Recording studio in the mall

Harken back to the old days when elvis walked in to Sun Studios and cut a demo for $25 bucks.

Imagine a storefront in the mall, with a picture window on each side of the door looking in to a recording studio, with singers cutting songs. You can go in, play some background music, sing the lyrics and cut a demo on professional quality equipment.

Karaoke for real.

For more serious talent, there could be backup musicians for live recording on call. (Musicians would _love_ live gigs, I would assume)

Pricing options would allow one song, a 5 song minidisc, or a full 10 song album. You can walk away with a CD of your songs, and the music will also be available to you on a website, where you can download mp3s, and order more CDs.

You can get a discount on the price of the studio if people walking by in the mall can watch or listen.

10% off if others can listen. (mic open)

10% off if others can watch. (curtain open). Use light polarized windows for digital instant on/off.

Some money needs to go to record companies/bmi/ascap (for all but performance rights, or performance rights if using backup track)

Tie-ins can include idol-like contests and voting, and karaoke nights in local clubs.

The Pillow Store

Have you ever stayed at your grandmother’s house, or a friend’s house, and absolutely loved the pillows, and wished you could go back 50 years and buy some for yourself? Have you ever stayed at a hotel, and loved the bedding? Or been at a department store and been disappointed in the pillow selection available?

The Pillow Store is a one-stop shop for buying bed pillows. Most large home goods stores have a fairly small and poor selection of pillows. There needs to be a single source to find a broad selection of high-quality pillows, in a wide price range, expert clerks to answer questions, and an onsite seamstress to customize pillows as you wait.

A small storefront in a mall or other existing high traffic area, or can be added to an existing larger store as a self-contained boutique.

Complimentary website for ordering, reordering, store locations.

An onsite seamstress, who can custom make pillows to fit _your_ needs exactly. Pillows can be shaped and customized to exactly fit our contour needs. Your custom pillow patterns are saved, and available again for reorder at any time.

Rehab and cleaning of existing pillows is also provided.

• pillows
• pillow covers.
• instructions on how to choose a pillow
• instructions on how to care for a pillow.
• pillow matching (bring in your favorite pillow, we can match it)

Materials

• down
• feather
• poly
• blend
• thermapedic

This Room is Occupied sensor

I spent 4 days in hotels this week, and was totally annoyed by the cleaning staff trying to enter the room 3 times over 4 days while I was in the room.

I want a motion sensor installed in the room, one in the main room, one in the bathroom, that senses movement. This sets the room “isOccupied” flag to Occupied.

On the door leaving the room, there is another sensor that notices when the door is opened, and sets the flag to Not Occupied.

On the outside of the door, built into the door frame, is a small LED sensor, that is lit green when the room is occupied.

This would instantly let the staff know when someone is still in their room.

This sensor system would also be useful for homes, and for small restrooms in commercial spaces.

It even could serve as a security device in homes, small offices and cars, letting you know that someone is in the building before you enter.

i-wish.org

This is envisioned to be a very simple web service that allows people to drop short things they wish.

An electronic wishing well, or a web version of the prayer ribbon trees.

Another variant, different but similar would be i-am-thankful.org

Woodshed

Many suburban households today have wood fireplaces, wood stoves, and backyard campfires.

Very few have the interest, ability or tools to cut and manage their own wood supply. Most have their wood supply delivered.

They also have to deal with the potential eyesore of a woodpile.

The woodshed is a small prefab shed, in either 4×4 or 4×8 (half-cord or cord) sizes, that fit over a standard pallet or double pallet of stacked cordwood.

Doors - optional siding - to match house roof, sides - fixed Floor - pallet (oak or pine?) light enough to lift and place over new pallet. less than $200 (the price of 1 1/2 cords) list of "approved" wood suppliers by zipcode type of wood (oak, hardwood, etc) green or seasoned dumped or stacked on pallet

columns-r-us.com

Very thin vertical site that provides an authoritative source for information, products and services relating to columns, for both interior and exterior/facade.

Catalogs of where to buy, service ads for people to install and maintain, design information, and advice.

• Wood
• Stone
• Tile
• Concrete
• Laminate
• Antique rescues

Bicycle mileage tracker

Just like Nike and Apple have done for running, I would like a device that hooks the iPod to my bike, and lets it track mileage and movement.

It would need to include a community site like Nike has for posting the content, talking about it, and finding people to ride with you.

A map to track real mileage and a fictional map to show “you have ridden 156 miles to date, you could have reached New York City…”

InternsWanted.com

A simple site that allows companies to post available part-time work for internships, holiday and vacation workers.

The postings can include bios of the intern supervisors, and even a linkedIn-style “connection tree” from company employees to others for those college and high-school kids that realize networks are of prime importance.

brickhouse.com or newenglandbrickbuildings.com

New England has hundreds of small towns centered around former brick buildings from mill and industrial complexes.

Many of these buildings have been renovated as businesses or condos or apartments, but there are thousands more that are waiting to be resurrected.

Some of the buildings are even available from towns for just back taxes (at least, that has been true in the past)

brickhouse.com will be a website listing all of the brick and stone buildings in New England (and eventually everywhere).

Listings will include real estate listings of properties for sale or rent, contractors specializing in rehabilitation, zoning and local ordinances, state or federal grants or tax breaks, and data about each site (site size, location, year built, last used, current owner, tax assessment information, and hopefully pictures,, including historic pictures.)