"HANG ABOUT - HERE'S AN IDEA"

The Old Girl gives me a lot of stick about my inventions and ideas for a billion dollar business. Here are some of the ideas that she has 'pooh-poohed:

COOL IDEA

PADDED TROUSERS

CAR HORNS

A SELECTION

The other day I was sorting out some framed pictures to put on the wall to replace the four that we returned to The Old Girl's cousins when they were up here. We'd had their rather large framed pictures for well over 10 years pending them getting a house with enough wall-space to accommodate them. I was very much spoiled for choice as The Old Girl has so many framed paintings and prints that we have to keep a lot in the shed. Here's where I had my new billion dollar idea;

*DOUBLE SIDED FRAMED PICTURES*

Yes, you heard it here. Some day when someone asks "Where were you when you heard about double-sided framed pictures"? you'll be able to remember that you were reading this very blog post.

The idea is that two paintings, prints or other pictures can take up the space of one and, being reversible they can 'freshen up' any rooms or surroundings in a jiffy. All it will require is:

• Stronger frames
• Glass on each side
• Mats on each side
• Stronger hooks
• Reversible hanging wire.
• Stronger wall hooks.

I think I'm on a winner here and had better get down to the patent office.

THICKER SKIN

I somehow cut my big toe today. I'm not sure how but I was outside doing some gardening and when I came inside I saw that the toe was bleeding. I hadn't noticed doing it. Bugger!

What humans need is tougher skin.
Sure we've all heard that expression 'thick-skinned as in:

The definition of thick skinned is someone who is not easily upset or insulted and who can take criticism well. An example of thick skinned is a person who is insulted and simply says "whatever, I don't care."

But I'm talking of literal thick-skin not metaphorical thick-skin.

I propose coming up with a skin cream that does the opposite of all of those hellishly expensive skin softening creams that women use.

Have you ever had a callus on your toe or thumb? Musicians get these a lot especially the silly buggers who play stringed instruments. I guess if they played their instruments with their feet as well as their hands they wouldn't have a problem with cut toes.

My idea is to invent* and market a cream that roughens up the skin on hands, feet, knees, elbows, top-of-the-head for old bald bastards, shins and any other parts that are prone to getting cut or grazed when outdoors gardening of playing sport.

I think I'm on a winner here and am accepting start-up funding from interested investors. Are you in?








* I'm the ideas guy. I'll have to contract out the cream creation to some scientific guys.

THE JOKER

The Joker is a wild card that's generally top of the trumps and beats all other cards in most card games.

A while ago I wrote a post on the hassle of carrying around a lot of debit, credit, loyalty and identification cards as they make wallets bulky and difficult to fit into pockets:

ESSENTIALS

The other day I downloaded from the internet and uploaded to my phone an App - STOCARD - which promises to store the details of loyalty and identification cards on a smart phone so that they can be used when needed by opening the App and displaying the barcode. Today I uploaded the barcodes of about a dozen cards to the App in my phone so, theoretically, I'm ready to go.

The trouble is though is that I'm a bit of a Luddite and non-tangible things and especially things 'in the cloud' don't fill me with a lot of confidence. When shopping after dropping The Old Girl off at the bus stop I used my ONE CARD at COUNTDOWN rather than risk holding up the queue behind me by opening my phone and showing the App.

My invention idea is to have one master card (not Mastercard) that has the details of all debit, credit, loyalty and identification cards one owns uploaded to it so that when shopping the debit, credit and identification requirement can be met for the transaction by the retailer hitting a keycode for the appropriate card type just before the master card is scanned.*


I think that this idea is a winner - the Joker in the pack.




* Once again I need to say that I'm the ideas person. Some kind of engineering and IT geek will need to be recruited to take care of these minor details.

"SO IT GOES"

"That's just silly. But I had a good idea today!"

So said Robert, an occasional blog contributor just before he and his blog disappeared again.

It reminded me of a scene in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 when a POW, a tramp says to other prisoners when being transported in freight-cars in freezing conditions in WW2 - "This ain't cold. I've had colder than this" (or something similar). In the morning he was dead.

Anyway I had a good idea today. As The Old Girl is coming up for the weekend I've been busy cleaning the house. I used different cleaning agents for the floors, the toilets, the showers, the bath and other surfaces. After that when taking a shower I used soap for my body and shampoo and conditioner for what's left of my hair. These were all in different containers. I haven't manufactured a prototype of the non-slip soap gloves yet so of course the soap slipped and fell to the shower floor.

As I was soaping up I thought about all of the other containers of cleaning materials and wondered why we can't just have one that suits all.

EUREKA!

My idea is to have one container of 'magic' liquid* that can be used to clean people, floors, surfaces, bathrooms, toilets - everything that needs cleaning. The magic liquid (soon to be patented) will be configured to 'know' what its purpose is when in contact with the surface or item to be cleaned**

In the past, when staying in hotels I've often just emptied all of those little containers (body soap, shampoo, conditioner, bath suds etc) into a bath of hot water as I believe that they all get re-filled from the one container somewhere in the hotel basement.

I think I'm on a winner here.

* I'm the ideas guy. I'll have to contract out the liquid creation to some scientific guys.

** See above.

NON-SLIP SOAP

I've thought about non-slip soap but have come to the conclusion that it won't be possible to make this unless the soap is combined with gravel.

It's really annoying when having a bath and trying to pick up the bar of soap that you've dropped. The little bastard always slips away and ends up a long way from where you thought it was going to be. Repeatedly lunging into the water interferes with the other things that you are doing - reading, having a cup of tea or a glass of wine, dozing etc.

I've come up with a solution that I think is well worth patenting - Velcro gloves.

Yes, yes I hear you say- there are already similar items in the market but these are heavy and created for horse riding, gardening and other active pursuits.

My idea is to combine some light surgical-type gloves with a velcro-like gripping substance on the palms.

THESE



Plus


THIS
.

And Robert is your dad's brother.


This could not only be a valuable addition to the bathroom but a serious earner for my dotage.