ah, the lyme
Ideas my housemates and I came up with tonight include (dialogue may be paraphrased):

1. Earplug earrings

Mike: (holding up bag of earplugs) Look at all these earplugs.
Me: Oh my god, can I have some? These are awesome. Whoa, this one is really awesome! I should take a picture!
Lisa: We should rate them!
Me: Yes! We should rate all of them on five-point scales! And then post our findings to the Internet! You know, these earplugs would make some great earrings.
Lisa: Yeah, you could suspend them on your ears from little chains, so that if your coworkers were annoying you then you could just go ahead and stick them in your ears!

2. Celebrity hose water

Basically, we should sneak into celebrities' gardens, fill up bottles with their hose water, and then sell that water for $5 a pop (or more if the celebrity is really huge). Just imagine it: hose water from Madonna's garden, $10 a bottle. We could build up the mystique. Eventually people would be wondering whose garden would be hit next! Having your hose water stolen and sold as bottled water would become a status symbol!

3. Jesus waffle iron

'Nuff said.

4. Greeting Cards by Lydia

Examples include (all of these are in plain lettering, on a plain white background, unless otherwise noted):
* Torture is fun
* You will die
* You will die tonight
* You will die tomorrow

Me: And I'll also make one that says, "It's cancer."
Matthew: How about, "Your dog has cancer"?
Me: Yes, and it can have a happy picture of Lassie running across a sun-soaked field!
Matthew: We could do a whole cancer line!
Me: The final one could just be a postcard that simply says, "Cancer"!


P.S. I'll try to actually call people tomorrow and also respond to old email / livejournal comments. Sorry, I've been holed up in my room gazing with feverish intent upon a writing project since mid-yesterday, except for the time that I went to work today and gazed with feverish intent upon the project using my work computer. (I am an awesome employee.) And before that, Mike T. was visiting for a week and we were dressing up like demons and running about to masculinity lectures and old radio show demonstrations and goth nightclubs, and also I was finally sending off my Peace Corps medical forms (now I get to hurry up and wait to hear whether they think I can be trusted not to have a nervous breakdown in Africa).

P.P.S. Piranha. (Available for $15 on the North Side!)

P.P.P.S. Does anyone have that comic that refers to the Saturday Night Live cowbell sketch + cancer in a genius fashion? I believe the dialogue goes something like this:

Doctor: You've got a fever.
Patient: And the only prescription is more cowbell!
Doctor: No. Cowbell cannot cure any fevers. Especially not cancer. Which you have.

P.P.P.P.S. There will soon be a Bowers House Lecture Series. We'll serve fries and call it "Lectures and Fries". This is not a joke. We're hoping that the first lecture will be this dude speaking on the subject of rat social dynamics.