From the new west blog: another First annual new west contest
Call for Entries (New Invention Category)
By Jill Kuraitis, 5-30-08
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Every now and then, we must briefly put aside our intense thinking about global problems. We don’t want to spend too much time on trivialities, but gosh - the stress of trying the fix the whole magilla of world ills – we need a teeny break, don’t you think? You do.
Consider then, we poor surburbanites. The methods used for the awful chore of spring cleanup haven’t changed much since the Eisenhower administration. Well, okay, maybe they have – recycling pickup comes to mind - but certain key problems remain unsolved.
This is our call for entries in the First Annual New West Best Spring Cleanup – (New Invention Category) and the winner, decided omnipotently by me, will get a one-year free subscription to the New West Magazine and a shot at a Vegas weekend with George Clooney and his posse. That last part was a lie.
But we DO need some clever inventors to step in. If your idea is accepted, funding isn’t guaranteed, but you never know.
Here, then, are some of the ideas I put forth for further development, modification, or ridicule. Use them as a jumping-off point, ignore them and come up with your own, or just snort your coffee at the computer screen. Entirely up to you. Here we go:
CORDLESS HOSE. Wrestling those STUPID, kinked-out, twisted pieces of crap into a neat coil is like taking down an alligator. I want a nozzle I can water the garden with by itself, like a cordless phone.
GUTTER ROBOT. Cleaning out gutters full of pine needles, leaves, feathers and fuzz requires serious ladderage, and someone to spot you while you try to scrape out the goo. I’d like a little remote-control robot, like a miniature front-end loader, to push the gack out at the touch of a joystick.
INSTANT GARBAGE CAN CLEANER. Please, can we have a condensed, biodegradable pellet to throw into a garbage can, add water, and watch it foam out every stinky trace of filth and bacteria? Extra points if it spills out the top and does the outside of the can, too.
DOG HAIR DOG SUCKER. Will someone invent, please, a jet-engine powered chamber, like a dog kennel, wherein you can shove the hairy beasts and have the dead winter fur completely sucked off them in 10 seconds, thus avoiding the spring blowout which is now lying in the corners of the kitchen floor? Extra points for near-bald results on Huskies, Corgis and Golden Retrievers.
THOUGHT WEEDER. I want to stand in my garden with a cup of coffee, look at the weeds, and have them just KNOW I want them gone. Extra points if you can make them wave buh-bye as they shrink up and croak.
Okay. I have thrown down the gauntlet. What are you going to do about it, huh? Huh?
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Comments
Already here. http://www.irobot.com/sp.cfm?pageid=354
Cigarette smokers' helmet. Covers the entire head with a snug fit at the neck. They get to inhale all their first and second hand smoke. Phone now and get a 10% discount on any future lung transplant.
Unlike your satellite, though, this hot little baby would rotate, pivot, and otherwise target various lawn irritants (dandelions, dog poo, the neighbor children, other varmints). With the touch of a button -- ZAP -- your lawn problems go up in smoke.
A couple of add ons:
~ an "autopilot" that targets and zaps the unsightlies when you're away from the house.
~ a "spray mode" attachment that will spread the laser across the top of your lawn to mow it sans mower.
~ a radio device that automatically signals your sprinkler system to come on when using the laser during high-fire danger season.
Aaron, what do we who have cable do? Is there an alternative source of energy for the Lawn Laser, which is an inspired idea?
Oldschoolnewwester, beam technology sounds perfect, if you're sure we wouldn't get neck injuries.
Tara, that's brilliant. No streaks, right?
Winter from my aerie is snowy and still; summer is green and full of life. A magpie arrived this spring and objects to the cat that has stolen his black and white gang colors. The bird shadows the cat much of the day, taunting and jabbering at it. The cat half-heartedly climbs a tree after the magpie, knowing the bird will soon fly away. Children play sweetly on the swings nearby, not yet in junior high and old enough to carry weapons.
I look forward to the riot of pink blooms during apple blossom time. Early in the morning, I throw open the balcony door to the spring breeze and remember the cool summer mornings of my Minnesota childhood. Late afternoons, I revisit the Peace Corps in Africa under the blast of the western sun. I can relive much of my life each day through the temperature extremes of a Boise spring.
Just one thing is missing from my practically perfect digs: a Neighbor noIse eXcluder, a “NIX”. Pink apple blossom time is also the opening of Window Season. Every evening the downstairs neighbors return home after nursing hurt feelings, imagined slights, broken hearts, and crushed dreams for eight hours at their respective jobs. They are game for another round. They open the windows and drown out the children playing and the magpie taunting the cat. The arguments continue into the night.
Shouts and shrieks wake me from a deep sleep into a cold sweat. My lizard brain is awake first, trying to protect me from the danger, but what is it? A saber-toothed tiger? An earthquake? A fire? The rest of my brain awakens and discovers that it is almost midnight. There is time for another round of neighbor vs. neighbor before I fall asleep again.
My NIX Noise Collecting and Canceling System would collect “YOU DID TOO!”, “I DID NOT”, “YES, YOU DID!!”, “NO, I DIDN’T!!”, “DID TOO!!!”, “DID NOT!!!” and turn it into birds chirping in the rustling palm trees outside my beach house on Kaua’i. In the background, ice cubes clink in the gin and tonics on the pool boy’s serving tray.
My NIX would collect the names and obscenities the neighbors hurl at each other and turn them into…you know that bird that’s always singing in the background in Discovery Channel shows about the wildebeest crossing the Mara River? That place where the crocodiles eat the wildebeest that don’t break their necks careening down the steep slope into the river or get trampled scrambling out the other side? Those birds with the crazy cascading song that sounds like Curly in the Three Stooges? They really exist! My NIX would turn the names and obscenities into their song, filling my apartment with melodies of the African Bush.
And the roar of race cars, the BLAM BLAM BLAM of small weapons fire, the RATATATATATATAT of machine guns, and the KABLOOOM! of heaven knows what from their video games would be turned into the ebb and flow music of a Colorado River rapid, lulling me to sleep after an ABC (Alive Below Crystal [Rapid]) Party on a river trip through Grand Canyon.
I would pay extra for an add-on that would replay the collected bits for the neighbors at random times during the night, at full volume.
To complement my NIX, I would also like a GREAT (Give me moRE of thAT) System that would create more of the neighbors that grill fragrant steaks on summer evenings, then send over a plate of food later. I could do with several more of the neighbor across the landing that brings over the World’s Best Potato Salad, Out of This World Stew, and chicken breast with bread crumbs cooked just so. And I would not object to more of the refugee family that not only feeds me home made bread, fried meat and rice dishes, and apricots, but also lets me spend evenings sitting on their couch watching TV in a language I do not understand. It will have to do until I can get my NIX installed.
I want a vole mulcher. When the snow banks leave in the spring, my yard looks like a Rand McNally atlas for rodents, including restaurants and museums. They've turned my dog into a serial killer, and she does it not for profit or fame, but just for the thrill of the kill. All I find is saliva coated corpses littering the lawn. Tried the hose method, but have you ever drug a hose over two acres, through trees, and came up five feet short of the target? I want something I can set out at night that will suck up the vermin and turn them into instant fertilizer (dust to dust like) and direct it at my carrots and brussel sprouts, which the vermin completely finished off last fall before I could get the full harvest in.