Good Morning Guys
We have had a little friend staying with us now for about a week, but not the type of friend you want to stay or to bring their family with them! I had heard scratching under the floor while I was in bed. Scratch scratch scratch silence! Did I hear that or was I dreaming. I kicked Kerry. Barking “Wake up, shhhhhhh listen” but nothing. Then the next night I had got in from a late shift & was catching up of some Sky plus when right infront of my eyes Stuart Little darted out of a 3 mm crack in our skirting board JUMPED up the fire place, landed the vanished under our fire! I went to bed in shock & couldn’t sleep!

Days passed £60 spent on sonic plugs to drive Stuart out but he didn’t care, he started leaving little presents for us in cupboards, on the worktop & even on our couch. I had to catch him it was me or him. Then last nightas I was driving my train back from London (as far as Preston) I had an idea.

When I got home I got a cardboard box & set to work enclosing the place we knew Stuart entered each night. Inside was 2 traps covered with Strawberry Jam. Mmmmm how could he refuse then SNAP. I went to bed slightly drunk and tried to hear a SNAP but I quickly passed out. 0715 Kerry & I were still dozing when SNAP. Kerry said Craig what was that? I gulped and got dressed. I went down stairs fearing the worst, I lifted the box to find Stuart sitting there just looking at me but both traps were empty! Or so I thought. Stuart had got his tail caught in one of them. I was blubbering in fear of this tiny little fella, when I stood on him. Only joking! Don’t try that at home kids. I shouted Kerry & she came down with a shoe box. I put on the thickest gloves in the world & picked him up & put him in his new home. I then let him go in Croxteth park. I drove a long and different way home incase he followed me. I think I lost him.

This post is one  in a special week of  celebrating Echostains I year Birthday blog

why? why not

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you still get a surprise.  You wonder what sort of minds come up with these ideas.  Wacky ones for sure…. I’ve always believed that for something to be successful, it must have a use, people must need it.   Then comes the hard sell.  Of course where there’s no discernable niche for the item, it is all fair and above-board to create one,  create a ‘need’ - make the product a ‘must have’.

bacon air freshner

Why though, would you want an air freshener that smelt of bacon?  Most air fresheners mask cooking smells……..  Perhaps it’s to conjure up a kind of comfy Sunday morning lazy feeling that the smell of bacon inevitably conjures up.  I’m saying this because that’s when I usually eat bacon, but some people eat it every day.  Then again, some people want to eat it every day, but are watching their cholestrol.  This bacon smell business reminds me of the Jorvik Viking Centre in York UK.  When it was first open and the cars went backwards (through time) and came out into the Viking village, this was one of the key smells (along with the strong urine one).  I’m pretty sure you could buy this essence in a bottle.  Later on, the smell wasn’t quite the same.  It was as if, they couldn’t quite get the recipe right.  In love with the bacon air freshener? HERE

area-rugs-log-floor

Here’s another unusual concept, – a ‘Log’ floor rug by Yvette Laduk.  I have tried to get my head around this, and I just can’t.  The ‘tree’ has been ‘chopped’ down: what is left is a stump.  This is a flat image of a 3D object.  The 3D object that is really flat, will be placed (usually I would think) on a carpet.  A woodland is the natural carpet for a tree stump is it not?  So you are kind of bringing the woodland into your home?  Perhaps they do a matching carpet of leaves and flowers?  I don’t understand it, but I do rather like it!

sarah dery mousetrap

And there’s more…….  This mousetrap by Sarah Dery has a humane touch.   It lends a bit of dignity for the dearly departed mouse.  The mouse is trapped in the mouse trap and  then slid into this carefully prepared little coffin.  The other pictures have  more details  (HERE)including  a thoughtful little opening for its tail.  I don’t know what to say……

Sitting ankle-deep in the last twenty-four hours of a week that will not be easily forgotten. Waiting for little claws to scratch holes in the side of my brain… little feet to scurry across my consciousness.. waiting for a noise, anything, something…. just to make it alright.. because this week was bleak and no amount of Bon Jovi up loud on a weekday “morning” (late Afternoon) while in a dressing-gown eating coco-pops moons and stars is going to fix it. He is out there somewhere… beneath a leaf… very wet.. squeaking curses and looking round for options… im just waiting.

The week started just like any other – with a Monday Morning. I was riding a freshly rolled wave of rediscovery – I had once again found myself listening to the tried and tested power ballads of Bon Jovi, and for the first time in a long time there was no amount of shame or secrecy to come with it… It seemed i was “old” enough now have no shame… yet “young” enough to realise. 

