Two-For-One

Redundancy
When I was a kid I had an idea for a washing machine that automatically dries the clothes. It seemed so obvious to me, and I was sure that it would be mass produced and raking in money for someone before I could even tell anyone my idea. It’s been years, and every time I look at those two hunks of metal and plastic I wonder why it still hasn’t happened. One of these machines can cost thousands of dollars, and you’re telling me I need to buy two of them? If you look at a modern washer and dryer, you’ll see that they’re identical. They have the same size compartment and the same moving parts. With all of our modern technology and brilliant minds, how have we not combined these two redundant appliances? Are all the world’s scientists and engineers too busy to find time to shove a blower into a washing machine?

The creepy car

I’m no fan of Halloween, so it’s merely a coincidence that I’m sharing a scary story at this time of the year. Brace yourself and prepare to be frightened.

I had just exited walmart and walked up to my car. No sooner had I gotten inside and turned on the engine than I noticed the small red car in front of me creeping forward. It kept creeping and creeping slowly forward until it was so close to my car that there was no chance that I could get out of there without at least a poke at my bumper. This “creepy car” as we’ll call it, wasn’t exactly the shiniest car in the lot, to say the least. This made me fear that they maybe didn’t have the greatest insurance plan, which is kind of a scary thought. Inevitably the two cars made contact. An interesting note is that since both cars were red, any exchange of paint would be unnoticeable, which could be a good or bad thing. Luckily though, my license plate sticks out far enough that no layers of paint were laid. Well none that I noticed anyway.

You might be thinking that’s not so scary. But that’s not the scary story. The scary part is that as I watched the creepy car creep towards me, my life flashed before my eyes. And that’s a scary story. (If your idea of scary is unbearably boring.) To give you an idea, most people would shriek and run away if my life was flashed before their eyes.

Which leads me to my newest invention, the Flashlife ™. It’s a simple device like a flashlight that projects a series of images at undesirable life forms, flashing my life before their eyes. It’s more effective than pepper spray, and more convenient than explosives (and less illegal). I might use it tomorrow night to keep away any zombies or Frankensteins that wander up to my door. And to get back at that creepy car.

Jump

I just heard about the new cordless jump rope. It’s supposed to help clumsy people from tripping on the rope. It definitely sounds like a solution to the problem, but I’m wondering what a “jump rope” should be called without the rope. Just “jump”? But then if you only pretend to jump over the pretend rope, you don’t even need to jump. So if there’s no rope and no jump, what should it be called?

Uninventing the wheel

On my way in to work this morning, I had some good time to think as I dodged all the potholes. And I wasn’t just pondering about the usual life and love and why. What I asked myself was… When are they going to invent those cool hover cars we see in all the movies? I don’t know how much more of these crumby roads my car tires can take. I mean lets face it, the wheel was a nice invention in it’s time, but I think cars can do better without them. That’s why today’s mission is to put the wheel in the museum. Besides not having to worry about all the potholes, neither would traction be an issue, because the car doesn’t touch the road in the first place. The only obstacles we would have to overcome would be…well gravity for one. Everybody else can have their bumpy rides and slippery roads, but anyone who knows me knows that I don’t think the same way as everybody else. Okay, so maybe I don’t think at all. Yeah, I know this one is just as crazy as all my other ideas, but this one’s gonna work I’m tellin ya…

Can’t you see that I’m blind?

I’m squinting as I’m writing this, so sorry if I make a typo. The ironic thing though, is not that I’m not wearing glasses, but that I’m actually wearing contacts, and new ones at that. Who knows, maybe I don’t know my alphabet that well so I screwed up the eye doctor. But the dumb thing is that I don’t even know if I have them in the correct eye. The containers they were in didn’t say which one was left and which one was right. And I don’t know what all the numbers mean, but I assumed that the one with the most correction would be for the eye that’s the most blind. My eyes are so bad anyway, I don’t see why they don’t just call me legally blind and get it over with. Maybe because they don’t want to lose me as a customer?

Well I’m not just here to complain about my poor vision. I actually wanted to tell about my newest invention. You see, when people can’t see that well they can get around just fine. They can hang out with friends and have fun. They can run and jump and do most things…until they have to read something. It’s the text that’s the problem. And no, I’m not suggesting that we make everything large print. That wouldn’t help people like me anyway. So my idea is that we implant a microchip into everything that would normally be read with the eyes. Whenever you look at it, this chip would transmit a signal that would tell you exactly what it says. Here’s how it works: when you look at one of the devices, your retina sends out a distinctly unmistakable reflection which triggers the CMOS censors and sends out alpha rays in the exact direction that the retinal reflection was seen from. The signal is then decoded by a nuero-ceptor textilizer device implanted in the brain. To accomodate for the size of the device, a little more than one fifth of the brain would have to be removed. But this is not hard to overcome when one sees the benefit. Just imagine; to read a book, all you have to do is look at the cover; glance at the clock and immediately you know exactly what time it is. The technology is still in the works, so please try and be patient. In the meantime, concentrate real hard on what you’re trying to read, and remember that squinting works pretty well, except when you have your contacts in the wrong eyes.