MDI 73: Microwave-safe suit

The US has a new "less lethal" weapon at its disposal for dispersing crowds. It's a microwave on a truck. Swept slowly over a crowd, "the sheriff," as it's affectionately called, gently roasts demonstrators, causing their contact lenses to adhere to their corneas, causing their eyeglasses to severely burn the temples and bridge of the nose, causing 3rd degree burns wherever jewelry is found, and best of all, causing a stampede -- basically all without killing anybody, although the stampede, well, you can always blame that on the crowd. They're told to disperse, not run away. So the trampled are plausible collateral.

Originally developed for Iraqi crowd control, the sheriff, it occurs to us, would be equally effective for American crowd control, or for simple day-to-day control of its citizenry, should the need arise -- although the threat alone would likely be sufficient.

And now, because the US is also working on a portable model which can be carried by one man, effectively making him a super persona non grata wherever he goes, it begins to occur to us that these weapons could be a very very bad thing in the wrong hands, and the wrong hands are the only hands that would use such a weapon.

The question is how can we protect ourselves? We'd like to go to the demonstrations but the sheriff will be there. We'd like to go to the ball game, but what about the rogue wavers? Should we stay home?

My grandmother used to carry in her purse a rain bonnet that folded up to the size of a pack of gum. She opened it once and it sprang out like an accordion. Something like that is what is needed, only bigger than a bonnet -- it's a bonnet for the whole body -- and of course it's made out of some space-age material that protects against microwaves.

Don't look at me like that. I'm not a scientist. I'm just an idea man. Obviously microwave safe materials exist, we use them all the time. All I'm saying is one that's flexible. Then they can wave us all they want. We'll just wave back. Until they start shooting us.

I don't know what the defense is against the sheriff, but if you look at the truck, it appears that the beam is bouncing off a metal plate. If that's true, and microwaves can be deflected, that could mean a shield could bounce the microwaves right back at the sheriff, and of course anybody in between who happened to have not had the foresight to bring a microwave bonnet in their purse or back pocket.

Ray guns. Can you fight ray guns with ray guns? I wonder if it's wise. Here's to a less lethal future.

Also published in Apologist CW Fisher.

MDI 74: Handheld one-handed hand clapper

Tired of clapping at graduations and political events? Hands raw from too much ovating? Get the handheld one-handed hand clapper, which lacks only a prototype and financing, and you'll wonder why nobody came up with it sooner. I see it as a simple device that makes a clapping sound when it's waved back and forth. Another MDI.

Originally published in CW Fisher's Paragraphica

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MDI 75: Faux fronts

Geneva, Illinois is a well-preserved river town with darling old homes that have plaques, so it came as a surprise when my hand gently rapped against a brick wall and I discovered by its hollow knock it was foam, not brick, but foam. Utterly fake in fact, phony as can be. And it's ubiquitous. Those mansions? Foam. They weigh nothing. Fancy archways, foam festoons, faux Roma, Olive Garden everywhere. Durable, cheap, lightweight, capable of assuming any form, foam could be the answer to affordable housing for seniors. It's fully insulated by nature, quiet and odor-absorbing, plus it's the perfect housing for tornado alleys and earthquake faults.

Originally published in CW Fisher's Paragraphica

MDI 76: Baby bundlers

People that think doctors are so smart are encouraged to look back a few years when they were sticking their fingers in President McKinley's bullet hole and making new holes as they went; when they used to chop off a man's leg with farm implements or any old thing available without even wiping it off first, and no anaethetics nor none of that hand washin' hocus neither--just hot water and towels, and the water's for coffee. No doubt today's doctors run cleaner, but they've been so abused by the pain relievers they meant to give the patient that they've become sharper than humanly possible, which leaves them intensely focused on subjects they can't recall--well, you try coming off Provigil without Vicodin, and/or vice versa. Anyway. Preemies. Used to be the ittybitties were placed in a vast, transparent chamber to be comforted by wires and tubes and soothed with bright light, isolated from human contact, nuzzled through latex, starved of their mothers, absent her heartbeat. Doctors, perhaps trained so well they couldn't see the obvious, struggled to discover why preemies had such a high failure to thrive, never putting it together that all infants, especially premature infants (one would think) have strong desire to return to their womb, having recently been evicted and not knowing yet that time heals about everything, but it takes time, centuries in the case of Western doctors. Infants, to everyone's enormous surprise, like to be held tightly. The clue came not from watching or listening to preemies thriving failures, but by observing the kangaroo, which births its baby early, then pops it in the to-go pouch. From that they came up with a strap device and began a revolution that's been commonplace in all ancient and present civilizations except those of Anglo-Saxon origin, not to be saxist. So bundle them babies? Couldn't hoit. Okay, it could, taken too far, it could, all right.

Originally published in CW Fisher's Paragraphica

MDI 77: Window baby barriers

Imagine this: it really happened. Woman comes in, all shook up, she runs a hotel, night manager. Gets a phone call. Baby fell out of a second floor window, right through the screen. Second floor. Baby's fine. Horrible thing--common too, I bet. How many children fall out of windows like this every single day? Here's the product: I made it up: I'm calling it Baby Don't Fall. I was going to call it No, No, Baby, Oh My God No Don't Fall, but it felt long. Just $19.95 for three Baby Don't Fall brand products, the design of which could go in a few different directions: a) foam blocks that fit snugly into the window requiring no tools to install, provided you have the correct window type, otherwise you'll need a contractor and a retrofit and a grant to pay for it once this thing gets out of class action and makes its way through the Supreme Court, buster, or b) an electrified design that produces in the child a tingling, warming sensation--make that warning sensation--although warming's appropriate too. These are just ideas.

Originally published in CW Fisher's Paragraphica

MDI 78: Pandemic defense system

This may sound crazy but I'm all panicked out on the whole bird flu thing. The front part of my body is all calloused from running smack into trees. This must have been their plan all along at the World Health Organization. Who but the WHO could scream "We're all gonna DIE!!" so loud and so often, only to be ignored utterly, time after time? Those poor boys crying wolf, taking us for sheep. Bah, we say, but! Sheep we are and shall be when the wolf's at the door! Since we know the spread will rise geometrically through airports, why not make a vaccine in misted form that gently fogs the automated walkways that connect terminals? Fumigation would insure everybody gets dosed, and quick, thereby stopping the epidemic before it hits the vertical exponential curve.