It was a reading week: for some this means a chance to catch up on work, get an essay done and get ready for any tests to come, for others it’s a holiday, a mid-term, a reason to go out get drunk and forget everything to do with college. For me it was simply a disaster. I wanted to do the work, get the essay written, read that book… but instead i was waking up with the moon and sleeping at sunrise… playing internet games and watching shit movies… shit SHHIT movies (Saints and Soldiers – watch at your own peril).

And so the week kept to the usual 7 day routine, by the time I found myself watching re-runs of Top Gear and inspecting the lint that had collected in my belly button, the week had decided that it would suddenly be Friday morning. The previous few days had not really come to much, and the period between Monday and this most fateful moment in the earliest hours of Friday can be summed up in very few words; sleep, broke, Bon Jovi, Dressing-gown, Top Gear…and… broke. This mid-semester melt-down I guess was to be expected, and I knew I had fallen into it’s vicious circle by the time i was huffing and puffing at football on Tuesday night. It was clear i wasn’t far from a complete shut down.

…….

The first scratches went by unnoticed… i now wonder what it was like before i was fully accustomed to the noise, before I would stop still and prick my ears at any hint of a noise between the walls. It was only after a few minutes of this weird clicking underneath the hall floor that i decided to investigate…. when the reality dawned that little creatures were now living below the floors i was fairly amused and content to say the least. At least i was happy i wasn’t going mad, my mother could hear it too. A mouse, “just” a mouse. It was nothing to get too bothered about, it would scuttle along downstairs… staying warm over the winter and then leave and everyone will be happy.. right?

I was happy with that thought, it was only as i was settling down for another late mornings nothingness that it dawned on me that my relationship with this mouse was going to be far more personal. The blur of this tiny creature making a break for my bedroom door and then retreating back beneath my bed was enough to freak the living shit out of me. The fucker had invaded my room, had broken that unspoken barrier and infiltrated my sanctuary and made me feel like an alien in my own world.. the little hairy fecker.

At first i didn’t want to kill him. My first sights of the thing, and his tiny thumping body was enough to tell me that he was freaking out as much as me. He had found himself trapped in this awful position and had no way out, some big human shining a torch in his eyes, surely he’ll just let him get on with things ad harmony would be restored…surely!

And as i shone the light in his beady little eye i devised a cunning plan to trap him and let him go. Blocking up the gap beneath the bed with any clothes i could find i cut off his options.

Checking my watch- the hands were pushing 3.30am – and this was supposed to be an early night, an attempt at salvaging the end of a long unproductive week – god damn! This little fucker is messing everything up!

I was in a weird state of limbo -  Every moment i took my eyes off it i was afraid he had run off somewhere… into one of his little holes.. there were times in that room that i had no idea what i was doing… sitting completely still waiting to hear him do something…wondering how i had found myself in this position; bent over on my floor with a torch shining from between my teeth, jamming pairs of pants beneath the bed and moving furniture to give me the best possible access to the it… I looked around.. after 4am now… the room a mess, a weird silence in the house.. trying not to wake anyone up… but determined not to lose this opportunity to sort out our “mouse situation” in the most humane fashion. I had reached new lows.

My attempted capture had failed.. he had run off with my cheese and was happy to eat it in front of me, safe in knowledge that i was unable to do anything to stop him. I was insulted, hate boiling up in me… pure.. tired hate… i despised this creature who was stealing my sanity. I wanted to suck him up in a Hoover and burn the bag… i was happy to do anything that would remove this thing from my existence.

I could hear noises again.. something strange was happening this night and the mouse was only the beginning of it. The scratches on the walls ere getting into my head… i was begging for sleep and peace.. I imagined the mouse population was plotting against me.. and then the lights went.

At first i thought it was just my room, as if the mouse secret police were about to come crashing through the windows and fill the room with tear gas, apprehend me crimes against the mouse population. Yet i noticed a lack of any light… not even from the street, and it wasn’t long before I found myself struggling to see anything at all… the world had stopped breathing.. and every light had been extinguished for as far as i could see (which wasn’t very far at all). I naturally dived for the camera and began documenting this most incredible event – as far as i was considered i was the only thing on earth, buildings and whole civilisation had simply disappeared right in front of my eyes. Faint car noises and head lamps plunged through this fresh darkness… struggling to find their feet, moving daintily through the black. Above me the earth was reunited with the universe. For the first time i could remember the stars extended from the darkest point in the centre of the sky right to the horizon where the city would usually burn away the darkness. Yet at this moment as i sat silent in my open window the world was truly asleep.. and space bled into our atmosphere and we were silent, we were now moving around a sun… we were now finding our way beneath a universe of suns, me the mouse… we were all in the same boat and simply reduced to animals with our senses.

