tinfoilhats.com

now, i'm not trying to say i'm a genius or anything, but those of you who talk to me on a regular basis know that i pretty much crank out ideas (of varying quality) for new products, businesses, websites, companies and other money making schemes ventures on a fairly regular basis. it seems more and more that about six months to a year and a half after i hatch up my ideas and fail to do anything with them, they turn up as reality, making someone other than me rich. since i don't share my ideas with everyone and none of my friends seem to be getting any richer, the only logical conclusion is that they have somehow tapped into my brain. today, i bring you the two latest examples: banana flavored beer & and a diet incentive program.

i'm not going to lie. i'm into fruity (in whatever context you prefer) beers. pyramid apricot, sam adams cherry wheat, blue moon with a big slice of orange are some of my favorites. laura and i frequent capital city brewery in shirlington or rock bottom brewery in ballston. i'll usually give whatever new beer they have a shot. it was on one of these trips that it occured to me that a banana flavored beer would probably be pretty awesome. turns out i was right, when i found this. it's not for everyone, but if you're into the fruitier beers, give it a shot, and then send me a dollar 'cause it was really my idea.

my second idea (which is directly related to beer consumption) was a way to 1) help people lose weight and 2) capitalize on their inability to do so. i've always believed that the best way to get people to do something is to make them want to do it. for the majority of people to want to do something, it has to be in their best interest. the easiest and quickest way to make something in a persons best interest is to use the thing with which the most people will immediately recognize as being in their best interest, money.

the premise: potential weight-losers would go to my website, set some personal weight loss goal with a deadline, then send me some money to hold hostage until they either meet their goal at which point they get their money back (possibly plus some extra) or the deadline passes, at which point i get to keep their money. it's pretty much infallible (except for the part where i have attempt to verify some random person's weight loss over the internet). i stash their money in a high yield money market account while it's in my possession and in the end probably keep more than half of it.

apparently it took a contract law professor and a behavioral economist from yale to come up with the same idea. only they are a lot dumber than me because instead of keeping the money for themselves, forfeited incentive money goes to charity. dumbasses.