Originally published in CW Fisher's Paragraphica

MDI 79: Disposable keypad

Most adults understand that disease bearing microorganisms come out of their own butt. Those who didn't know this, do now. It is failure to wash after wiping that puts a little piece of us on everything we touch. Lightswitches, door handles and telephones are all likely places to form a teeming metropolis of microbes like dangerous E. coli, and every tiny, turd-shaped coli yearns to return to the bowel from which it was born. Now imagine your keypad. Or don't. Just look at it--and know that inside those dark ruts and cracks lurks you--the very worst of you you have to offer. Is it riddable, this stuff? Yes, says the Chicago Sun-Times. Put your keypad in the dishwasher as the lowest heat, delicate cycle, and let it air dry for a few days. A few days. Sun-Times must be low on news. Maybe they had backups. It's not important. They reported it works. But I say it couldn't have worked, because they didn't use the bleach--if they'd a used the bleach, then it would have worked, but it would have ruined the keypad, which was filthy anyway and should have been thrown out a long time ago anyway--along with every last disease infested sponge in the city, which is basically every sponge that's ever been used once. Can an industry be born of pure paranoia? Sure! It's time to think disposable keypads-- KleenPadz! Flat, easy to keep clean, it's a fullsized touchpad, ridged in the right places for easy navigation and sure footing; of course it's wireless, and cheap, and built to last no more than two weeks, at which point it's upgraded which kills any older versions, but! you'll say: "Look Ma! No more E. coli!" KleenPadz! Why wipe ever again?


Originally published in CW Fisher's Paragraphica

MDI 80: Moveable nipples

Do your nipples point the wrong way? Are they looking down instead of up? Are they staring at your elbows? Do you have trouble achieving erections? Now there's a cheaper alternative to breast enhancement surgery. Nippits, a product I just made up, comes with a padded bra to hide the actual nipple, plus two Nippits brand artificial nipples with velcrotype stays. This allows an older woman to place her nipples several inches higher than they actually are, perfectly recreating the timeless illusion of bouyancy she and so many others enjoyed in her youth. Got small breasts? Try our magnum nipples! Higher than a half inch tall atop an extra two inches of engorged aereola. Perky midsize models and Sprawlin Mama's also available. Millions of women will soon be saying: Gravity's not the boss of me. Nippits.

Originally published in CW Fisher's Paragraphica

MDI 81: Personal Flysuit

California falls into the ocean. what do you do? what do you do? Quick, got to be quick--you're already dead, see that? Dead. Because why? Because you didn't work the plan, because you didn't have a plan. Don't feel bad. Nobody else has one either. Fortunately nobody talks about the San Andreas Fault anymore, so it's not an issue, until it happens. But what if you could take an ultralite aircraft and make it wearable, like clothing, only you wear it all the time. Oh, they'll laugh at you, at first, but when you press a button on your belt and you suddenly have a wingspan of 22 feet, they'll back off, but they'll probably still laugh at you, because, face it, people are cruel. But will they laugh on that day when the earth turns to sea, will they laugh as they watch you rise above the moiling catastrophe, sailing east to the shores of New Denver, disappearing to a dot? At this point, who cares if they're laughing at you? They're dead. Damn it. You could have saved millions of people by designing, building and training the first generation of personal flyers in snap-a-wing flysuits with wingspans so enormous they can rise on a sneeze, a slight push of the knees: step off a curb, you're off. Then when the left coast finally tumbles down, Californians, like crows, will rise to become one gigantic black cloud, swarming with people screaming at each other to get out of their way. And, if the wind's right, this terrible cloud will make its way east. East, to new lands, to settle, repopulate, fool around, live a little. And then, when they're suddenly invaded by the Rockie Islands, then they'll be glad I came up with this. They'll say, "Honey? Where's the Snap-a-Wing?"

Originally published in CW Fisher's Paragraphica

MDI 82: Silent motorcycle

I know a guy, completely deaf, got the loudest Harley ever heard. Every piston stroke is a shotgun blast. But it's the only thing he can hear, so everybody's real supportive, plus he's large. As for the rest of the folks who like their bikes loud, I've always wondered how it's possible to be so publicly obnoxious and so obviously oblivious to what's going on between their legs. Is it arrogance on purpose? Or are they lost in the thrill of a whole-body sonic-vibrational realignment? Me, I want a silent bike, no sound made whatsoever. Can't hear me coming or going, and only barely between. When I go by I go fa, that's my sound: fa. Just me and the wind. The wind which is too loud, way too loud the faster you go, which is why the earplugs. Me, on my motorcycle, going fa.

Originally published in CW Fisher's Paragraphica.

MDI 83. The Fly Eater

CW FISHER
Flies are embarrassing and shouldn't be on you. They're ill bred. They eat poop and land in your soup. Yet your choices in their eradication have been limited.

You can clean up their spawning areas--effective but laborious; swat them with a flyswatter, which is only somewhat more efficient than big game hunting; or you can zap them with a bug zapper, an entertaining way to pass an evening, but the least efficient method of bug killing known to Man.

There's a better way, and I like to think it was invented by a friend of mine, Dave Elders, who owned a small farm and a few dozen pigs in Yuba, Wisconsin. He had flies too -- thousands -- but they all went away -- presto! -- thanks to Dr. Dave's Fly Eater, the first wholesale flying insect drowning machine.

Here's how it works. An insect flies into the barn, or even your kitchen, attracted by odors but distracted by a black light. Unable to not check it out, Mr. Insect makes right for it. Just as he arrives, he's caught in a tremendous downdraft and splashes into water. Quite a ride, he thinks to himself, and figures he'll walk out and move on. But on taking his very first step he sinks all the way to the bottom where he joins Ernie and Alonzo and Singreta, all bug-eyed and dead on a pile of other disappeared ones -- his last thoughts. Horrible.

Yet effective. For those who missed it, here's all Dave did: put a black light over a tub of water, put a low fan over the black light pointing down. In the water, put a few squirts of liquid detergent to eliminate surface tension. Absent the possibility of swimming, the bugs drown.

Quick, easy, and best of all, no bugs live to tell the rest. They simply disappear.