At this point the opportunist photographer in me had struck gold – i was clicking madly, finding new ways of seeing the world around me – i was fuckin’ extatic.  The mouse hunter side of my persona however had failed – Failed Royally!

By the time the world had coughed and chugged back to life… it’s first breaths spewing light back out into the universe the mouse had dissappeared. I once again felt trapped… violated. I stood still – very still. Barely breathing… listening hard – very hard – the sort of listening that reveals a low ringing and makes you woried that all that loud Bon Jovi was some day going to turn me fully deaf.

And then i heard it, that scratching.. he was in the wardrobe.

My mother was awake by now and the light had allowed me to read my watch…. 6am. I was truly convinced that my life had hit rock bottom. Not only was i once again at the end of a long pointless day bumming around the house, i was now trying desperately to corner an animal that was proving to be both far faster and more intelligent than me. At this point i was in no mood to compromise, disturbing the little critter from his hiding place I jetisoned the contents of my wardrobe in his direction as he darted around my room. Books, pants, bags and lamp shades all flew in his general direction. It was futile, and even when he dived to scramble past the clothing barrier under the bed my attempts and pumling the tiny turd through the clothes was to no avail. He was simply to fast for a run down insomniac like myself. returning to his familiar position beneath the bed, i lay motionless on my side on the bedroom floor, torch in hand, one eye closed so as too peer accurately through the small gap beneath the bed. We were conversing with our eyes, like two boxers in our corners during a fight. I had respect for him now, it was not going to finish this way… and the 7 and half hours of this Friday had gotten the better of me. I blocked up the rest of the gaps and made for the couch.. Round one to the mouse.

The next morning he was gone, however traps had been bought – he would be back. My twittering had gathered a crowd on the internet.. other than the reality of the situation that i had truly gone absolutely bonkers there was a debate as to what to do with the “poor little thing”. I had expressed my intention to kill and some agreed while others believed he deserved a chance. At this point I can’t honestly say that i knew what i wanted to do… all i wanted was my life back on track and this miniscule mop of hair was between me and normality… it was him or my sanity.

So the traps were set and I went on with my life. Though part of me knew he wouldn’t be back.. he knew that my room was no place for both mice and men. Yet as i lay awake on Saturday morning (because Saturdays come after Fridays I believe) at 4.30am, i could hear him scratching at the wall and moving from place to place. Getting on with his life i suppose, he probably didn’t even like it here, it was dusty and old… and the humans played awfull 80’s rock up way to loud while he tried to sleep! But he had probably decided it was best to stay rather than brave the cold and find somewhere better. And now he was only out of an attack from a hairy human.. and probably petrified to do anything. As i lay there i wondered what i would do If he did hit a trap.. would he die? Would he be stuck but alive? Would I care?

Saturday happened, and eventhough I ventured from my home this time i still felt it was yet another wasted collection of minutes and seconds. And only a short two hours ago I was slipping into bed at the early hour of 1am… an attempt to do what i had failed to do the night the mouse arrived. Just before bed I had consulted Yahoo to see what is the best bait for a mouse. It said peanut butter, I read sticky sugery spread and within minutes marmelade was applied to a mouse trap. This time though i decided to put it in the hotpress, the place where i thought the mouse had first made it out from the wall and into the “human” space. I left it down and closed the door.

Lying in my bed, i sort of knew i wasnt going to get to sleep very easily. I was half listening for a noise.. half thinking about our chances against France in the second leg of our World Cup qualifier… thinking about music…about what i could be doing if i wasn’t in bed… about how i was never going to wake up at 9am even thought the alarm was set…

Snap!

I was suddenly focused on one thought. Holy Fuck i got him. I was deadly still, I didnt know what i was waiting for, i didn’t know what to expect… a noise? There was nothing, and i didnt even hear him walking around… I eventually rolled out of bed and threw on some clothes..

I cracked open the hot press door. My eyes adjusted to the light, on the floor i could see the trap had snapped and lay upside down… a small trail of marmelade led to some blood… and the blood led to a small hairy mouse. He lay on his side, a small smatter of blood was behind his back. He was dead.

I closed the door and announced the news to my mother before going to get a bag and some kitchen roll to mop it up. The second i heard the snap i had felt both regret and relief… and as i opened the door I wondered if it needed to come to this.

