Great Inventions
Whilst browsing the local liquor store, as one often does of a Friday afternoon, I saw this peculiar advertisement. I know there are many cool and ingenious inventions out there - many of which we take for granted - but this one, I reckon, shows a certain creativity and blatant profiteering which I admire (the full-size image is here). It’s a nice blend of social conscience “friends don’t let friends drive drunk” and well-placed advertising (at the counter of a liquor store). I’m assuming it works just like the old chemical breath-testers the police used to use, and it’s most impressive that the technology has been miniaturised (like pretty-much everything else these days, more on that another time methinks).
Another one I only just found out about this morning is a wonderful thing called a “crumb sweeper” (and no, I don’t have a clue who Harriet Carter is), which apparently is just a small vacuum cleaner run off a couple of AA batteries. But the genius here is the shape. Can’t you imagine the design meetings:
Designer 1: “I reckon we have an ultra-smart, brushed steel exterior.”
Designer 2: “Nah, too expensive, let’s go for a metal-looking plastic exterior.”
Intern: “Hey! I know!” he says, with youthful enthusiasm “How about we make it look like a pig, it’ll be funny, ‘cos it will eat the crumbs, and pigs are hungry, and they eat anything, and they eat fast, and it’ll be funny”
Designer 1&2: Stifle their sniggers
Project Manager: “I love it, great idea, the public will love it!”
And that is how we came to have high-quality pig-shaped crumb sweepers being recommended by Harriet Carter for only US$6.50. A bargain at twice the price. God bless great inventions.
July 30th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
Mmm generally a fabulous idea…. however, I also know parents that purchased them for the sole purpose of breath-testing their kids after nights out…. Oh yes i’m serious….
July 31st, 2006 at 10:36 am
GeM, were they your parents by any chance?
I bet they have a crumb sweeper too…!
July 31st, 2006 at 3:52 pm
@Gem. Ehm. Sound of Music.
July 31st, 2006 at 11:27 pm
crumb sweepers are great, we have a minature rat dog thing that dad got for mum for christmas a few years back as a get back pressie for all the crap she has bought him over the years… anyway we moved the fridge the other day and quick as a shot Neo (dog) was there cleaning out god knows what was making the awful funk of a smell back there.
GeM, that paints a very depressing prisonbreak home thing you must of had going on there.
SST, say what? we know that movie is a few of your favourite things
August 1st, 2006 at 8:01 pm
Actually it’s only one of my favouite things.
Together with Nando’s, Fight Club, Ronin, my bike, my car……
Re above - ask me IRL
August 1st, 2006 at 8:36 pm
No crumb sweepers and no wasn’t my parents, but thanks for your concern guys! Mum didn’t ever need one, the “give me a kiss goodnight” breath test always more than sufficient
:-S
Brown paper packages tied up with string….
August 1st, 2006 at 9:51 pm
actually SST if you going to break out in song, i really don’t care all that much, considering that list would make for a terrible verse for the song and i’m pretty much sure you can’t really sing given you distain at my previous musical experiances as dr. frankenfurter in rocky horror.
and GeM, that’s not bad, my mum can tell with in mls of actually consumption exactly how much we have had to drink and my father is a trained CIA lie detector and expertise in questioning torture. there is no escape
August 2nd, 2006 at 7:59 pm
I don’t think I want any song break-out-ing on my blog thanks! It’s just not necessary!
How do parents get these super-powers Dave? Is it from personal experience, or do you get given them after having a kid?
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:04 pm
well actually it was after a freak accident with a radioactive trouble making kid that bit them in a science lab… no, mum is experience growing up with 5 brothers and dad, well, he is something a little different… torture has to be someones speciality i suppose