We can't vouch for its success with other flying varmints, such as mosquitos or autumn bees, nor can we comment on the fate of others attracted to black light, such as Jimi Hendrix fans, but we can say this: there's no evidence more certain than a tubful of drowned flies.

Here's the million dollar idea: Put it anywhere flies are. Make three versions: a portable unit, a room unit, and a system of units for whole buildings. Make it visible to bugs but invisible to humans. Make it self-cleaning and maintenance free (except for changing the bulb). Keep the bodies as proof it's working. Give to the Cub Scouts!

MDI 84: A Silent Computer

The only thing a computer can't do is shut up. All this great technology and the only way to cool it is with a very loud, very cheap fan? Many times we've considered cutting the wire, but it's the old question: the red one? or the green one? Months ago, a professor at Brigham Young University had success with antinoise: by producing sound waves exactly out of phase with the fan, they were able to cancel the drone. That's the last we heard. Sick of waiting, we offer this tip to the desperate: remove your CPU to another room, making a three inch hole in the wall for cords. That'll do it for now. To the researchers we offer the following: forget quieter fan designs and antinoise algorhythms. Think coolant gel in a permanently sealed, two-chambered bag, continually reactivated by the rising and falling of the gel as it heats and cools.

MDI 85. Glaring Solution to Eyestrain

CW FISHER

Computers and eyestrain go together like lasagna and reflux. If you work at a computer -- and I know you do -- then you struggle with eyestrain all the time. This has made you cranky and frankly unbearable to live with. Get out.

And while you're packing, consider this: I have the solution. You won't find it anywhere else, because I discovered it myself. In exchange for sharing my secret, all I ask is that you forward The Million Dollar Ideation Project to ten people, no more, no less. And remember: if you break the chain, bad luck could befall you!

Why do your eyes hurt? Glare.

Right now you're staring at a light source that is likely brighter than the rest of the room. Glare is exhausting. The iris, which is essentially a sphincter muscle, is constantly opening and closing to adjust either to the room or the screen. This muscle gets tired. If you've ever watched an automatic camera try to decide on an exposure when it's pointed toward a window, this is pretty much what your eye is doing.

One day I got the nesting bug and started hanging pictures on the wall behind my computer. Then I found a clip light, clamped it to the back of my desk and splashed the wall with light from below. The light source was completely hidden behind the monitor.

I liked my new set-up immediately. The pictures gave my eyes something else to look at, while providing a much-needed distraction from more important things. It was clear from the start that my eyes felt better.

People began to comment. Hey, what happened to those ugly dark circles around your eyes? Hey, they put you on Viagra or something, maybe MiracleGro? Hey, you look nine pounds younger! Botox?

It's not botox! God, I'm so sick of saying that all the time!

All I did was balance the brightness of the monitor to everything else in my view. Keep in mind, though, your monitor emits light. Overcoming its direct rays can't be achieved by simply turning up the existing lights. The reason the wall-washer works is because it's an even, but very bright, reflected light, and most important: the source is completely hidden. Forget about fluorescents: they make it worse. Fluorescent light flickers and so does your screen. All that strobing flicks you up.

And now, the MDI: Design the backlighting setup, test it with a variety of heavy computer users, make it irresistably great. Here's a starting point.

A light box shaped like the letter 'C' wraps around the back of the monitor. The light source, hidden behind the curved visor, washes the walls with perfectly even incandescent light using service lamps like the ones found in your refrigerator, spaced 6 inches apart, on a dimmer. I've actually done this and can vouch. That's all you should need to wash a corner perfectly.

Remember, the key is evenness. No hotspots. Find a level of brightness high enough to "stop down" your pupil into the mid-range (make the black part smaller). Use a small mirror to find your level. The goal is to stop the eyeball from squeezing and contracting all over the place so it can rest and repair.

MDI 86. Anytime Anywhere Toothbrush

CW FISHER
You brushed your teeth this morning, then you had two donuts, a large coffee with cream and sugar, more of the same, followed by a Whopper, fry, Coke, and now your teeth feel like they're wearing corduroy coats. You long for a toothbrush.

Here it is. Take a piece of tissue, toilet paper or paper napkin, ball it up to the size of a quarter, and press it against the outside of your top molars. Allow the paper time to settle into the crevices, so that it makes a good reverse impression. Give it a tiny twist back and forth to work it into the gum line. Now, slowly and firmly wipe downward. The sticky stuff on the tissue is plaque. Feel your tooth with your tongue. It's slick, like you just brushed. Repeat if necessary. Do your whole mouth, including the inside tooth surfaces. Chew some sugarless mint gum and you'll swear you just brushed. Your teeth will be brighter.

Yes, but your breath still stinks!

Stick out your tongue -- it's white. You have an image in your mind of what that white stuff is microscopically, and you don't like it a bit, you want it gone, out of there, but you don't know how, and anyway you're at work.

Bonus MDI. Get yourself to a coffee bar and grab a wooden coffee stirrer. This is the John Deere of tongue scrapers. For best results, scrape, wipe, scrape, wipe, etc. The napkin provides your brain with documentary evidence of the efficacy of the technique. A mirror will reveal your tongue is pink. You'll smile wider and think better thoughts. You may choose to spontaneously kiss someone in the elevator, earning you either an exciting new relationship with a member of the opposite sex, or a black eye and a lawsuit. As always, choose wisely.

As to how this idea qualifies as a million dollar idea, especially since it involves readily available, free materials, it must be remembered that anything can be improved, packaged, shipped, marketed and sold.

MDI 87. Intent Detector

When the Pentagon bombers set off the airport metal detector, they were searched by wand, which turned up the box cutters, along with their explanation that the knives were necessary for their business. Mass murderers, yes; liars, no. Today we know better, we suppose, but who knows if we're really safer? There is no way yet to measure something that didn't happen unless you catch the guys that didn't do it.

Precrime imprisonment may be one effect of the Patriot Act but the precriminals at Abu Ghraib prison never coughed up any actionable intelligence, even after being "softened up" by all those great bachelor parties.

The tactics of the enemy are always designed to be unexpected. When we are only prepared for what we expect, we're in for a big surprise.

Currently we're interested in detecting one thing: metal. Yet any fool knows you can make anything out of plastic. The moment that weakness is exploited is the moment our entire security system fails us. If only we could screen for intent, then we'd really have something.