It didnt occur to me at first that the mouse was now standing upright.. but eventually as i moved my hand closer i realised that he was alive.. he wasnt moving, and there was clearly a bit of blood on his back but he was definitely alive. I moved my hand in never the less, hoping at least to release him into the wild somewhere far away. Yet as i moved in he revealed he could run, and at the last moment he over came his initial shock and scuttled drunkenly past my feet and back into my room.. behind my shelves and then into the corner.

My mother had joined me at this stage, and we closed in on the petrified prisoner. It was either my slow reactions or my lack of conviction that allowed him beneath my bed once again. And so we found ourselves back to this familiar setting.. in our corners.. ready for round 2. But this time things were different. He was injured.. ready to be knocked out.. suffering and in pain… wonering how he had found himself in this mess… I was left with no choice but to move in for a final punch.. finish it before it is all drawn out.. and with a jab of a metal pole I thought i had finished things.

Yet still he stood!

At this point i had only admiration, if not a bit of frustration too. And eventually my mother and I trapped him under an upturned waste paper basket.. we had him now.. and my mother decided we should drown him.

I found this a little strange yet more so that she should do it with a hose… surely you would need to submerge a mouse rather than simply sprey him.. yet sprey she did… and as i expected he was wet… but not drowned…

If anything it had made things worse! He was now bleeding… stabbed.. wet and cold… and trapped.. he was still alive though and Icould see he had not been injured as bad as i thought, i think i missed him with the metal pole (missed by accident… or on purpose… well thats a subconscious thing…). But he was truly a broken mouse by now..

I convinced my mother to bring us out in the car at 3 am to let him free far enough away from the house so that he would not return on his own. It was only as she was backing the car, extremely slowly, out of the drive that i realised she wasnt 100% up to the task, and as we eventually moved up the road.. me in the passanger seat with basket/canvas (we used to canvas to block off the end of the basket) and the mouse within… my mother revealed she had a full bottle of wine working away at her liver!

So there we were… my mother, the mouse and I driving drunk through a residential area.. and it occured to me that perhaps we should have just killed the mouse instead of killing us all! But we kept going.. the mouse wasnt moving so much now, i hoped it was because of fear.. but we rounded to the far side of the block and i exited the car… lifted the bin and lightly threw the mouse free into a bunch of leaves… he sniffed a little but didn’t move.. I expected him to scamper away as fast as possible.. but instead he slowley limped towards the leaves… he was wet, injured and bleeding, probably hungry, and now out in the cold with no shelter. I quickly realised that I was essentially killing him very slowly, and instead of simply doing one or the other, caught between two minds i had reduced his existance to nothing with the intent to kill but not the conviction.

And so hear i am wondering if it will return, and if it does will i be relieved or annoyed? Will I accept it in my room or simply trap him again and this time kill it and kill it good.

I expect to hear the noises anyway, there must be more of them here.  And there probably will be more in the future.

And here I am at the arse end of the week, with nothing to show for it except a half dead mouse and a hotpress that smells like marmelade.. I feel guilty but happy… relieved but sorry… satisfied but empty.

I wiped the blood up from the floorboards where the trap was sprung. It had dried in already… i had to scrub hard. Then i wiped my hands clean… and tried to get it out of my head.

Perhaps this will finish it up.. get it down in writing.. and let history swallow it up. Yet i cant help feel that this event will resonate a little… pop its bloody head up every so often..

And the clock ticks 5.30 and here i am… burning into a 7th day of nothing.. waiting for a Monday morning, because thats how the week always starts.. wishing i was still in bed! And all those good intentions to sort it all out, wake up early and fall asleep before midnight like all the normal people with burn up in the sun…

 ”the best layed plans of mice and men often go awry”

After returning home from my second capoeira class (which didn’t go all that bad, thank you) I got a very disturbing email from a coworker about someone who is making snap traps in boxes.  Well how cutesy cute.  What’s even more alarming -  they were on TrendHunter.com, which isn’t such a big deal except that the last time I checked, I was the reigning mousetrap PR princess.

So I responded as any reasonable person in need of a shower at midnight would – I wrote my own post on TrendHunter.com about Mousesnaps and our adorable hand-painted mousetraps.  And then I posted that article on Facebook and Twitter.  And now I’m writing a blog post about it. 

Or in other words, I really lost my shit about it.

For example, I also wrote to my coworker and said, “First of all, THANK YOU FOR THE TIP.”  And then I proceeded to point out that anyone can submit a trend to the site and plastered Mousesnaps all over the place just to prove it.  For my grand finale, I called the other girl names and then debated myself about whether or not her traps would actually work.  Based entirely on a low-resolution image available online – I have decided that they will NOT. 

