New Parking Garage in Munich Germany

The photos above were taken at a new parking garage in Munich. The actual space that the facility occupies is approximately only 20% of a comparable facility with the traditional design that is used primarily in the US. Not only is the German structure less expensive to build, but vehicles are also 'retrieved' in less time and without the potential of being damaged by an attendant.

Things That Need Inventing -- A Mood Ring IPOD

Back in the 1970's, the hottest thing to have was a mood ring. They changed colour depending on you moods. They were quite inexpensive as well. I don't know if they worked, but I remember once getting angry at someone and my mood ring turned black, so I was convinced.

As I was going through my morning routine this morning on the computer, I searched for some suitable music for my mood. Unfortunately, I don't quite know what my mood was this morning, and thus I was struck with the great Eureka moment once again. (Sometimes genius is a heavy load to carry).

What this world needs is a mood ring coupled to your iPOD. The mood ring figures the type of music that you need and the iPOD plays it accordingly. They say that music soothes the savage beast. I am told that the correct quote is that music soothes the savage breast. That too.

Anyhoo, with today's technology, this thing should be a snap. Instead of me racing to the patent office, I think that the folks at Apple (Paging Steve Jobs) should just include this in the next release and send me a big fat royalty cheque. I will watch my mailbox for this one. And my mood ring music would be playing:

If you want to see my other putative inventions and things that I consider worth inventing, please click HERE !

Things That Need Inventing -- Edible Fruit Marking System

Last night, I went to get a pear for my evening snack. I was enjoying it immensely until I realized that I was eating the annoying little sticker that one sees now on fruit. The episode derailed all of the enjoyment for me of eating the pear.

I thought that there has to be a better way. I thought of all sorts of other ways to mark fruit. I thought of laser etching, but it is too expensive and time consuming. I thought of edible rice paper stickers, but it might not be water proof. Then inspiration struck me. When meat is inspected, it is stamped with an ink made from the skins of red grapes.

Why not have a stamp for fruit with edible ink. It would be environmentally friendly, you could eat it, and it would eliminate all those annoying little stickers.

The other enhancement that I thought of was that the little stickers cannot be scanned at the supermarket checkout. With my system, the stamp could be a barcode that can be scanned as pictured below.

On top of all of that, you could dope the ink with vitamins or caffeine such that people would want to eat it. This is definitely something that needs inventing. I will race you to the patent office on this one.

To see my entire collection of things that need inventing, please click HERE.