Since everyone is trying to revive the lost art of hand-written communication, I mentioned that someone could make a lot money by giving people the means to send more paper mail.

The V-Chip immediately suggested reviving the ancient tradition of the "You're Welcome" note - it's the classy response to any thank you note.

In discussion with The Committee, we came up with some more potential niches for stationary start-ups:

• "Wish I'd Been There"
• "Season's Farewells"
• "I'll Get Well Whenever I Damn Well Please"

No, no, you're welcome.

After dying in Ghost and getting psychic powers from Whoopie Goldberg, the Swayze discovered this amazing psychometric system.

Apparently, everyone confuses Patrick Swazye with one actor or another. The actor that you confuse with Patrick Swayze probably says a lot about you.

Here are the doppelgangers I've identified so far:

Kevin Costner

Instead of making ballon animals, Baco the Clown makes sculptures out of bacon.

With his backpack cooler full of bacon (maybe it can have a camelpack like dispenser that lets out one strip at a time) and his propane torch Baco can create a veritable menagerie of happy woodland creatures, farm animals, and house hold pets.

I'm thinking that there's some kind of metal armature - a grid with removable parts or a just a set of rods - that Baco can use to hold the raw bacon in place while he flames it.

What amazing problems (hunger? war?) would we, as a species, be able to resolve using the cognitive surplus that would be made available with this invention!

All the time spent arguing about which position a toilet should be left in, and whose responsibility leaving things in what position are, and all the time spent feeling bad about gender disagreements, not to mention the expense and possible long term side-effects of anti-depressants...

A lot of restaurants representing cultures with spicy cuisines offer dishes with a choice of heat level.

However, there is a LOT of variance in the actual spiciness of dishes at a given heat level, both from restaurant to restaurant, and even from chef to chef.

Originally I was going to propose a device that would measure the scoville units of a dish, along with a training and certification system so that multiple restaurants could offer a guaranteed comparable scale of heat.

But on reflection, the real problem is just that "hot" is ambigous.

I've been watching The Biggest Loser, and enjoying its strange combination of inspiration, disgust (stop crying already), exploitation, abuse, and crass commercialism.

I really love how whenever we see a retrospective of a contestant (every time someone is kicked off boot camp island, and once for each contestant on the finale) they have a big pants moment, where they stand behind their giant old pants and then drop them to the floor to show how awesome they are now.

Sam and I were faced with a mostly empty bowl of guacamole.

It had been very good guacamole.

There was a layer of very good guacamole around the inside of the bowl, but the chips all had straight edges that would only scrape a narrow trail of guacamole out.

At that moment Sam invented the spatulinger (although there is some dissent about the name). It's a ring that goes over your little finger, with a thin strip of rubber spatula that is positioned lengthwise on the underside of the finger, to allow the most efficient and discrete scraping of bowls.

I've been thinking about Lucky brand jeans lately. It's awesome to have pants that, when unzipped, reassure you that the crotch really is a wonderful place to be.

I think they need to diversify in a Dilbert direction. Imagine pants that unzipped to say "Suggestion Box". Or "Mail Slot".

"Making Copies". "Think Outside the Box". "Run It Up The Flag Pole".

I guess, Nike-style, you should be able to order pants that say any damn thing.

Went to the 49ers-Rams tilt Sunday. Was having a lovely time watching the SF Singletaries dismantle an absolutely dreadful St. Louis Rams squad. Great day, two teams I don't give a crap about and tailgating in the parking lot. It's winter somewhere, but it sure as hell ain't here.

I just replaced the electric socket in my office that's been busted and unusable since we moved in. AND, I replaced the dimmer switch that I busted yesterday will an ill-aimed swat at the knobby thingy on the wall. AND I managed to do it all with out shocking the living daylights out of myself. Eff yeah.