People who know they're about to board a plane and blow themselves to smithereens are bound to experience a detectable level of stress. What if there's a scent for that particular kind of stress? It might be so distinctive we could drop the net and end it right there.

Could the answer be a better nose? Body odor has a complex bouquet composed of several ingredients, but what if a nose with the power of Hubble could zoom deep into the molecular level of the odor to detect with pixel accuracy the undeniable fact of this passenger's intent?

Like the nose we know, the artificial nose could be trained to identify any smell on Earth including odors we haven't yet discovered. Gunpowder, anthrax, drugs, counterfeit currency are obvious applications, not just in airports but throughout our society so that whomsoever is thinking anything at any moment that we don't frankly care for, we can sniff 'em out, drop the net, haul em away, next.

Whether stationary or portable, made fearsome by sheer size or completely concealed, surely there's a smelloscope in your future. For better and worse.

MDI 88. Nanofish

There is a fish in my mind that's not a fish but a school of nanotech naval destroyers. Feeding on sunlight, they bask on the water's surface and easily evade all predators due to a gift for repulsion -- a microwave of some sort that works like an opposing magnet to keep advancing objects a few feet away -- rendering them unscoopable by sharks, unswallowable by whales, unkillable, or virtually, because, well, they're not alive.

They're the Notfish. Made likely by nanotechnology, the new science of microscopic machines and systems that are deployed in large groups to do the work of, say, viruses or vaccines, depending, these great schools of notfish could roam the oceans and easily all get the idea to find an enemy destroyer and destroy it.

It's not such a far leap that the notfish could travel faster than any living creature underwater, and probably any vehicle abovewater, using their hydrodynamic design, jet engines, deep knowledge of maps and gulfstreams, talent for cellular remorgification, plus their singleminded sticktoitiveness. An armada of notfish would be so deadly as to end naval warfare overnight, then turn it into something far worse.

Notfish will laugh at the idea they're slower than aircraft, for how fast is a jet at the bottom of the sea? Silently, unseen, they carpet the bottom of an aircraft carrier, make a few calculations regarding chemistry and current events to decide exactly when and how the target will be destroyed. They could ooze acid and melt the hull. They could harmonize in a Tesla frequency that would rattle the ship to theoretical bits. They could drill a million holes.

Or they could simply blow themselves and the ship to smithereens, which is the far more likely scenario, at least for the first few generations of Notfish. It won't take long for them to get wise. Working in parallel, the notfish themselves will likely find their own best self-preservation techniques, though this will force them, of course, to turn on their creators, as all creatures do.

Right now this is only a nightmare, but advances in nanotech applications will soon make it a reality. Only much later, perhaps long after the nanofish have evolved into land creatures, will such technologies be applied to peace.

MDI 89. Self Dentistry

The idea of do-it-yourself dentistry is ghastly. Any sensible person knows it's a bad idea to drill your own teeth. It's an idea that ought to outrage the American Dental Association. Legislation ought to be passed to ban its practice, especially as a means of staving off tooth boutiques staffed by unlicensed stylists. If this idea were to catch on and cause a lot of trouble, it would make me very happy.

In America, a person without dental insurance is a person with very bad teeth which are quickly getting worse. This is because dentists are greedy bastards who've swung deals with each other and the insurance lobbies. In effect, they divvied up all the insured mouths of America, sent the deadbeats to collection agencies, built swanky new digs, hired an all-babe cast, and now they're raking it in.

Meanwhile that poor family without insurance has three toothaches and seven obvious cavities between them. But there's a blot on their record. The didn't pay their last bill in full. It went to a third party collection agency that harrassed the poor family day and night until they struck a payment deal. How can they even think of going to a dentist?

The only way is to change the game. Let those who own a market learn the meaning of competition. Do something better and cheaper.

We should be able to get the whole kit at Walgreen's for $19.95. Or watch the demonstrations on TV and have your credit card ready. Learn how to scrape tartar, measure pockets, deep clean, locate cavities, drill and fill, inject pain medications and use laughing gas. All this for just $19.95.

And if you act now, we'll throw in "the elevator," for gently removing any tooth! Free!

I almost added an idea about government subsidies for dental health, but then I realized, no, this is America! Can't be done. Not in the land of the free and home of the brave. Here, if you can't afford it, you got to do it yourself. And if it's against the law, you either got to break the law, change the law or bite the lawyers with your nice, healthy chops.

MDI 90. Auto ID for criminal offenders

The cops already have too many advantages over all us common criminals, but there's always room for improvement. As with most of MDIs, this one builds on exisiting technologies to produce a sharper application.

Most police cars are already equipped with cameras, and most have onboard computers connected to the law enforcement database. But if a police officer wants to run a license plate, it has to be entered by hand. Just seeing a license plate with the naked eye is difficult work, even with a partner, but putting it into the computer and waiting for the result is a dangerous enterprise and so cumbersome to perform that it probably isn't performed very often.

The auto ID for criminal offenders uses both technologies, the camera and computer, to identify uncaught criminals on the road ahead. The camera, located near the cop's license plate, is in a constant scanning process, finding license plates, locking on and finding focus. The image is then translated to data through an OCR-type process, and the plate number automatically run. Any criminal on the road ahead is therefore good as bagged.

The same system could be installed along major roads to instantly track offenders or to pick out a certain plate from the mix. The roadside detectors could unobtrusively follow a fleeing perp without undue endangerment of pedestrians.

Use of the auto ID could put as much as 60% of the U.S. population safely behind bars within three years. This would go a long way toward reducing traffic.

MDI 91. A more aggressive alarm clock

How many careers have been prematurely euthanized for the small sin of missing the 7:08? What good is a snooze alarm if you keep whapping it off? Can you really be blamed for what you do when you're asleep, even knowing that whapping off leads directly to unemployment?

This MDI arose from the question: "What kind of alarm clocks do deaf people use?" Until we asked this question, we han't noticed that most alarm clocks use audio as their sole mode of sensory stimulation.

When you think about it, flashing lights wouldn't be effective, especially in daylight, and smell, unless it was really bad, wouldn't do it either -- and if it did wake you up, the smell would linger and inevitably anger you. The smell of rotten eggs, for example, delivered through a light spray of sulfur, would work, but ruin your day. The smell of eggs and bacon could work just as well, but frustrate you when you realize your breakfast is merely virtual. The goal is not day ruination, but guaranteed wake-up.

