July 25^th, 2008

Is it time to sound the death knell for purchased bottled water? Not a moment too soon, some would say. But I've decided that with all that extra money flying around suddenly, clever jerks everywhere will be looking to come up with some other item to gouge the trendy and hip with.

I mean, think about it: Trendsters are just folks with enough money, and lacking sufficient common sense, to enjoy buying back the things that should be free ... like bottled water in a city with the best tap-water in the world (Metro Vancouver). ⁽¹⁾

But what? Pet rocks have already been done, and people haven't been worked up into enough of a religious environmental frenzy just yet that they are happy to part with their money in exchange for clean air. Hmm ...

• Dog art - Let your dog run through your kitchen with mud on his paws (I mean, he'll do that anyway, won't he?). Take a picture of the dirtied floor. Sell it. Posters, coffee mugs, post cards, wall calendars, etc. The sales angle should be that dogs are innately artistic: Their movements are poetry in motion and the prints they leave behind a "transcript" of that poetry. If the dog has eaten something that made it sick (and don't they all from time to time?) whatever sick mess he leaves on the floor can be photographed and sold the same way for the same reasons. It's not nauseating mess, it's Nature's Way!
• Space in designer garbage cans - People can throw their garbage just about anywhere they like, of course (all those old dog art posters, for example), but why should they use a common ordinary street-level city garbage can when they could book some space in an elite high-class designer refuse receptacle? They could be the most fashionable consumers possible: Basically, sell them on the idea that even their garbage is so special it deserves a quality resting place. Give them a choice of trendy colours.
• Portable grass - It's so lovely to sit on the grass. But where's the grass to sit on at the beach? Or in a parking lot? Or maybe people want a break at work downtown to go sit in the grass? Or perhaps the grass has been pre-sat-in already, or maybe people are worried about needles, condoms, and/or muddy dog footprints. The answer, of course, is portable grass: Keep it in its tube, then take it out and put it down wherever. Pitch it to people as Instant Joy as they can settle their ass into the grass—anywhere!
• Tailored window views - When people look out the window, they see the same old view that they saw yesterday and the day before. Just because it's raining one day and sunny the next, and just because it's Fall for a few months, then Winter, then Spring, etc. doesn't mean that the view is really that much different. And moving is expensive and time consuming. So tailor-made window views could be arranged as a service: Either predictable or randomly-changing views. This way, when people look out the window they might see the snows of Antarctica one day and the Grand Canyon the next. And why stop at Earth? They could see the surface of Venus and the rings of Saturn too. All for a low monthly rate.
• Beach reservations / Park reservations - They already have an online service to book your campsite in Provincial Parks. It just makes "sense" to extend this to spots on the beach and patches of grass in parks. Now people can sit on their favourite log or lean against their favourite tree without running the risk of having that space already occupied by the riff-raff. (Note: No refunds are issued for logs swept away by tides.)

I wonder who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes ... trendsters, or the jerks who sell them crap they don't need (but are made to think they do)?

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⁽¹⁾ I realise not all places in the world have pure pristine clear keen water; however, making up bottles of water and shipping it to them is not a particularly efficient way to quench the thirst of nations.

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