v12.0 - Invent This

Morning folks,

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Well it is finally Wednesday. I would have to say this is one of the longest weeks I've ever seen so far. Of course, my mood has been dark and down these past couple days so that most likely contributed to it.

It is a new day, the sun is shining and the snow is melting.

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While in the shower this morning I was thinking about Inventions. No, I'm not going to start trying to invent something, but it did lead me to believe that while inventions are defined as a unique discovery, they are by no means unique.

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You've seen the television ads programs where this "BRAND NEW INVENTION" is being sold. This will change the way to cook for your family. This will change the way you wash your car! This will change your LIFE!

Then you've seen the television programs where Joe Blue states he had thought of Device X 10 years ago but didn't know how to get it out to the world. Peter Purple came up with this great idea of making a device that could slice carrots perfectly everytime. He mentioned the idea to some friends and Jake Jello overheard and immedialy went out and patient the idea. Who gets credit for the invention?

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While I'm not going to get into a moral debate on who invented what, I just find it silly that someone can come up with a great idea to benifit the human race in some way, then charges massive amounts of money to share the device/idea with the world. A few years later you get a few knock offs of the same device for half the price. No, they won't work nearly as well, but they are along the same idea and will pretty much do what you want; most of the time.

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Today I'm going to invent something. I haven't put a lot of thought into this, so bare with me.

You will need:
1 Salad Bowl
2 Spoons
1 12" length of string
1 Pencil
1 Sheet of paper

First off, tie a spoon to each end of the string. This will create a sort of Nunchuck device. If you have a child in the room, hide this immedialy, it can hurt if misused.

Take the Salad bowl and place it about 6-8 feet away from you on the floor. With the pencil write down the names of the people who will be playing this game with you. Each person will start with a score of 15.

The object of the game is to take the spoons (now attached to the string) and swing it in an arch like motion. You must get at least ONE spoon into the Salad bowl to retain your points. If you get both spoons into the salad bowl, the person who's turn is next will lose one point.

For example: Johnny, Jill and Bill will be playing this game.

Johnny goes first and thows his nunchuck spoon thingy toward the bowl. DAMMIT Johnny!! You missed entirely! Johnny now loses one point.

Jill goes next and throws her spoons gracefully toward the salad bowl. NICE THROW JILL!! She was able to get both spoons into the bowl. Jill retains her points and Bill now loses one point.

Bill, a little flustered, gets up and begins to rub his nipples yelling BIIIILLLLLLYYYYYYY. Ummm... oops, wrong musing. Anyway, Bill gets up and throws his spoons toward the gaping hole that is the salad bowl. Nice Throw Billy! He only got one spoon into the bowl so he loses no points.

The score after the first round is: Johnny 13, Jill 15, Bill 14

Make sense? Good! I shall call this game... something whitty... something cool... I shall call it .. "Spooned!"

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My friends, THAT is how you invent something. In a couple years you will see someone come out with a game that is fun for the whole family. It will be called something like "Spoon Toss" or "Spooner" or some other variation of "Spooned!". They will pacakage it nicely with plastic spoons attached by a string and a nice little bowl device that will be extreamly difficult to ever put both spoons into. They will make thousands of dollars off sales and I will be sitting back in my lay-z-boy (if I can ever afford one) and say, "Hey, I invented that!".

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Inventions change our lives everyday. Consider, if you will, the automobile, the airplane and the maxi pad. These are all things that someone invented because they felt there was a better way to do things. In a way, you could look at inventions as a sort of evolution. Someone invented shoes so they didn't have to damage the bottoms of their feet on the sharp rocks along the Red Sea. Someone invented a razor so men (and some women) didn't have to shave their faces with their belt knives or army issued swords. These are all evolutionary inventions that shape our society.

"Do you have a Microwave Steve?"

"Why yes Sher, and if you skin it when it's dead it has to release to the graveyard!"

"Really?"

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While I'm on the subject of skinning. Imagine the first people who discovered skinning. Some guy huddled behind a rock looking at a huge buffalo thinking, "Man, I'd do anything to get into that big buffalo." Of course his intent may not have been to skin it at first and I'm sure it took a couple tries to finally figure it out. The first skinning tool may have been a rock with a sharp edge or it may have been a stick used to poke holes an ripping the hide with bare hands. Who knows? All I know is now people can use guns to kill animals and sharp knives designed specifically for skinning.

Who was the first person to look at a sheep and say, "Wow, I could take that fur and run it through a spinning wheel to make wool thread!". I think sheep may have served other purposes back in the day, but I can't write about that in a general musing :)

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Anyway, beastiality aside, we have evolved with our inventions. Our lives are made easier every day with some of the gadgets that come out. Ask your parents if they had microwaves back when they were kids. I can almost guarantee the answer will be no; considering the first microwave oven didn't start selling until 1975. Prior to that they had what was known as a "Radarange" which (as you may have already suspected) was named after the first discovery of microwaving using radars. I think I touched on this in an older musing but to make a long story short, the experiment was with a magnetron tube. The scientist noticed the chocolate bar he had in his pocket had melted and he came up with the great idea of using that same technology to cook foods faster than the tradional oven. That was back in 1946.

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Anyway folks, I've educated you once again with my google skills. As I mentioned a couple musings ago, I've been having issues emailing out the musings daily because of some wizzy config issues with my maillist host. Hopefully this one finds its way to you because I know yesterday's didn't. Fear not, you can read it on my website if you'd like. I'll warn you now, yesterday was a very dark day for me, so my musing has no witty banter or cunning quips for your reading enjoyment.

Take care my friends and remember to always always ALWAYS... put one foot in front of the other when walking.

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Cheers,
Al