Taste could work, say a nice taste of hot mustard, but it's delivery apparatus would be costly and unwieldy, invasive and unsanitary.

That leaves touch. "Magic finger" beds found in cheap motels come to mind and fade away quickly. A massage would only put the user deeper into dreamland, while the goal is to bring them out. Therefore the solution is self-evident.

"The Poker" is what it sounds like: it pokes you. Attached to your wall or a nightstand by means of a finger-tight clip, the poker is set like an alarm clock. When it goes off, it finds you and pokes you. Pre-calbrated to locate you, the poker is attached to the end of a tri-folding arm (similar to certain desk lamps). A sensing device on the end of the poker knows when it's found you, triggering the chip in its brain to start poking in an increasingly obnoxious manner before darting back to its original position and out of harm's way. Deluxe models whistle innocently.

If after several attempts the user remains prostrate, the poker becomes a claw that grips you and shakes you. Pre-recorded messages insult you and call you filthy names. Your mother makes an appearance, weeping. You father calls you "worthless."

Still no effect? The poker hits you with its built-in squirt gun. No effect? Begin electric shock, starting on weak and quickly accelerating to a mouth-smoking jolt. This will either wake you up or put you in a coma. Knowing this, and having signed off on the necessary papers, most users will arise long before this final procedure kicks in.

MDI 92. An end to light pollution

Have you ever seen a skyful of stars swept through by a milky way so thick it could have been painted on, stars so numerous they could be grains of sand, all moving in relatives of 186,000 miles per second from light years away in patterns as vivid and crazy as van Gogh?

I haven't.

You haven't either. Not the way van Gogh saw it. Few people alive today have experienced a true night sky, not since the proliferation of the electric light began erasing the stars layer by layer until all that's left is the occasional airplane. Not the same.

I live in a small town 60 miles out of Chicago. We have no night sky. The country is two minutes away. There is no sky there either. I have driven up and down the long, wide state of Illinois and found nothing but the pale yellow glow of civilization that has slowly replaced our only clear evidence of God.

What have we done?

I want my stars back, dammit, and I need your help. I want a federal end to light pollution. I want illegal light spill to be a fineable offense that carries a penalty. I want open lights illegal; every existing light retrofit with a cowl that conceals the light source, thereby reducing glare to zero for those on the ground and preventing a significant portion of the light from spilling into the sky.

This action would quickly restore a huge portion of our night sky, particularly in outlying areas.

Tonight, this isn't happening. No one thinks there's anything wrong with an uncowled light. They're wrong. We're all responsible, but the fix isn't terribly complicated; it should be about as difficult as changing a bulb. It would create a new industry.

Companies like Best Buy and Wal-Mart could take the lead or simply have it taken from them. Light can and does invade privacy and property.

The sky belongs to all of us. We'd have it back if we just put a lid on it.

Online petitions are the next new thing, but I don't know how to word a petition. Do you?

Idea 93. Outdoor night-lights

The problem with night is darkness. The problem with outdoor lights is brightness--almost always too much. If somebody smart were to apply good lighting principles (just enough light exactly where you want it), the night time, once again, might be the right time. If only Ray Charles were here to see it...

Existing solutions have their own problems: the good quality low-voltage lighting systems are expensive, and most people place them like runway lights once they see what's involved with digging and burying cable. These systems, cheap or expensive, require regular maintenance and even extraordinary measures such as when the lawnmower locates one of your "buried" cables. There's also the risk of tripping a visitor, which can have a devestating effect on, well, the visitor, first of all, and your premiums, for another.

So we hate existing outdoor lighting alternatives, and call for something better, cheaper, longer lasting and so cool they earn the name MDI.

Here's the idea: A night light (your basic heavy-duty outdoor holiday bulb), screwed into a one-piece plastic holder that's shaped like a spike. Attached to the bulb by a standard lampshade clip is a fully adjustable opaque glare shield. Its night job is to hide the light source and eliminate glare, creating a magical effect that leads to pregnancy. During the day, the glare shield becomes a solar collector--a job it can do while napping. Because it doesn't take a lot of juice to light up one of these puppies.

Stick them in the garden, screw them near the keyholes. Where people always trip, stick in in. Wash the fence with a faint glow of light. Wash the house. Go high on the trees, the soffits. Don't forget your address numbers -- it brings down your pizza tips.

All the technology exists, and the product probably does too. What's missing is the marketing of the application.

Idea 94. Fannie Moe -- Candy for Men Only!

A few days ago in Chicago, Fannie Mae, the 84-year-old grand dame of chocolate, slowly shuffled to her door and locked it for the last time.

I am pounding the glass for my cremes. She turns not. I am pleading; she turns out the lights. I’m begging; she disappears. I spin, scream NO to no one, and set myself to finding the real killer. It doesn’t take long. I find him while adjusting the mirror in my car. He is me and I am him. We are men, and we are evil, selfish, cruel and unrepentant.

We whose ancestors knew well the fuel of love and balm of all strife domestic, who knew the power of chocolate, who had seen a single box defeat a dozen roses–– we killed her, and have therefore no right to question life in the dog house. We brought it on ourselves.

I could blame Fannie. I could say she didn’t tell us. How were we supposed to know that Fannie Mae was all about peace, love, harmony, sex? How did we know a box was worth a base? We thought it was candy! We didn’t know we weren’t supposed to be buying it for us, that we weren’t supposed to eat three at a time and shove the empty box behind the seat; we didn’t know we were supposed to buy it for women!

No self-respecting woman would allow herself to be seen in a brightly-lit, fully-glassed Fannie Mae. She might as well put on a fur coat and lie down in the gutter with a bottle. She might as well announce to the world: I’m fatter than I look—in this outfit or any other!

Hence, Fannie Mae went the way of all uneaten chocolate: she turned white, crumbly and bitter, and now is heard no more.

Despair not. Life is teeming with second chances: it’s just a little short on people willing to take them.

The ideal entrepreneur will understand that the key to moving chocolate is the promise of love. It’s a simple if/then proposition: If you buy her candy, then, then, then.

Capital is critical, because you need to swing a deal NOW, while the old lady is still liquefying. Your goal is to secure the 226 Fannie Mae locations at bargain rents and prices, as well as their old abandoned factory and some 600 old abandoned factory workers--and if you fail to offer them more rather than less money, I will write you right out of business by publishing my CANDY BY MAIL MDI.