As you’re reading this, you may think that I sound like a real lunatic.  And don’t worry, I thought the same thing about halfway through!  I even wrote to my co-worker “As I’m rereading this message (God forbid there’s a typo, that would be embarrassing!), I’m realizing that I should have followed the “First of all” up with “I’m a real nut job and that’ll be the last time anyone underestimates the amount of time I have on my crazy hands.”

But I’m not sure anyone underestimated that in the first place.  Afterall, I’ve spent the better part of the year painting mousetraps, reading business textbooks, learning how to swim, PLAYING DODGEBALL, and dabbling in online dating.

Something tells me people have been thinking I’ve been obviously bored since January.

Board games, with their colorful packaging, enticing game boards and iconic playing pieces, are popular with just about everyone. No matter what your taste, there’s a game out there for you. Besides testing your knowledge (Go To The Head Of The Class), or skill (Operation), or luck (Trouble), they are fun to play and a great way to interact socially with others. Milton Bradley has been by far the leading producer of board games, followed by Parker Brothers. Ideal Toys was the main producer of action games during the 1960s and 1970s.

The following is a list of  70+ classic board and action games that have been favorites of ours from early childhood (Candyland) to adult years (Trivial Pursuit). Some are associated strictly with the baby boom generation (Rock’ Em Sock ‘Em Robots), while others are playtime mainstays that have been around for decades (Monopoly).

Hopefully this will bring back happy memories of the games you played, in which you chanced it all at the spin of a wheel or a toss of the dice. After each game’s listing are the manufacturer and the year it debuted.  These are basically the classics from Milton Bradley’s Uncle Wiggly of 1916 all the way  through Cranium in 1992. See how many of these you remember

• Aggravation (CO-5 Company) – 1962
• Ants In The Pants (Schaper) – 1968
• Axis & Allies (Milton Bradley) – 1984
• Barrel of Monkees (Lakeside) – 1969
• Balderdash (Robinson & Toyne)
• Battleship (Milton Bradley) – 1967
• Battling Tops (Ideal) – 1968
• Bonkers! (Parker Brothers)
• Booby Trap (Parker Brothers) – 1965
• Candy Land (Milton Bradley) – 1955
• Careers (Parker Brothers) – 1955
• Chutes & Ladders (Milton Bradley) – 1943
• Clue (Parker Brothers) – 1949
• Connect Four (Milton Bradley) – 1979
• Cootie (Schaper) – 1948
• Cranium (Alexander & Tait) – 1992
• Don’t Break The Ice (Schaper) – 1967
• Don’t Spill The Beans (Schaper) – 1967
• Easy Money (Milton Bradley) – 1936
• Finance (Parker Brothers) – 1932
• Game Of Life (Milton Bradley) – 1960
• Game Of The States (Milton Bradley)
• Gnip Gnop (Parker Brothers) – 1971
• Go To The Head Of The Class (Milton Bradley) – 1938
• Green Ghost (Transogram) – 1965
• Hands Down (Ideal) – 1964
• Headache (Kohner) – 1968
• HeroQuest (Milton Bradley) – 1989
• Hi-Ho Cherry-O (Whitman) – 1960
• Hungry Hungry Hippos (Milton Bradley) – 1980
• Jenga (Milton Bradley)
• Kaboom! (Ideal) – 1966
• KerPlunk (Ideal) – 1967
• The Last Straw (Schaper) – 1966
• Lie Detector (Mattel) – 1960
• Mad Magazine Game (Parker Brothers) – 1979
• Mall Madness (Milton Bradley) – 1988
• Mastermind (Invicta) – 1972
• Miss Popularity (Transogram) – 1961
• Monopoly (Parker Brothers) – 1935
• Mouse Trap (Ideal) – 1963
• Mystery Date (Milton Bradley) – 1965
• Operation (Milton Bradley) – 1965
• Outburst (Hersch & Company) – 1986
• Park & Shop (Milton Bradley)
• Password (Milton Bradley) – 1962
• Pay Day (Parker Brothers) – 1975
• Perfection (Lakeside) – 1973
• Pictionary (Western Publishing) – 1985
• Probe (Parker Brothers) – 1960s
• Qubic (Parker Brothers) – 1968
• Rebound (Ideal) – 1971
• Risk (Parker Brothers) – 1959
• Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots (Marx) – 1966
• Scattergories (Hasbro) – 1988
• Scrabble (Selchow & Righter) – 1953
• Skittle-Bowl (Aurora) – 1969
• Sorry (Parker Brothers) – 1950
• Stay Alive (Milton Bradley) – 1971
• Stratego (Milton Bradley) – 1961
• Taboo (Hasbro)
• Time Bomb (Milton Bradley) – 1964
• Tip-It (Ideal) – 1965
• Toss Across (Ideal) – 1969
• Trivial Pursuit (Selchow & Righter) – 1981
• Trouble (Kohner) – 1965
• Twister (Milton Bradley) – 1966
• Uncle Wiggly (Milton Bradley) – 1916
• Which Witch (Milton Bradley) – 1970
• Yahtzee (E. S. Lowe) – 1956

