Free Idea Factory

Watching Fish Fight

This wasn’t always the case, but, I noticed that lately the names showing up as the “Sender” in my Spam folder have evolved away from the ridiculous and towards the pretty kick-ass if you’re writing a book, short story, or play and need character names. Here’s what I have in there right this second:

Elizabeth Haskins, Leroy Whittaker, Mavis Darling, Brian Bergman, Rosetta Moore, Rachelle Burkett

All prime candidates for characters, I think.

The Cranky Cats

Last night I thought of a cool book form that would be perfect for a long manscript of poems that ranged from the very short to the very long (gee, think I’m reading a mansuscript like that right now?). The book would have a custom trim such that the cover and beginning pages were small, even tiny, and it would gradually flare out (a diagonal cut rather than a vertical cut) until reaching full-size.

Side view of a normal book looks like this: |_|

Side vie of this book would look like this: /_\

So, from a top view, instead of being a rectangulare cube, it would be closer to a flat topped pyramid.

An automatic rebus-maker that takes arbitrary texts as input and then converts certain words to pictures that have been pulled from Google images and then re-sized to fit the format required by the chosen font.

A series of art pieces specifically designed to be submitted (and hung) in group shows. The pieces would perform, as purely as possible, nothing but to recontextualize the pieces hung on either side of it. For example:

Two swoopy arrows, one that ends up pointing left, one that ends up pointing right, the title of the piece (or perhaps incorporated right into the piece) is: the one to the left is awesome, the one to the right, not so great.

An image of a person making a disgusted face. Title of the piece (or incorporated into the piece) is: eew, why do I have to be across from that piece?

Other phrases possible (I’ll leave the working out of the accompanying image as an exercise for the reader):

• Definitely the best piece in this room.
• Some of us may be upside down, I’m not naming any names, but, look at the one on my right.
• The jury was really sleeping on that one three over, don’t you think?
• What’s a nice piece of art like me doing in a place like this?
• They only put me here because the artist left of this can’t stand the artist right of this. And vice versa. Oddly enough, they both like me.
• The first piece in the show is always the best. The last piece is always the one that makes the least sense.

The Sticky Pickles

A laminated business-card sized piece that contains the convention city’s most common (basic) menu terms defined and translated into the major conventioneer languages. Terms like: vegetarian, beef, pork, chicken, etc. would help visitors navigate menus. Recently I was in Germany for two weeks, and when you travel on business you eat out for pretty much every meal. There were quite a few terms in each city I was in that kept appearing, and I would eventually learn them, over time, but having a cheat sheet would have helped a lot. There’s a core set of terms that every city shares, but then there’s also a specialized set of terms that’s unique to every city. Maybe one side of the card is general and one side is city-specific. Philly has cheesesteak lingo (wiz wit?), Scrapple, etc., Chicago has deep dish or thin crust, italian beef or combo (you want that wet?), Dusseldorf has Lieberkase which has neither liver nor cheese in it, even though it translates to livercheese, and the list goes on and on.

Cards could be printed in large numbers and sold by the convention centers, as well as by restaurants popular with conventioneers. Many shows it might even be profitable to have a booth at the show that sells the cards to attendees as well as exhibitors. Lots of potentional ways to bundle/package/market them. Heck it could even be a promo item for a company that offers translation services.

Examine Your Addictions

not really spam i hope, just sending out compliments and friendly e-mails to friends. i find i get so much spam and rejection e-mails or sometimes cruel retorts from people that it would be great to receive regular positive e-mail. maybe it’s something one could sign up for. sorry i haven’t had any new ideas to share for ages. i’m surprised how fast time passes.