights or maybe lasers. I think that's the idea, anyway. It would be kind of like that light clock that Shane and Denise gave us that projected the time into the air -- I don't know how it works, really, and if it would project on the wall or somehow just project in the air like a hologram.

Anyway, it would be cool!

We invented this last night:

Everytime someone says, "American" or "Dream," take a drink.

Everytime someone says, "The children," take two drinks.

This is revised to show "Self Satisfaction" and "Self Loathing" outcomes, as well as anticipation and regret.

Maybe you could use this to chart your feelings about different foods, and thereby coach yourself into having more appropriate feelings for more appropriate foods. Especially if you had fetishes or disorders.

I really need a better title for this, and will welcome any suggestions, but here is my theory: Foods that have a flat line on the "Time Between Anticipation and Regret" scale are better for you. It's kind of like that Victorian idea that you don't want to overstimulate yourself or you'll go crazy. As you can see in this chart, in the case of donuts, there is a very steep curve going from perhaps not even thinking about a donut to "I really want a donut!!!" and from there to "O! why did I eat that donut?"

With carrots, on the other hand, it's a pretty flat line. Most of us are neither all that psyched about eating a carrot nor sad we did so. If anything, maybe there should be a little uptick at the end because we are pleased with ourselves for having eaten the carrot (and I should change the high end scale from "Anticipatory" to "Anticipatory/Satisfied"). I'm not really much of a chart person, and it's a work on progress, but I'll bet I could sell a few diet books based on this concept.

Maybe you could use this to chart your feelings about different foods, and thereby coach yourself into having more appropriate feelings for more appropriate foods. Especially if you had fetishes or disorders.

But for now, I join Spine in saluting the carrot!.

I haven't blogged about the Superfund Site lately because I haven't been spending much time there (not like the good old days), but Erin and I visited the other day and it's still there! There was some nice fresh graffiti.

Cousin Nathan recently reminded me of the Hipster PDA and improvement over the actual (and the soon-to-be-if-not-already-defunct actual PDA). This made me think of the logical next step, which is the Handster PDA (I'll have to think of a better name, since this one is, of course, already taken).

Now, if I could only patent "a method of writing reminders in ink on one's own hand" -- which, given the leniency of the US office, is not as ridiculous as it sounds -- I'd be a billionaire!!

Better yet, how about a dogster PDA? In which you shave a reminder on the side of your pet? Or maybe implant a series of LCD lights that could be programmed to spell out things like, "CALL YOUR MOTHER." Possibly even as directed by your mother herself using the internet and Bluetooth. Now THAT would be great.

Tim writes in from an organic farm in Vermont with this idea:

"multicolored edible organic prefab housing, green for spinach, red for strawberry, blue for blueberry, yellow for cheese, or even multi-layored like a gob-stopper! environmently friendly and fire retardent of course. like edible lego's. i guess it is a little short sighted cause eventually you would eat yourself out of house and home."

That sounds like the kind of thing that would go over very well in parts of Oregon, too. Rats might be a bit of a problem, but I know Tim likes rats. We inherited our pet rat, Rattie -- or Maude, depending on who you asked -- from Tim back in the 1980s. She was adorable and very entertaining. I've been looking at all these Hamster websites lately, thanks in large part to Cute Overload, and it brings back the rodent love.

Anyway, thanks, Tim!

And I'm going to do it all in ONE day! Well, some of it, anyway.

These are some of the search terms that google analytics tells me brought people to marysgreatideas in the last week:

• office+manager+wears+leather+pants

• people named 'stinky'

• hillarious+murder+ideas

By now I think most of my "American Inventor"-inspired readership will have moved on, but I've been glad to add Inventor Underground to my own reading, especially the list of inventions -- it's kind of like a sincere Halfbakery. There's been quite a bit of chit-chat, speculation, and word-ads at this American Inventor blog, and here's a particularly bitter (some might say paranoid?) view on the show.

Which premiers on March 16.

Kathy and her friend called me one night from a bar to tell me a couple of ideas. It was late, and I've lost my notes, so the only one I remember is a new form of excercise called, "Pirates" (pro-nounced, pi-ROT-ees) You do excercises like "swab the deck" and "walk the plank." Brilliant.

As is often the case, the only real competition for the word space, "pirates + pilates" is Halfbakery.

(Kathy -- email sometime and remind me of your other ideas and your friend's name so I can credit her.)

I lost his own articulation of this idea in the hard drive crash of aught six, but I think I can describe the first one:

Pleasantly-scented keyboard cleaning compressed air.

So that when you clean the dust out of your keyboard, you also get a nice whiff of something or other. I'm all for more pleasant scents. My only concern is, would whatever makes the air smell good stick to your keys?

I'll use Justin's words to describe the second:

"Lots of people can’t whistle, but crave the benefits that come with this skill: having dogs and children respond to you, participation in wolf-whistling at construction sites, etc. Why not have a device that whistles for you?"

But isn't that just a whistle? Or would it be specifically a wolf-whistle?. I'm afraid that's already available -- which just goes to prove it's a good idea, I always say.

Here are some instructions on how to whistle.

Everyone is talking about the exciting new Samuel Jackson + snakes vehicle, Snakes on a Plane, and personally, I can't wait! (It looks like it comes out the day after my birthday.)

I think it's a great idea because:

1) The title, pitch and plot are exactly the same.

2) I can imagine awesome sequels combining two or more phobias, e.g.,:

• "Spiders in an Elevator"
  
• "Needles in a Crowd"
  
• "Germs in a Hospital"
  
• "Dog on a Ladder"
  
• "Public Speaking on the High Seas"
  
• "Gay People at Night"
  

I look forward to wonderful things from Sean Guttierez (perhaps, if we are lucky, a follow up to She Creature?)