Jukeboxes are great. Great, if you like libraries and socialized medicine. So… what I want is a jukebox that only plays the music *I* like. How? By paying more. Hear a song you don’t like it, outbid it. I mean, what do you want more: That fiver in your pocket, or that Vanilla Ice song haunting your waking moments for the rest of the evening?

Posted: February 21st, 2008 under control, money, public spaces.
Comments: none

There are many ways to deny flatulence (“not me! it was… the dog, your kids, a gaseous oder from that strange factory”). Or some people try to go for an oscar and act their way out of it: a blank stare into space, a mean glare at a coworker, an intense monologue (“Alan Greenspan did wear a dress but never to congressional hearings… but his underwear choices…”).

Well, there are probably a dozen ways to stop farting (see other posts to come this Fall), but if you want to break wind and just not get blamed, then what you need is a stuffed animal to blame it on. Now I know what you’re going to say, stuffed animals don’t fart. But they could, I mean if you can get a doll that pees, why not a doll that farts? (They could come with various scents to match the pretend meals that you give them). And once your stuffed animal farts, there’s just one more player at the table to take the blame! Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey, who farts all the time.

Posted: September 18th, 2007 under control, public spaces, sound.
Comments: 1

I wonder if there could be an inexpensive, environmentally safe additive to toilet water that would make it non-splashing. Maybe a plant-based substance that forms a thin film on the surface of the water? Then, when “object” is dropped into the water, it is safely carried down to the bottom of the pool, and nobody is subjected to a poor man’s bidet of splashing from below.

I want the news, not the weather!

Posted: August 27th, 2007 under futureNow, gear, public spaces, safety.
Comments: none

Jamie like a lot of other parents has this problem of coming up with ideas but then losing them in the wild sweeping winds that blow through our heads each day.  So here are three of hers, gathered:

Vanity blog books.  A service of printing out and binding all of the contents of a blog into a cool little book.  Something to keep or share with the non-digital set.

The Napping Lot.  A parking lot where people with sleeping babies in the car could come hang out together, maybe get a little coffee or a snack and a kiosk, or read and trade some magazines.

The third idea… what was it… it’s blown away already.  It was cool though.

Posted: August 17th, 2007 under kids, public spaces.
Comments: none

It would be great if there was a resurgance of phone booths.   I especially think it would be cool for cafes to have phone booths that people can use to talk on their cell phones.  I would definitely buy a mango smoothie at that cafe.

I would also find a soundproof phone booth useful in my house.   Can you buy phonebooths for the home?  That would be a great idea.

Posted: July 27th, 2007 under public spaces, sound, working from home.
Comments: none