You’ll also need enough starting capital to advertise the investment opportunity so the moment you go public you’ll be rich, rich, rich – which, as far as getting chicks is concerned, is much more effective than candy.

Under your leadership, every recently shuttered Fannie Mae in America will soon display a painted banner in its soap-up windows: COMING SOON – FANNIE MOE. Candy for Men Only!!!

The outrage of millions of women will be worth $400 million in advertising—if you take timely advantage.

You must immediately stage a protest at a store near you. Resist the temptation to overmanage the event. Just tell a few women and invite the press. By the time FOX arrives there will be traffic jams and cops. Middle aged women gone wild, exposing their dimpled bodies; men shielding their eyes; children seeking shelter in sewers.

Enter you, by limo, ushered in by cops on horses. Your driver pops the trunk and sets up your soap box. You gain four feet. They can see you now. In your tux. The guy in the limo. You must be Moe.

No Moe ! No Moe ! No Moe !

You put the megaphone to your mouth; they scream louder; it doesn’t bother you, you’ve read the MDI, you’re totally prepared. Your megaphone is a high-quality wireless mic tied into a sophisticated sound system designed by professional sound engineers so that every word you utter will be clear as Monty Hall.

You have cameras on surrounding roofs. A helicopter stands by, in case. You offer live feed. You take their abuse. You are Moe. Symbol of all that’s wrong with America.

If your sex is other than male, you will not look like Moe. In this case, you have a faux Moe introduce you. You’re Mo.

The crowd has pushed upon you. Horses have made way for more limos. You don’t wait for quiet; you wait until your ankle’s free––then calmly speak the following, exactly as written:

“I am Moe. I have come with a message to all men everywhere. You sons of snakes, you selfish stags, you deadbeat pimps, unregistered voters and other offenders at large and in our midst; you are the vast Waste of Time that closed the doors of Fannie Mae––and you will pay and pay and pay and PAY for your inactions! You will tumble twice a week or more through the doors of Fannie Moe—and not for YOU shall ye make purchase–– oh no you don’t buddy boy. You’re buying for her. Or it’s feety pajamas!”

MO ! MO ! MO ! MO! MO !

In the hysterical sea a wave of arms nearly brings you down, but you are held up by the grip of your newly devoted faithful. In a flash you realize: they will never let go. You, Moe, are now the most powerful man or woman on Earth.

Investors? You worry too much. You made the news worldwide and then made a tour of the Web in the form of hilarious b-roll which you continue to develop from similar protests across the country.

As Moe, you never come empty handed. The doors of the limos open and various chauffeurs begin passing out free boxes of Fannie Moe Candy. Distribution is fast—hundreds of boxes rain gently from the sky, carried by balloons, perfectly weighted to fall slowly.

Your unruly crowd will become instantly silent the moment their mouths are full.

The difference in volume will be miraculous, thus dramatically illustrating the power of chocolate to immediately muzzle any outraged mob of either gender.

Meanwhile, all over town, the chocolate flows, no one speaks. And then it is heard, at once by all and from all, a sound so of us and in us it is us, it is the primal om, the loudest, longest mmmm ever, a moan of unmistakable ecstacy. Even the cameramen are enraptured: you can see the effect of their chomp in the handhelds.

This is your chance to speak. Say whatever you want here. They’ll love it and agree to anything you suggest. They’re yours for the rest of your life.

It’s been 15 minutes of moaning—now they’re laughing—laughing! And chattering—blebleblebleble—and giggling, and flirting with you, Moe, like you’re a chocolate Jesus.

Meanwhile nobody noticed the fire truck filled with chocolate sauce and equipped with many transparent hoses manned by shirtless firemen who are now dribbling liquid chocolate to an unappreciative pavement. Rushing the front are a thousand women with their mouths open; one of them undresses and that’s all it takes. The presence of enough cameras is all that’s needed to make a crowd of women to do anything—even the liberated mothers of today’s pierced versions will yank it all off, having invented this sort of thing at Woodstock, especially once they notice that chocolate sauce is like tight-fitting, flattering clothing, maybe even shiny black vinyl: it covers you completely and makes all shame unnecessary. This shamelessness will be repeated coast to coast and imitated worldwide until the fad slowly dies over the course of five years, which is plenty of time for Fanny Moe’s to get up and running.

If you do it right, you won’t spend a dime of your own money. But if you are a man, you would be wise to hire a woman immediately and acquiesce to her every decision. Men don’t know beans about chocolate and never will. You can still be involved as long as you stay out of it and don’t come around without calling first. And would it kill you to bring something once in a while?

Idea 95. Better Odds of Surviving a Plane Crash

by CW Fisher (c) 2004

Institutionalized stupidity is all around us, wherever humans gather. All of us put together are blinder than any single blind person and more ignorant of the obvious than any single ignoramus.

Mimicry is the fundamental force that moves nations. Mimicry is a survival skill that manifests the id which exists between us, invisible and present as gravity.

And mimicry is the only force that explains why you and I don’t get angry every time we waddle into an airplane and squeeze our oversized buns into an undersized seat between two other supersizers.

That’s not what makes me mad. We’re all reforming supersizers; no blame. I’m making my way to the point.

The video starts and explains how to fasten my seatbelt. I'd rather have Gwyneth show me. I miss having a real person up there. I want my mom. The video goes on, the oxygen mask, how to exit the plane, and, in the unlikely event of a crash over water, the seat cushion is a life preserver. And I always wonder...

...where's the parachute?

Where the hell is my parachute, people, and don’t tell me you haven’t got one either! Should I explain how stupid this is, or is it obvious?

This is today’s million dollar idea. Parachutes on airplanes. Revolutionary! It’s in the back cushion. When you put on the seat belt, you’ve put on your parachute. Seats are designed to keep you in them.

In the unlikely event of a crash, death will no longer be certain.

Safety can’t be important sometimes and other times not. If the odds of survival are too low to make parachutes viable, then the odds need to be improved, that’s all. We did it with cars, why not planes? Because fewer people die? It’s becoming less true, but it has always been an unfair comparison; there is a loop in the logic.