Uncle Wiggley - circa 1916

A nod has to be given to the ancient games of backgammon, chess and checkers which have stood the test of time (as well as passed down from generation to generation) and are still very much considered to be mainstream to this day.

Games involving strictly playing cards  or specialty cards were left off this particular list.

___________________________________________________________________________

Here’s another post from this blog of similar interest to check out:

• Famous Toys Immortalized at the National Toy Hall of Fame

___________________________________________________________________________

Original "Candy Land" Game - circa 1949

]]> http://theinvisibleagent.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/1963-ideal-mouse-trap-commercial/ Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:12:41 +0000 invisibleagent http://theinvisibleagent.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/1963-ideal-mouse-trap-commercial/

This is a great story about a guy and a mouse. It’s not always easy. But eventually he won…A spider, a mouse – a battle in the house

Durango Herald News, A spider, a mouse – a battle in the house

Shared via AddThis

I had so much fun doing this one. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed posting it. xoxo

POP Goes PERFECTION!

Trolls

Pogs & Slammers!

Mouse Trap

Original Cruisin USA! (A Shakey’s Fave) FYI–I had hawaii on lock!

WHAC-A-MOLE

BIG WHEEL

Power Wheels Barbie Jeep

Skip it!

Polly Pocket

Giga Pet, Nano & Tamagotchi’s

(lots of photo cred to Retroland and Children of the Nineties)

Anyone up for a game of Mouse Trap, you know the little board game giant pub game.  It would appear that somebody has far too much time on their hands.  Watch them build and play this monster of a game.

Living the life of an urban male there are two main banes to our existence; bills, and pests. The researchers and engineers of the Biometrics and Technologies Department of the University of Bath in the UK are bringing us one step closer to killing two birds with one stone with their development of robots that power themselves by catching the critters that make the less resolute among us jump onto our couches and cringe in fear. For pics and more click below.

One Unlucky Fly

They have developed a series of robots that catch mice and flies which are then digested by microbial fuel cells in order to create energy that both powers the trapping devices as well as additional objects like a clock and a graphic display. The technology behind the fuel cell is built on the basis that when microbes oxidize chemicals for energy they give off free electrons and hydrogen ions. The electrons are sent through a circuit before rejoining with the hydrogen ions.
The three initial designs created by James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau include a wall mounted flypaper roller that scraps the flies it traps into a container below that directs them into the fuel cell to be digested which in turn powers both the roller and a digital clock below. Lamps and hanging light fixtures have always been a prime place for flies to gather due to attraction, and then ultimately they die leaving a miniature graveyard of dried up fly husks behind. A self powered lamp designed by Auger and Loizeau is able to power itself by dropping flies that enter the lamp shade into a fuel cell at the bottom. Besides normal light it also powers an ultraviolet light so it can continue to catch flies at night. A table especially in a small apartment might serve as a desk, foot rest and dining table. Now it can also serve as an alternative mouse trap if people catch on to Auger and Loizeau’s forward way of thinking. By luring mice in with scraps left on the table, the mouse enters a hole built into one of the legs that activates a motion sensor and triggers a mechanical iris in the center of it. When a mouse falls into the hole he is digested by the microbial fuel cell built in and produces energy to power the sensor, iris and a display screen at the front of the table.
Though some might not like to admit their living space is riddled with opportunistic pests looking for their next meal I’m sure everyone can appreciate a new way get rid of their formidable foes and perhaps someday even save a few bucks on the electric bill. Let’s just hope no one comes up with the idea to build a robot powered by people.

for articles like this and more weekly contact me at Aulistar@bleulife.com to be added to our Bleu Digital Newsletter subscriber list for absolutely free.

