One of my friends from college used to try to recruit me to his business meetings for business stuff. He claimed that I was one of the most creative people he knew. To this day, I'm not sure what he based that presumption off of besides the fact that he enjoyed the Book of the Man of Little Consequence... but I do have ideas. Sure, these ideas are kind of big and impractical, and somebody has probably already had them somewhere, and I've probably already mentioned them before, but here you go:
#1: Chinese Pizza
Everybody knows that when you mix two nationalities into one restaurant, the result is always unique and wildly successful!... I mean, look at Taco Bell. It's a successful chain based off of both Mexico and I think Mordor. And I luuuuurve me some Toxic Bell!
So here's my contribution to the world of international food cross-overs: It looks just like a pizza, but you take a bite and supplies your taste-buds with a fiesta of Asian persuasion! Instead of cheese, you get rice. Instead of tomato sauce, you get sweet and sour sauce. Instead of pepperoni, it's orange chicken! Instead of bread dough, you get wanton... and perchance even stuffed crust wanton with crab cheese! Choose from any list of toppings like broccoli, cabbage, noodles, tofu, radish, fortune cookies, and all kinds of chicken, pork, beef, and dog.
And the best part is that when it's delivered, on top of the stack of boxes is a cardboard Eastern-style roof gable like the ones you associate with samurai and ninja. I don't think I'm describing this well, so I'll put a picture of something in the neighborhood of what my imagination is cooking up:
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| Instead of housing, those will be pizza boxes, and probably much smaller without the weird thingy on top |
So there. I think the big sell on this one would be that you can enjoy a Chinese meal and not be ashamed about being really bad at using chop sticks, which I'm pretty sure most Amelicans suffer with. You just eat it like it's pizza. Get to it, world. I want one by the end of the year.
#2 The Man Factory
This is an outlet store hybrid of sorts. No, it doesn't produce actual men but stuff FOR men. It mainly deals in power tools and bacon. It also has TV's that play Anchor Man and Major Payne 24/7, punctuated by episodes of NCIS (because Gibbs is the Uber man) and Sports Center.
Yes, there may be many who walk into the place looking for dirty mags or other such objectifications of women, but the Man Factory will have no such thing. I personally think such material is the opposite of manliness. Go get a family and take care of them, THAT's manly. Maybe Anchor Man isn't the best for this kind of theme after all...
And yes, I'm not one to talk about having a family and taking care of them. I never claimed to be the paradigm of manliness myself. What kind of brony would?
#3 Interactive Movies
Do you ever watch movies and just get so frustrated with the characters' choices? Do you ever watch a movie again and again and somewhere in the back of your mind you hope that things turn out differently then how you know it's going to be? Do you ever read Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books and love it so much that you want to see a film adaptation? Probably not for that last one... but I know I've contemplated how things would have been different if Mufasa had landed on the back of a wildabeast and rode it to safety like a boss.
So what about this: you go to a theater and there's a nifty little electronic voting device attached to every chair, kind of like an audience poll type thing from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. At critical points during your feature film, the movie pauses for a moment and gives the audience choices on which they vote, possibly severely altering the course of the plot. For examples:
1. A live T-Rex is assaulting the jeep of two kids. You hate kids, Dr. Grant. You:
A. Run out and light a flare to distract the T-Rex and save those kids you hate.
B. Watch in gorey fascination as the T-Rex enjoys two bite-size snacks.
C. Offer up Jeff Goldblum as a sacrifice.
D. Call the military, duh! Launch a proper investigation on the whole dinosaur breeding project and prevent Jurassic Parks 2 and 3 from happening.
2. Harry Potter sees a stream of spiders leading to a potentially lethal situation. But Hagrid said... You:
A. Follow the spiders.
B. Go get Dumbledore to follow the spiders.
C. Drop out of Hogwarts and became a Muggle businessman using the magic you have already learned to cheat the system and become a millionaire by the time you're 19.
D. Make out with Hermione.
3. Who wins the battle of Helms deep?:
A. Rohan
B. The Uruk-Kai (however you spell it)
C. Gollum
4. Luke Skywalker is getting shot by lightning from the Emperor.
A. Ok, I give up! Dark side it is.
B. Anakin has another completely unpredictable and out-of-character change of heart.
C. Samuel L. Jackson, who actually survived, comes out of nowhere and saves the day, spawning the new Star Wars series spinoff: Jedi with the Purple Saber.
D. The emperor reveals himself to be George Lucas and stops being evil once Mickey Mouse bribes him into giving up his plotting and scheming.
Ok, so I understand that production cost of interactive movies would skyrocket. I mean, it would be like making dozens of movies for just one. But imagine the replay value! How often would people revisit the theaters in order to get every possible ending? The critics would be too confused to even give any movie a bad rating! And Nicholas Cage could win EVERYTHING!!
Yeah, some DVD's offer alternate endings to things, but that's as close as it gets. Get on it, world! I wanna see Kevin actually get to eat that macaroni before the bad guys try to invade his home.
