Creativity Wasted

Idea: An Anthony Bourdain-style travel show where the host goes to grand openings of dollar stores, reviews them, explores the nearby community, and interviews interesting customers. Also: the show could include segments such as taking different types of people (nuns, comedians, etc.) to dollar stores for the first time, comparing generic dollar store brands to name-brand equivalents, taste-testin...

Idea (dark humor): A short-term puppy rental service where the puppy is put down and made into soap (or other things) if the renter doesn't pay a large amount of money to buy it when the rental period expires. Also: calculating how much emotional attachment the renter has with the puppy to determine how much money you can squeeze out of them to save their puppy's life; renting a new puppy each sea...

Idea: Vendors that roam around the stands at a summer baseball game (or at other summer events) carrying a fan and a large battery (to power the fan) in a backpack that charge people money to cool them down. Also: brainstorming names for the business (Mr. Blow, etc.), the vendors ("Joe Blow", etc.), and things the vendors say ("get your fan jobs here..."); the risk of accidenta...

Idea: To make a career out of being a paid guest on various podcasts. Also: faking expertise or ailments (or whatever else) to be a relevant guest for a themed podcast (such as Mormonism, alien abduction, or 18th-century cookery) with or without the podcast hosts knowing that you're a fake; creating a podcast feed out of links to your appearances on other podcasts; becoming a charismatic "cha...

Idea: An app to translate/interpret the grammar, slang, and acronyms of text (primarily social media) based on your age. Also: writing conventions that other generations find annoying such as "boomer ellipses" and excessive "LOLs" or "bruhs"; translating a text message from an old person to a zoomer and having it say "no cap" might not be necessary for under...

Idea: A business that you can hire to perform a prank on someone (like in the Norm MacDonald movie "Dirty Work"). Also: prank examples such as fish in cars, "Zoombombing", faking charitable donations on someone's behalf, tricking a public figure like in the movie "Borat", etc.; brainstorming a business name, such as "Leach's Pranks For Hire: For People Who Suck&q...

Idea: Trophies to be given as a gag gift to commemorate humiliating (but not traumatic) incidents (falls, saying dumb things, coming in last place in fantasy football, etc.) for which you would get amusement out of being reminded of years later. Also: the risk of them being given out after traumatically humiliating events and pouring salt on the wound; pre-ordering the trophy before a contest so i...

Idea: A screen that shows a thermal/infrared image of your food so you can see how hot it is and whether it's still too cold (or it's too hot). Also: using microwaves, ovens, and fridges to survive a nuclear explosion; maybe the microwave could use the thermal/infrared info to redirect the microwave "rays" toward the cold spots on the food; maybe it could be a phone app or a gadget that...

Idea: To have an aviation museum in St. Louis (called "Aviation Under The Arches") to showcase the aviation history of the city, such as Charles Lindbergh and WWII fighter planes. Also: they could steal Akron's aviation museum; being too fat to ride in airplane simulators; being afraid of heights in some scenarios (such as skydiving) but not being afraid to ride in an airplane; an odd mu...

Idea: A rental service for large and/or expensive crafting equipment, such as rug tufting machines, 3D printers, and metalworking machines. Also: dreaming for years about rug tufting or doing out-of-reach crafting projects; joking about rug tufting risks, possible injuries, and whether training and insurance ("Tuft Break") are required; tufting a soft comfy rug onto a T-shirt or the butt...

Idea: A standup comedy competition where a pair of dice (one containing a comedy style and the other containing a broad topic) is rolled and then two comics compete to improvise/recall the better joke within those constraints. Also: testing out the game; discussing the comedy styles (such as self-deprecation and observational) and topics (such as "dad joke" and anatomy); discussing the &...

Idea: A game show where women in an abortion clinic waiting to get an abortion complete in a series of games, such as silly carnival-style games or American Gladiator/Wipeout-style events (because if they get smacked in the belly and lose the baby, they were going to abort it anyway). Also: they could compete for a free abortion or better painkillers or risk having to carry the baby to term if the...

Idea: A comedy contest where the contestants comedically brag about themselves instead of roasting an opponent. Also: avoiding downsides of roasts, including deeply hurting someone's feelings and having to do research about an opponent before the show; the two rules of "smug of war"; a concept of a "smug of war" where topics to brag about are provided to the contestants before...