Ok, ok, I’ll admit it: we have unwanted pests in the house that ate the fortune cookies and fried wonton noodles that I saved for I don’t know what reason in the flatware drawer. I found the wrappers only; they didn’t even leave me the fortunes (I think that’s why I really saved them – for a chuckle on a dreary day). Anyway, I went to our local hardware store in Weston Center and the guy recommended this one. He claimed that it really works. I was skeptical because it looks like something I would find at a $1 store, but instead I shelled out $6.99 for it. I mean, look at the picture of this mouse! It’s not fancy packaging, either. It’s from Brooklyn, NY. Interesting, right? When I showed it to my husband, we were both laughing so hard. I put a chunk of Cabot’s cheese onto both traps and placed one where it ate into my sack of potatoes and the other in the utility room. Wouldn’t you know, it got one in the utility room. I didn’t look at it, but apparently the field mouse tried to bite through the plastic to try to escape. Ok, worth the $7 bucks now!

At business school many moons ago, I was suitably impressed by how little most of my classmates knew about distribution, and it’s power in the way business works, the way power is distributed, the way competition is controlled.

Many Many bright ivy students mistakenly thought that the better mouse trap wins, that technology was the path to success. But that is not the case (Beta vs VHS for those old folks in the crowd).

It’s about distribution, the ability to get lots of product/services out into the market where customers can consume and buy, the ability to decode which products/services get into the flow, the ability to control the ties that connect producer and consumer.

Why is the Hearst Castle so grand? Because William ran the newspapers, had access and control of the information going out to Everyone Every Day. One of the greatest moments in American history was when a young Ben Franklin was so sickened by the smells at his brother’s tallow factory, that he had to quit, and worked for a local publisher instead (suddenly with access to everyone, why do you think he ran the post office?)

Why did Radio & TV broadcasters back in the day (days of govt controlled, limited licenses)   have so much power, and make so much money? How about book publishers, they controlled the capital and production to actually print a book, and get it into book stores around the country and around the world. And music and movie production companies did the same thing. They chose the acts, they controlled the production of various forms of plastic used to ship music around.

The Internet broke those locked distribution channels, especially for value that is electron friendly (vs atoms).

The old distribution not only put the economic power in the hands of a few, but also the editorial control. Those in power made the decisions about what got published, and what did not. What music got recorded, and what did not. What got broadcast, and what did not. Very tight control when you think of how many actual people were making the decisions. THEY were the experts who know (or dictated) what people wanted to see, hear, read, experience, etc.

The internet democratized all that. Now producers can reach out directly to their potential customers, fans, constituents. The middle man, the control is knocked out.

Now middlemen got into the value chain providing real value, traditionally breaking bulk, subsidizing inventory in advance of sales, allowing the factory to even out production, and finally, providing a single point of contact to access to a large number of potential customers.

But with electronic goods, and a ubiquitous global distribution platform, and easy to manage, economically viable single unit delivery and payment systems, its kind of tough for the middlemen to make a play anymore.

And while hard good middlemen are identified as such, traditional media companies (print, broadcast, music, and publishing) thought of themselves as producers, when really, they middlemen just like the plumbing supply house down the street.

It is true that the responsibility to be relevant, the create something others want, has shifted from the distribution companies to the artists, writers, and creators. They’ll have to be better marketers; they’ll have to learn how to use the new tools to get noticed, to reach their constituency.

But at least now, everyone has an equal opportunity. Say what you want to say, and if others value it, they’ll read it, listen to it, and watch your work.

Cable TV started the process in television broadcast, moving from the big 3 networks to hundreds of channels. But even that distribution pales in comparisons to the millions available on the internet. It started in Radio as the big three pulled out, and many independents took a turn, but again, how does that compare with the breadth and immediacy of the internet.

Now the news business is complaining that they can’t afford to produce “un-biased” news because of the entertainment-news popularized by Fox and TMZ and others. Come on, let’s get real, there is no such thing as un-biased news, never has been. It’s just that we all liked Walter Cronkite’s opinion back in the day.

Here are two simple illustrations to make a point.

1) I learned long ago that the front page of any news paper only has so many column inches, and the airtime of a news broadcast only has so many minutes. Who decides what get’s how many column inches / minutes of airtime which photo on the front, top fold? How are those decisions made? Are there really any un-biased criteria even available? Can anyone even pretend to validate things like “most important, most relevant, most interesting, most meaningful” as objective criteria to make decisions? It’s all subjective, and the people making those decisions have biases just like everyone else. Please, old media get off the holy horse and quit pretending we’re all two year olds.

2) Go to a baseball game (seems like a pretty simple, a-political, a-religious, no talk of abortion, simple rules, lots of easy-to-see data). Ask 10 people to describe the baseball game, via words, photos, or video. Depending on who you ask, you’ll hear about 10 different baseball games, based on their biases, what’s important to them, where they saw the story, what touched them.

