But while most folks will be thinking of new gadgets for commerce, for socializing, for… well, whatever, I have some ideas for new inventions that will make my life more fun – or at least, more tolerable. Here they are:

1) The Directed EMP Auto Sound Hush-O-Matic. This will be a powerful directed EMP pulse generator intended for use when stopped at a traffic signal next to an obnoxious moron with a thumping, booming stereo. Bear in mind that there is a fundamental law of the universe that I discovered some years back, which has since been known as the First Law of Car Stereo Stupidity. This law posits that the volume with which a driver blasts his car stereo is directly proportional to the crappiness of his preferred music. The Hush-O-Matic is intended for just such a driver; the device will, when carefully aimed and activated, immediately fry all of the electronics in said vehicle, rendering it into an inert hunk of scrap metal.

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2) Anti-Tag Electro-Paint. “Urban Art” usually isn’t. Some of it is barely acceptable as far as talent goes, but when it’s done (as it frequently is) on public or private property, it’s vandalism and a damned nuisance. Some locales are deterring public urination by using paint designed to splash urine back at the urinator; the Electro-Paint will go one step beyond by sensing when any spray paint is applied to a surface and responding by sending a high-voltage charge back down the paint stream, stunning the vandal. The charge is yet to be determined but should be sufficient to render said vandal into a gelid mass until law enforcement can arrive. This would be fun for the public urination issue, too.

3) Disabled Parking Abuser Auto-Flip. My wife is disabled and depends on a walker for full mobility. Her parents are also disabled (blind), as was my mother (severe rheumatoid arthritis). So, I’m something of a jerk about the abuse of handicapped parking spaces. I’ve offered to turn a few smart-aleck teenagers into grease stains over this issue and was once delighted to see a van with a wheelchair lift scrape the hell out of the side of a car illegally parked in the cross-hatched space intended to provide room for such lifts. The Auto-Flip will take the form of a hydraulic arm that may be extended from the underside of a vehicle, moved underneath the vehicle of a scofflaw, and used to flip the offender’s car over on its roof, thus clearing the designated space for an actual handicapped user. The operator of the Auto-Flip should be judicious in its use, however, lest they flip the vehicle of someone who is actually disabled and simply forgot to put up their hanger designating the vehicle appropriately.

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4) Cellular Phone Blabber-Blocker. Ever noticed how the advent of the cellular phone means that now we have to listen to everyone’s conversations in every public place? Most annoying are, of course, those people who seem to feel the need to put their phone on Speaker mode and then shout at it from arm’s length. Some time back, the airlines were speculating about the possibility of providing cell phone service in-flight; I was horrified at the idea since one of the few compensations in air travel is that at least I don’t have to listen to people blabbing all of their personal business. The Blabber-Blocker will simply block all cellular phone signals within a certain radius, say, fifteen feet. This would be handy in movie theaters, as I was recently reminded by an oblivious jerk a few seats down from my wife and me only yesterday.

5) The Left-Lane Vigilante Messenger. Ever been stuck on a freeway behind some goober tooling along at ten miles an hour under the speed limit in the left lane? One that no amount of flashing headlights or gesturing will get to move right? The Left-Lane Vigilante Messenger uses a powerful laser to etch the words “MOVE RIGHT, JERK” into the inside of the offending driver’s windshield.

Ideas are precious things. All intelligent people must use their intelligence to improve the lives of their fellow man; the inventions I have described above will surely do that. Well, at least they’d improve my life. Does anyone have Elon Musk’s number?

Have you suggestions for an invention that would make your life easier? The comments are yours!