Idea: A wristwatch that reads your mind and/or predicts your behavior and shocks you to prevent you from doing racist microaggressions. Also: it could also punish you for explicitly racist/sexist/ageist acts (not just microaggressions) and could vary the punishment based on severity; it could be seen as a neutral warning/teaching mechanism for people who aren't familiar with how to behave in certa...

Idea: A storage pocket grafted into your body and made out of your skin, so you can, for example, store things while in the shower. Also: brainstorming where on your body to put a pocket; it should look more like a pocket and less like a sphincter; women storing things between their breasts; magicians who stab needles through their arms might know good places to put skin pockets; maybe you could g...

Idea: A comedic documentary about the growing problem of obese squirrels. Also: Carl's obese pet squirrel; using the documentary to fund squirrel weight loss and longevity research; the impressive athleticism of obese squirrels; the risk of obese squirrels screwing up the ecosystem and leading to obese bald eagles (which would be the most American bald eagles) Lucky Lee ( instagram.com/luckyleecom...

Idea: Tom's long awkwardly dark attempt to write a horror story (with zombies) like the Creepypastas and amateur horror stories he listens to on YouTube. Also: questioning whether listening to "true crime", dark, and horror stories to help you fall asleep is creepy; listing our favorite dark/horror YouTube channels; the accidental similarities between Tom's horror story and the TV show i...

Idea: To sell de-shelled (but not beaten) eggs in a small plastic or glass bottle (like a Sunny D or Snapple bottle) so people don't have to worry about accidentally cracking the shell while making eggs. Also: people are lazy enough to buy de-shelled eggs and might even start associating "shelled eggs" with poor people; putting real eggs in toy plastic egg shells and then ruining a kid's...

Idea: A vocal voicemail-like program that uses AI to determine whether an incoming call (from a phone number that isn't whitelisted) can cause your phone to ring and/or leave a message. Also: using the AI prank a telemarketer or make them do a "Shark Tank"-style pitch; if a friend calls you at 2 AM for no good reason, the AI could block their call and revenge-call them the next night at...

Idea: A mini-vacuum that could vacuum up cocaine spilled on the floor and/or cocaine residue off dollar bills and other things, and also maybe filter out the dust/debris and/or test for Fentanyl. Also: disrupting the drug-sniffing dog market; paying carpet cleaners in the cocaine that they obtained from vacuuming the carpet; similar inventions for sifting crack called the "Rock Tumbler"...

Idea: A lifestyle where you party on the weekend and go into an intentional coma during the week (or longer if necessary), during which you're weened off drugs, you lose weight (if necessary), basic and cosmetic hygiene (such as getting a tattoo) is performed on you, etc. and you afford the "coma punk" lifestyle by being an influencer, letting scientists experiment on your body, and/or b...

Idea: An app that warns you if people you know are nearby in a public place (such as a grocery store) so you can avoid bumping into and having unwanted 10+ minute conversations with them. Also: ways to avoid people, such as wearing Mrs. Doubtfire masks, hiding behind bulk toilet paper, and running through the grocery store aisles like Pac-Man; maybe we should invent a hand gesture for "hi but...

Idea: AI in a chatbot and/or in videogames that teaches you a foreign language. Also: being immersed in a conversation with a chatbot or in a videogame is more effective than learning in a classroom, and also AI could customize the language teaching to you; existing videogames that teach in clever ways such as "Typing of the Dead"; you could learn ancient Sumerian or Egyptian hieroglyphi...

A loose conversation about ideas for crazy movie sequels and spinoffs, including an idea for a sequel of the movie "Liar, Liar" where the kid uses his lie-preventing superpower to force mobsters and villains to tell the truth to their peril. Also: under-the-radar superheroes in movies such as the kid from "Liar Liar" and Mary Poppins; dirty (and not dirty) fan fiction and creep...

Idea: A TV show or web series which highlights tourist places and events that are going to disappear (or are at risk of disappearing), and also explains why and predicts how much time is left for the viewer to go there. Also: reasons for sites to disappear could be environmental, economic, physical deterioration, etc.; last-chance events such as the "Gathering of the Juggalos", "Bur...