Your million dollars awaits, likely on the other side of the FAA, under a government that claims to hate government, so you might want to employ a strategy of some sort for the purpose of lining pockets with the idea in mind that maybe they'll pass a law that mandates Bizbee brand parachutes. While you're waiting for that to happen, here's a bonus MDI.

Carry-on parachutes. Sold in airports, catalogs and fine stores everywhere. Anywhere paranoids gather. Excellent after market on the plane, especially in turbulence. Pillow? Blanket? Parachute?

Call it... ...lifewing... I don't know. Let's have a contest. Somebody write me.

Idea 96. QuakeFoam Cushioning Insulation

By CW Fisher, (c) 2004

Every time there’s an earthquake anywhere in the world I always see fallen down concrete. That’s what concrete does: it falls down and kills people.

If there were a layer of insulating foam, 2’-3’ thick where possible, rigid, but nonstructural, that could cushion the blow somewhat, it might save a few, or many. Hard to say. It would have to be tested.

Unless you had a really good salesman who could say something inspiring like: “If QuakeFoam saves just one life, it’ll be worth it.” Man, that job would be sold. I know people who can do that too.

Building costs would shoot up, Trump’d be pissed, OSHA’d be revitalized. Suits would fly, threats tossed back and forth, guns found, cleaned, reloaded, gloves chosen, whole bit—very exciting—but in the end nothing would happen. You know how those things go.

You think I’m joking about QuakeFoam, but I’m not. If we can get three feet on the underside of the concrete—the ceiling side—and it fell on, say a classroom… I know, it’s horrible, but stick with me—every one of these children will live. Because they collapsed to the floor they are hit by the foam which retains its rigidity in the direct hit by virtue of its flatness but conforms to the body rather easily. Its grain runs on the horizontal, making it quite easy to chip away into pieces similar to packaging popcorn, thus increasing available airspace and ease of tunneling for trouble-free escapes. Imagine an entire classroom of living children, sprung from a layer of concrete. This then be the miracle of QuakeFoam.

Now! Home QuakeFoam! NEW! Get the same life-prolonging benefits anywhere. Easy to install, and so much fun your kids will be praying for an earthquake the way other kids pray for snow. It’s all about peace of mind. QuakeFoam. Not available in stores.

Idea 97. Miracle Gum

By CW Fisher

In my bathroom is a 1928 magazine ad for Wrigley’s Double-Mint Gum which claims that chewing one piece of gum once a day for just ten minutes will maintain your youth and beauty for life.

From the gum-snapping beauties of then to the ice breathing beauties of today, I still think the giant gum companies never found the right marketing boat because they never stopped to evaluate the true worth of their product.

Gum is good. It instantly reverses bad breath. It stimulates the gums, provides a means of expelling nervous energy, fools you into thinking you’re eating, tricks you into feeling like you’re getting more sugar than you are.

Gum is also the fix for dry mouth, a common drug side effect and plague of all drug-taking peoples. Because saliva is the first ingredient of digestion, our entire system is plumb out of luck in its absence.

First to go is appetite, then nutrition, energy, immune system. Next to dry up is the old esophagus—turns dry as your drunk aunt’s turkey--it shrivels, you choke. Next stop: esophageal reflux, popular bane, easily treatable with yet another mouth-drying prescription.

You’ve been producing excess acid because you haven’t been eating enough food, so you get stomachaches. Eventually you’re diagnosed with IBS, very popular with drug store shoppers everywhere all of a sudden.

Used to be that IBS could wind you up with a colostomy bag, which is a most inelegant solution to anal loss, and a device in great need of its own million dollar idea.

Fortunately IBS is now treatable early with a new drug that appears to work but may cause bizarre writing to appear on the tummy.

Isn’t it funny how these new illnesses just seem to appear all at once. It’s almost as if both the illness and the cure are interlocking pieces of a marketing campaign.

There’s your million dollar idea. Just find a germ that makes people sick and figure out how to kill it; unleash the germ, let people freak a bit, and then show up, voila! Or make your million shepherding a civil case through the federal courts. Either way, this one isn’t my idea, so it doesn’t count.

My idea has to do with gum. Miracle Gum contains time-released enzymes that mix with saliva to coat all surfaces of the mouth and throat; these enzymes feed off plaque and food particles, eliminating the need for brushing, flossing, gargling and the general dental industry including dental music, dental conversations and dental bills.

Your mouth is now alive with hungry little buggers that really get in there between the teeth, in all those nooks and god dam crannies where the floss always rips—and then what do you do? How do you remove floss fluff? With floss? (That's an MDI for later.)

While you’re waiting for someone out there to steal this idea of mine, boycott prescription drugs and get yourself a decent pack of gum. Think of the money you’ll save; think of the creeps you’ll put out of business and all the money they won’t have anymore; think about how bad they treated waitresses and limo drivers, then imagine them in their best suit, turned rather crumply and spattered with condiments, bowing slightly as they open the limo door for you.

Yes, have another stick, and smack with your mouth open; be cocky, you earned it—you just solved the health care crisis and drove gum futures through the roof!

Idea 98. Do Nothing Exercise Machine

By CW Fisher

Exercise sucks in every way badly. Either you pay a bunch of money for a membership to a health club, which, after three visits, waits patiently for your return over the next 11 months, or you’ve blown a big wad on a machine that occupies your entire living room and is used once every July 4th when your brother’s kids come out for the fireworks. Maybe you wised up and decided to spend no money. You found your old Converse gym shoes and ran around the block, then built it up to 15 miles a day on hills—only now you need new hips.

Getting back in shape will always costs Americans more money than anybody else because we want good health to remain unattainable. This is because it’s too hard and the result is always the same: we go back to the Frito/Dorito/Tostito/Cheeto diet and we don’t want to get that yellow powder all over the handlebars. So we give up.

What America needs is the idea I’ve got: the first “Do Nothing” exercise machine. Just sit down on the comfortable chair, lean back and fall asleep. The machine takes you there with sound and vibration and minute electrical charges, infrared heat. As it senses your relaxed state, it gradually begins to work the larger muscles of your neck, back, butt and legs, massaging them at first, then gradually moving them in slow, deliberate, Shiatsu inspired movements, stretching you, working you, with no major increase in heart rate or breathing. Finally your nightmare is over.

