La Moretta

Idea Rat: Motor Mouth

I have been trying to consistently maintain a certain standard of appearance when I go out these days. My everyday standard is quite low -- clothes, deodorant, shoes, unbrushed hair pulled into bun and I'm outta there. (When I meet up with friends I'll wear makeup and brush hair.)

Recently, though, I've been trying to up my game a bit. That means brushing hair, consistently applying sunscreen, freshly brushing teeth and putting on some jewelry even if I'm just running to the store. However, this takes a bit more time, which I don't like. The electric toothbrush takes two minutes, and unfortunately I can't multitask while I'm using it.

So here's my idea:

The motor mouth(tm) -- it's a customized mold (like the trays used for bleaching, except for the full mouth) that you put in your mouth and it brushes your teeth and tongue while you go about your business. It would self-customize -- no need to go to a dentist.

Well, I'm off to the patent office.

 

Photo source: Four Eyes Joke Shop

Guilty pleasure for the professionally restless

Feeling professionally trapped, non-starting or otherwise less-than satisfied these days? Well, here's something I do when I want to brainstorm about future business ideas (because doesn't everyone do that for fun?).

First, a teensy bit of background: When I started Moretta Millinery several years ago, I was in the odd position of having a very solid business concept. So I was able to concentrate on the superficial things early on. One of those thing was the name, which I kept very simple. The other thing was my corporate logo, which I hadn't thought about at all until I chanced upon this site:

LogoYes. http://www.logoyes.com

It allows you, the latent artiste, to come up with your own logo for your company for a piddling $100 or so. But trying it out is free. Now, some of you are probably thinking, "Oh, but Moretta, you are a creative type. Surely you have abilities and understanding of design that most people don't have." Well, first of all, don't call me Shirley. Second of all, no, I don't. I have no sense of design or layout or perspective whatsoever. In fact, because I was (and am) left-handed, I nearly flunked home ec and still can't use scissors successfully. Rearranging furniture is so stressful for me that I have to take a nap afterwards.

So, if I can put together something passable, what could you do? The mind boggles.

The real benefit of this sort of brainstorming is it suddenly makes a very broad business concept into something "real" and it gives you a chance to evaluate your idea on a very visceral level -- how do you feel when you see it? This is especially important if you are thinking about starting a side business. By giving your business a logo and name, all of a sudden you can start to respect your idea in a way you might not have before.

Below is a logo for one a business idea I just came up with on the spot, Dancy Pants, a line of automated fashion pants for robots, made with LogoYes. I used a screen cap to show you the sample logo, but if I were to purchase it, I'd get a graphic file so I could use it for other materials.

Anyway, strongly recommended.

Idea Rat: Relationship Rehab

One of my friends took several years to break up with a significant other, something that took a great deal out of her. She wants to have a baby and doesn't have unlimited time to do so, which made me wonder why some breakups are so interminable, even between grownups (although admittedly here where I live I get the very strong impression from my single friends and my observations that the guys are some really cold fish -- the types who would, in the early romantic days of a relationship, still opt to work late to finish a position paper on proposed fishing regulations, or who would decide that they couldn't see someone during law school).

This made me wonder -- why can't they have some sort of 90-day rehab where people go to get over significant yet toxic relationships? When you think about the lost productivity, the health impact and the recidivism, it makes a lot of sense to develop some sort of process to terminate a relationship for good and always. And what better place to do it than the soon-to-be vacant Guantanamo Bay? It would give jobs to all of the PsyOps people who otherwise would be unemployed, and really, who could be better at undoing all of the mind games your ex played than the experts at messing with your head?

This might be the best option outside of not-yet available Eternal Sunshine memory erasing (Motto: Since Repression Won't Last Forever).

My latest business ideas

I am kind of an idea rat, as you can tell. 

Today I was at the salon getting some stuff done (trust me when I say that I am in no way high maintenance) and was talking with my aesthetician when I noticed she had a tattoo on her inner wrist that said "Believe." Very tasteful and new age. However, she said that her employer (Elizabeth Arden) was very strict about exposed tattoos. I of course thought that was short-sighted, since although the Red Door spas have a good reputation for quality and cleanliness, they are also perceived as a place for rich older women. So here was my idea: Really elite spas should not only embrace the idea of tasteful tattoos on their employees, they should have a licensed tattoo artist on staff and offer that as one of their services. The artist could do decorative work as well as the permanent eyeliner stuff. I have to say that the aestheticians burst into laughter when they first heard the idea but then they kind of got into it.

Above: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: The Tattooed Woman, 1894.

The second part of my idea came as I was thinking over the first part. Many people seem to get their tattoos after they've had a few drinks to numb the pain. Obviously, Elizabeth Arden does not want to get into serving drinks, but it would be great if they could numb their clients to the pain. So here's the second idea -- why not figure out a way to double-dip on surgeries and the like by doing beauty treatments in hospitals? I mean, if you are already out for an appendectomy, why couldn't you have your hair done or eyebrows waxed in the recovery room?

Don't Open the Door, It's the Lorax

This guy with the very bushy mustache is the Lorax, a character from the Dr. Seuss book of the same name. To steal straight from the Wikipedia description, the book is about the perils of industrialization and human impact on the environment. It is not, as you can imagine, a laugh riot, and it worried me greatly when I first read it. It was the dreariest book I read when I was that age -- the Lorax is humorless and nags incessantly and (spoiler alert) everything ends in tears, with only the faintest glimmer of salvation.

Well, TreeHugger has a piece on the winners of the Youth Venture Lorax Challenge, a joint venture between Youth Venture, Dr. Seuss Enterprise and the Earth Island Institute. You can also check them out and learn more about them here. They aren't terribly out there, but they seem to be carefully thought-out, which is half the battle.

It's nice to know that the Lorax inspired something other than the desire to throw oneself off a bridge or curl up in the fetal position, humming. Still, I would recommend making an excuse when he shows up at your home seeking to increase awareness. After all, there is nothing worse than a tiresome creature making dire pronouncements, especially after time has proven him right. (So Al Gore, you are also not welcome.)

More thoughts on the Shambles series

I looked at the preliminary list of monsters for the Shambles series and noticed that none of the monsters were female. This simply won't do, so I took a quick gander at some of the leading female monsters. There are a few problems that immediately emerge:

The first is that many of the female monsters either are beautiful seductresses (e.g., Sirens), or are commonly-used words that don't describe just an evil monster (e.g., hag, witch). Right now I am leaning towards Medusa. I would, of course, be eager to hear suggestions.