Houseplantbot

I'm not going to lie to you. I'm a plant person. I talk to my plants. I stop what I'm doing randomly and go hang out with my plants. I bring them to work with me. I really love plants. I freaking post them on Flickr.

So now that fall is on it's way, and a new building has gone up right outside my window and blocked most of my direct sunlight, I'm concerned that some of my plants may not get enough light this winter. Light, as you may know, is essential to photosynthesis, the process by which plants create energy to sustain themselves. Fascinating process. Like magic.

As awesome as plants are, they have one fatal drawback - they're completely stationary. Can't move anywhere. Oh no, it's 4pm and the light has moved to the other side of the room? Too bad you got a bowl of dirt instead of legs! Real shame. I imagine it must be frustrating for them. Which is why I want houseplantbots. The idea was inspired by a theoretical space technology, but I don't see why someone like Roomba couldn't slap on a light sensor and give me a mobile plant stand for catching optimal amounts of sunlight.

Hear that Roomba? Houseplantbots. Get on it.

Traction boots for pets

So I have this cat. He's a black cat. And yesterday he had the first injury in the eight long years of his little shadowy life. It was, of course, mirror-related.
He now has an adorable little bandage on his paw, and since I have hardwood floors, the little bandaged paw slips and slides all over when he tries to walk on it, resulting in extra adorableness.

To add to the slippy-slidey-adorably, I also have two rabbits, and one thing people don't realize about rabbits is they don't have any treads on their feet. It's all soft fluffy fur. So when they leave their little carpeted area for the hardwood floor, the little soft fluffy feet slip and slide and scurry and - oh I just wanna explode with the cuteness!! But of course it makes them feel all clumsy and awkward and silly. I love hardwood floors, and I love bunnies and kitties with bandages, but the conflict between them is becoming more and more evident.

Solution: little rubber boots for little soft paws. They would have to have a felt lining to go on smoothly, and the back ones would have to be taller than the front ones for those long back ankles. If you've seen these anywhere or want to invent them, let me know! Hardwood floors would no longer be a sense of shame for my little fluffy roommates. And of course, I could take them off when I want to show off the adorable slipping and sliding to guests.

Not changing up your formula for a skin care product and saying its the freaking same as it always was, you assholes

Sure, a little switch-up for a product that isn't flying off the shelves is fine. But it happens to products that were insanely popular and never needed to be fucked around with. St. Ives apricot face scrub? "Same formula, new scent!" Guess what, the new scent makes me break out. Burt's Bees Replenishing Lip Balm with pomegranate oil? No new label, no warning, no nuthin' - now tastes like some disgusting bubble gum shit and feels funny.

Just stop!!! I loved your products the way they were. Stop making me cry.



Operation crazy rant: Complete.

Beach towel that tans your other side, too!

It's summer, yay! At least that's what I hear, sometimes it's hard to tell in San Francisco. Either way, there's gonna be some beach-goin' goin' on, so I've been looking for the perfect beach towel to replace the one that my friend Sophie left here and really wants back. I got to thinking...

What if I had a beach towel that emitted light for a more even tan? It would be something like this only revved up a little. A sensor could read the amount of sunlight hitting it and match, so you tan in half the time and don't have to flip over. How is it powered? A solar-paneled mini-umbrella that doubles as a shade for your beer! Win!

Fur and leather, sans the whole skinning cute animals thing.

We've been able to grow skin in a lab for years. Why not put those creepy seal-clubbing Canadians out of business and make the fur ourselves? We could save millions, maybe billions of tons of CO2 and methane by making leather in a warehouse without a single cow involved. And think of the profits going back into science!

How are these guys missing this opportunity??

And yes, this was one of those half-conscious ideas that came to me at 3 am this morning. Actually it involved self-assembling tailored suits, but I can't seem to remember how they worked so I posted this instead.

Self-healing windshields.

I don't think this one even needs explaining. You know it would be awesome.

A better bike lane

I love bicycles. I don't have one but I have many fond memories riding one through my neighborhood when I was a kid - racing them with the neighbor boy, riding them in the rain and getting covered in mud, falling off them (still have the scars!) and of course, riding a wheelie all the way to church. (Just kidding my parents are Pagan.) But somewhere along the way that joy associated with bicycles has turned into horror.

In some cities (*cough*San Francisco*cough*) it doesn't matter if you have the right of way as a pedestrian, or if you look both ways, or even if you're a blind grandma in a crosswalk with plenty of little chirping signals left to go before you make it to the other side - those bicyclists will run you over in cold blood. And when I finally got a car, they would pop out of the pitch black night just as I let my foot off the brake at a green light, as if they were actually trying giving me a heart attack.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about zero emissions transportation, but something needs to be done about these hooligans. And I have a proposal.

Re-pave the roads with grooves just the width of a bicycle tire. Cars will go over them just fine, but the bicyclists will finally be foiled!

Of course we can keep a nice flat bike lane for them on the side. I wouldn't want to force them onto unsuspecting, law-abiding pedestrians on the sidewalk.