Creativity Wasted

Idea: Side windows of a car (and maybe also windshield) that are not actually windows, and instead are actually video screens that disguise the driver by making them look like someone else to the people outside of the car. Also: you could look like a cool person when dropping your kids off at school (and how even Eddie Van Halen's kids are embarrassed by him when he drops them off at school); a pe...

Idea: As inspired by the restaurants located above highways in Illinois, there should be groups of food trucks on some existing highway overpasses. Also: they could use carpool parking lots near highway on-ramps for customer parking, and could put barriers up on the sides of the overpass so kids can't fall onto the highway; they could vary the selection of food trucks, and the food trucks could ha...

Idea: A pillow (or possibly a car headrest) that reads your mind while you sleep (or drive), and collects and filters out useful thoughts, such as invention ideas or good jokes, so they can be obtained later instead of being forgotten. Also: mind-reading gadgets that currently exist, such as a "Jedi mind trick" floating ball toy; wondering if jokes you found funny in your dreams would be...

Idea: A museum based on the ideas that were brainstormed on this podcast, including a "Wes Wing" for Wes's ideas. Also: a few new ideas to put in the Wes Wing, including a toaster that stamps designs on your toast, a chainsaw whose speed is dependent on the volume of your screams, an alarm that wakes you up by insulting you, Bluetooth underwear, etc.; a museum/store for both silly patent...

Idea: Swim goggles to wear while exercising that use VR or augmented reality to make it look like you're being chased by a shark (or zombie or clown or whatever) to scare you to make you run or swim faster. Also: unlike a VR headset, you won't sweat in them and they won't break if you fall down; if you wore them in the ocean, you might misinterpret a real shark as a fake shark and get eaten, or th...

Idea: To see how many clowns fit in a school bus and/or for clown cars/busses to be used for public transportation. Also: lots of dark humor about clowns; environmentally-friendly clown mass transit where you replace your carbon footprint with a giant clown shoe footprint; that time a group of clowns came to a local standup comedy open mic Sherry Hoenicke ( instagram.com/hobcomedy facebook.com/she...

Idea: A horn for bicycles which is less rude than a normal bike horn but also louder than a normal bike horn to get drivers to better notice the bicyclist for safety reasons. Also: maybe you need a quiet "excuse me" horn and a loud "oh, crap" horn; tricking out a bicycle with weapons like a James Bond car; poor sidewalks, traffic, and the danger of bicycling in the city; questi...

Idea: A cell phone that is used exactly like an old-fashioned cordless phone or rotary phone so boomers who don't understand cell phones can still use the phone in nursing homes without land lines. Also: it would be better than kludging together Magic Jack with WiFi or a cell phone paired with a Bluetooth cordless phone; hipsters and recovering cell phone addicts might also want to use it; nursing...

An episode where the idea was a short story about a woman with a unibrow, but we mostly forgot to talk about the story and instead comedically riffed about unibrows the entire time. Also: the character with the unibrow could be the unwanted person who holds people together (just like the hair connecting their eyebrows); nose hair that sticks out and becomes part of a mustache; having a unibrow is...

Idea: Mini local surveillance networks where people in a neighborhood share access to their outdoor cameras with each other and use state-of-the-art software to detect gunshots, follow people from camera to camera, etc. The police wouldn't have direct access to the video, but the people could manually send video to the police if they choose to do so. Also: it is meant to be the opposite of "b...

Brainstorming ideas to slow lawn growth so you don't have to mow the lawn as often, such as pouring coffee on it, having weedwackers that come out of the ground, shocking the grass with freezing cold water, etc. Also: people in the past and people in the future will be shocked that we spent so much time and labor on our lawns; using humanoid robots to do Flintstones-like manual labor (like using &...

Idea: An app in which you electronically connect with (or match with) nearby strangers when you're in a public social venue (like a bar) so then you can more easily physically approach them to chat, make friends, flirt, etc. Also: there could be a feature to pay the stranger to talk to you (instead of buying them a beer); the app could have venue-specific features such as to join a group at a &quo...

