Genius, Inc.

After last installment's adventures with the Omar Bricks Perpetual Motion Machine (an electric water distiller covered on all sides by throbbing punch-balloons) and the resulting disastrous core meltdown that destroyed the southern quarter of my neighbor Hamms' house last week, I realized the error in my recent thinking. True inventors don't set out to make the world a better place. True inventors set out to make the world give them a lot of money. So I decided that free energy for all (and especially for me and select close friends) could wait, since I can't waste any more time or brainpower on inventions that don't make a shitload of money really fast.

Answer? Last week I formed Genius, Inc., a think tank that consists of yours truly and my loyal secretary and bodyguard, Foghat. It's an idea factory, really, a new kind of company that doesn't play by the old rules, in business or in badminton. It's like Apple without all the gayness attached.

And let me tell you, it's been a busy couple of weeks. Omar Bricks is the first to admit that, while brilliant, not all of our early products have been entirely successful in the marketplace. Among the long string of inventions that the world was not ready for include the Live Mouse Computer Mouse, the Freeway Parasail and my pride and joy, BreathWreckers gum (available in Onion & Garlic, Cigarette, and Whiskey Double flavors).

But failure is the mother-in-law of success, or however the bar-napkin quote goes, and in time the world finally caught up to Genius, Inc., leaving us with our first truly marketable product. SpamHat.

Genius, Inc.'s first product release to extend beyond the convenience store down the block from Bricks Manor is going to be SpamHat 8.0. It's really the first version, but people like to feel like they're buying some advanced version that's had all the bugs and bullshit worked out, hence the 8.0 at the end. Eight's a good number, since most things have been perfected by their eighth time around the block, except of course the Rocky movies.

SpamHat does exactly what you'd think; it filters out the sun's harmful rays and prevents you from getting hat cancer. Originally I was going to make an electric hat that filtered out junk email, but that turned out to be a real pain in the ass so I just kept the name and tossed all the computer bullshit and the '87 Ford windshield wipers I had bolted on, and we were ready to go.

There's also a piece of Spam sewn inside the hat, to keep your head cool. I mainly added this so I could keep the bitchin' name without getting involved in any false-advertising lawsuits, but then I came to realize it was actually pretty useful for head-cooling, attracting wildlife, and as an emergency snack. A safety note for bald dudes though: don't leave SpamHat in the freezer too long or else the Spam will bond to your scalp when you put the hat on and you're gonna be wearing it for a while. I'm also working on SpamHat Remover for such instances, but it involves pissing in a tube attached to the hat and I probably won't have FDA approval for that until late next year.

Next step is the marketing campaign and saturating the region with television commercials for SpamHat, which will commence as soon as I'm done training Foghat to hold a goddamned video camera straight. I swear, sometimes I think that dog expects me to do all the work. Bricks out.

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The Sad Fate of the World's Greatest Invention
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Guanica
This column marks day three of my lawsuit with my neighbor Hamms over Guanica, the masterpiece I painted on his bathroom wall in axle grease, batshit and chicken blood. Before you start freaking out, let me explain that the chicken blood part... (5/16/05)