The other night, Jonathan Sanchez pitched a no hitter for the SF Giants. But what was the Story? Was the story the no hitter itself, the pitch count, the hitter’s line, the evening’s data? Was the story the relationship between Jonathan and his Father, who hadn’t seen him pitch a major league game, but was with him in the stands, and dugout to celebrate with his son? Was the story how the 16th perfect game in Major League History (think of those odds) got away on an error in the 9th, and the events that put Uribe at 3rd for that play, that Pablo Sanchez’s wife was in labor?. Was the story the fantastic defensive plays behind Sanchez including the catch at the wall for the second out of the 9th? Of was the story about a father and daughter, taking in their first pro baseball game together, riding the slide in centerfield, hitting wiffle balls in little giants stadium, sharing hot dogs and garlic fries and cotton candy?

What did take place at AT&T that night? There is no single answer. There is no story without context; there is no context with out an opinion, a point of view, a perspective, an agenda, a bias.

I’ve always said that Einstein’s greatest contribution was the theory of relativity. But not in the context of science, but in the context of the social creatures we are. Everything is relative based on our experiences, our expectations, our points of comparison. You’ve seen the email that illustrated where a minute is long or short, depending on if running a marathon, or running a mile. The 360 sweep of the second hand on your watch is the same, but its context that decides whether its long or short.

The unlocking of limited distribution choke holds is what’s turning old businesses upside down.

Have a Great Day!

Finally, the final days of my trip to SF with Beth.  First…. THE MAKER FAIRE!

I specifically planned the SF trip to coincide with the Maker Faire. There are so many words to describe this event:  DIY, kinetic, art, craft, inventive, bizarre, steam punk, musical, flamable, deconstructive, robotic, and big, big big!  The fair is held for two days (we went for one) and it would take at least that to see everything.  I cannot do justice in explaining the whole event.  For that, I would suggest checking the Maker Faire website here.

Here are some of the things I managed to capture.

When we first entered the event, we were in awe of all the things billowing smoke and fire.  A steam train, a giant flower sculpture, the Crucible’s firetruck…  as we walked around there’d be a sudden blast of fire here or there.

x

x

There was a life-sized Mouse Trap, just like the board game.  And, although we never caught it “in action”, it was still something to marvel at and a nice trip back to childhood. 

Yep, bathtub, wacky stairs, and boot on a stick… it was all there!

x

x

There were many musical acts, and most included an accordian.  According to Beth’s guide book, the accordian is the state instrument for California.  (We cannot find the official state instrument for PA, but we have our theories.)

x

x

There were crazy, handmade bicycles and several art cars.  One car was full of tiny plastic windmills.  Two little girls were walking away from this car with marks on their fingers squealing “they write!”

x

Around every corner was another robotic creature walking through the crowd… even replicas of R2D2 beeping and whirling through the crowd.

It was great to just find a place to sit and watch the “parade” pass by.

One of my favorite parts was the hall containing the kinetic sculptures.  We managed to catch the interview with 5 of the artists and then see the works in action (literally).  I wish I had taken more pictures, especially of the plastic bottle “wave” sculpture by Reuben Margolin.   Here’s a little snippet of video, though. It was truly spectacular and beautiful.  Hung from the ceiling of the convention center, hundreds of plastic, 2-liter bottles moved in a slow wave.

In the same building were many other wonderful sights and sounds and lots of hands-on playing.  I once owned a piano that needed to be deconstructed to be removed from the house.  I was just a teen living at home at the time, but would have loved to have hung on to the portion with the strings. 

My absolute favorite part of the day was when we were sitting on a bench watching and listening to people play on this theremin-type exhibit (I think it was built around a Tesla Coil).  Those eerie sounds made the perfect soundtrack for this creature that suddenly appeared.  So cool!

On Sunday I took a beautiful ride on the Larkspur ferry from the Ferry Plaza to visit my brother. (Note that San Francisco Fog vs. the bright blue skies across the bay.)

Scott had been preparing his yard for his garden and I arrived just in time to help put everything in the ground.  What a treat!  Squash, tomatoes, peppers, beans, peas, and lettuces.  And, in true Scott fashion, the garden was a handmade masterpiece of beautiful reused items.  I love the coiled rebar to hold the climbing cucumbers and the iron plant stand as tomato cage.  Take a look:

Also in true Scott fashion, he brought out the ugly teeth and made me wear them. Oh, the things my brother can make me do!

And that’s the trip.  Just a sleepless red-eye back to the ‘Burgh, and then it was June.