Idea: A text editor that enables exact language translation of text by only allowing you to type words contained in a series of small language translation databases (basic words, words related to a particular business, etc.) Also: there would be no need for AI to make guesses regarding language translations; it'd take longer to write because if you wanted to use a word that wasn't in one of the tr...

Idea: To fly swarms of tiny drones with bright lights on them into tornadoes so people can easily see the tornadoes for safety reasons. Also: the tiny drones could be released from self-driving large military drones or self-driving cars; some of the drones could have audio sirens (for rural areas without tornado alarms) and some could make a line in the sky to show the projected future path of the...

Idea: For substitute teachers to work together to leverage the teacher shortage to pressure schools to let them show videos or do easy teaching instead of having to quickly learn complex lesson plans. Also: a designation after the lazy substitute teacher's name that is "the opposite of a doctorate" (ex: "Melissa Brandt, ZZZ"); getting lost in the school trying to take the stude...

A prank idea that Heather is planning for this year's April Fools Day, which is to trick her husband into thinking she got a nose ring. Also: ideas to enhance the prank, such as to make it a septum ring, make her voice sound funny, wear a full goth outfit with it, etc.; the risk of her husband liking it and wanting her to keep it; piercings and their issues, including infection, smelling bad, etc....

Idea: To build cheap sports stadiums with no upper deck and instead to surround the stadium with machines or rides to lift people up to view the game, such as cable cars, Ferris wheels, swing set swings that go straight up and down, etc. Also: drone vendors to bring food to people sitting in these machines; bussing the machines between stadiums (like a traveling carnival) based on ticket demand; l...

Idea: A social media app or filter which blocks or limits the amount of negative news stories and negative social media posts you can view, for the sake of your mental health and happiness. Also: it could display a hint/preview of a negative story with the sad details hidden behind a cute puppy photo, in which case you'd have to "click to expand" to see the sad details; the desire to sti...

Idea: A cartoon series set in a pawn shop where the items in the shop talk to each other, tell stories of their past, and speculate about their former and future owners. Also: showcasing diverse cultures, languages/accents, and time-specific cartoon/art styles based on the origin of the item; story lines such as paired items being separated, fake gold jewelry telling lies (because they're fake), a...

Idea: To try to recreate Noah's Ark on a giant ship and show the 40-day voyage attempt on a continuous livestream and a TV show. Also: it could use a modified cruise ship, a floating biodome, or maybe even a spaceship; using horses and other animals to do work (such as pulling carts full of food or poop) to allow 2 people to run the Ark; the ridiculously large number of species of beetles, the pos...

Idea: A small foldable table to be used while sitting on the toilet and that can be stored on the toilet when not in use. It could replace the toilet seat lid, replace the toilet tank lid (or mount on top of a special toilet tank lid), or be stored in a slot behind the toilet tank. Also: some items such as coffee cups can be placed on a wet bathroom sink, but other items like your phone or a magaz...

Idea: To build giant hollow mountain-sized pyramids in large cities and grow food on flat terraces on the outside of the pyramids. Also: foods which require high elevation would be grown on the top of the pyramids; they could cause rain, shade cities, and/or block tornadoes from cities (or cause a deadly veggie tornado); using the pyramids for other stuff such as "pumped storage" power g...

Ideas (both silly and serious) for foods which have additional practical uses during an apocalypse, such as inflatable bagels as flotation devices, sharp-edged foods as weapons, pop tarts as sticky notes, fruit roll-ups as clothing, etc. Also: Tom's apocalypse stash of greenhouse plastic; the problem of accumulating hair on 100 year spaceship journeys; garbage bags full of used toilet paper can be...

Idea: To convince people (for the sake of the economy) to have their prized possessions put in their coffins with them when they die so they have those possessions in the afterlife (like the ancient Egyptians). Also: avoiding embarrassing items because other people can see them in your open coffin funeral; bringing your live pets or other people with you to the afterlife; boobytrapping your coffin...

Idea: A blender/chopper kitchen gadget that conveniently mounts on the side of a kitchen sink (or is built into it) which allows you to blend, chop, or mix food or wash a small dish, is easy to clean, and doesn't need to be stored. Also: Greag's fear of blenders and the risk of cutting yourself or using it wrong; the importance of convenience when trying to get motivated to do healthy things; comp...