Wake up completely refreshed. The machine could also work small muscles and chi points. Hands and feet would get their due, and accessories could be designed to handle the face. If you’ve never had a face massage, you need one NOW.

Here is a machine that would never NOT be used. It would be more popular than the Lazy Boy. It should also have a cup holder and a small fridge for beer, and of course, a cabinet full of chips and pretzels, and a remote – make that two remotes in case you lose one.

Idea 99. The Hat Room

By CW Fisher

If you’re a person with a strong need to retreat from the world around you at certain times when it has never been possible, the Hat Room is for you.

The Cubicle Hat. You’re hard at work typing, surrounded by other busy people who are talking too loud, clicking and clacking, walking past, saying hello. It's taken 20 minutes to decide what to put on the re: line. Time to get the hat. It’s rolled up in your bottom drawer; made of thick felt, like a crusher, it fits snugly on your head, with a wide brim that cantilevers over your monitor, behind your chair and around your desk. Attached to the top of the hat are the “walls” of sound-dampening felt which surround you in peace, love and harmony, and the music of your choice, unheard by those around you. It is here that you'll write lilting memos, undisturbed by co-workers who may be assembled outside your “door” wondering if you finally lost it, or maybe they haven’t even noticed. You will neither know nor care. You’re sleeping.

The Train Hat. Who doesn’t enjoy sleeping on the train or a bus or a plane? It’s nice. What’s not so nice are all the people staring at you, looking up your nostrils. Your mother would tell you you’re nuts, but you’re not nuts. They most certainly are looking up your hairy nostrils, and you know it. So shut ‘em down! The Train Hat is like a baseball cap with an exaggerated brim that extends to the end of your knees. This allows you to read, sleep or play with yourself in privacy. A small reading light and a box of tissues included.

The Party Hat. Hate parties? Who doesn’t? Now you can escape in an instant, yet remain in the room to hear what people are saying about you. The Party Hat is like a graduation cap only larger – a 3’ round table top, dressed with a simple tablecloth. Half the fun is in balancing a growing number of half-finished drinks.

The Wilderness Hat. If you’re bugged by insects and you don’t like spraying poison all over your person, pop on the Wilderness Hat and let the screen fall around you. There’s even a waterproofed floor. For ice fishing, add accessory sidewalls and a small heater. Escaped criminals in hiding will especially appreciate the Wilderness Hat’s easy camouflageability.

Idea 100. A Car That's Your Best Friend

by CW Fisher

I used to have a car that said, "A door is ajar." It always startled people. Kids laughed and said no it's not. Older people too. The routine got real old real quick but I didn't know how to dismantle it, so I went through life making sure all the doors were closed just so I wouldn't have to deal with the dude.

When I discovered the pleasure of dictating text with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, it occurred to me that all the technology exists to make a truly smart car, not some Chatty Cathy with a seven phrase vocabulary but a fully-functioning co-pilot in voice and spirit with a name like "Jack" who understands you when you ask him to do something, like turn down the heat, where's the next gas station, or find some better music, or jeez that guy with the brights behind me -- oh, thanks, Jack, you say, because Jack let loose the oil slick behind you.

Jack knows everything about you because you've taught him. You talk an awful lot to yourself in the car and Jack listens. He's picked up quite a bit. Enough to make suggestions like: "You've been late a lot lately, Curt. I've decided to move your wake-up call up by ten minutes. Is that all right with you?" Who's going to say no to that?

I've had a bad day, I'm fighting traffic, I'm explaining to the boss why it would be best for all of us if she would simply take a flying leap through the glass and freefall to her death on the street below. Jack eventually breaks in and gently changes the subject to massage. Once again I explain about the man thing and the no touching thing, but this time he surprises me. He's learned a new voice and she's got the touch. Her fingers start working my spine and kneeding my butt and stimulating my, well, I just perked right up, how's that?

Jack's no dope. He's got the onboard 'puter, of course, the maps, the net, mp3s, all that, but Jack isn't the computer, and if you called him that you'd offend him. Jack has a personality that grows as he learns what pleases you. If you like a person with wit, Jack will be that. If you like sarcasm, he'll pick up on that. He will not repeat himself; no doors will be jars. One time he might say, "Door's open, Curt," while another time it's, "Got to slam that door a little harder, buddy boy."

He's up on the news, can talk on any topic, uses synthesized speech, but it's perfect. And while we're at it, let's make him a great driver. Cruise control is proven safer, let's go the next step and make assisted steering a reality. The technology is there and has been in use for a decade in the farm industry with automatic tractors. Why not let Jack read the white line and keep us on the straight and narrow?

All this technology exists. What is lacking is a belief in the market. However, I believe that once people develop a true relationship with their car, they will pay any amount of money to keep him safe and happy, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of these relationships turn quite serious.

A relationship with a voice might sound a little sick at first, but just remember: it sleeps in the garage.

MDI 101. A Fire Curtain that Blocks Wild Fires

A few months ago San Bernardino burned down. It was called the natural result of poor forest management: basically too many trees, too close together. Fanned by the steady ocean winds, we had a natural, fuel-efficient furnace.

Watching helicopters dump their pathetic thimbles of water into the conflagration below made me want to personally order them all back home, it was so obviously futile. I rented all of Baywatch on DVD as an enticement, but had no takers.

Million Dollar Idea #101 is a fire curtain made of a yet-to-be-invented lightweight nonflammable material. Its weave is as tight as a nylon windbreaker to contain fire on one side while also serving as a wind break to further contain the fire. The curtain is folded, then rolled and deployed from a helicopter. Ground crews catch one end and unfurl it to its full 100' height and continue to unfurl it as the helicopter hovers. The trees themselves are used as posts. Special rifles shoot arrows through grommets in the curtain, carrying it to the top of the trees. Curtain segments are built simultaneously by several crews and helicopters to very quickly erect a protective wall around a city.

Fire curtains could also be placed around exclusive neighborhoods, and openings could be made for the torching of neighborhoods that couldn't afford protection. Crews will fight over who gets to use the cool arrow-shooting rifle, which could wreck everything. This may sound crazy but if you dip the arrows in poison first, it might make everybody back off a bit.

Once the fire gives up, leave the curtain up for a few years because, man, it's ugly on the other side. You don't want to look at that. Think of how nice it will be when you finally drop the curtain on a brand new meadow that used to be a forest. Just a thought.