Category: Uncategorized (So Far)

Despite how careful I’ve been to prepare people for the sheer greatness of the Idea, when I get to this point and finally actually introduce them to the Great Idea, most people are a little dumbfounded. Which is fine; great ideas often take a little while to be truly understood. People usually have some questions:

Where does it work?

It works everywhere. You see, the mug entitles the bearer to free refills.

But why does a business honor the mug?

Because the mug entitles the bearer to free refills.

Well then who gets the money?

I do. It was my idea.

And if a business doesn’t want to honor the mug?

You’ll just have to explain to them, as you would to a recalcitrant child, that the mug entitles the bearer to free refills.

Does it work in coffee shops?

Yes. The mug entitles the bearer to free refills.

Does it work in restaurants?

Yes. The mug entitles the bearer to free refills.

Does it work in pubs? Bars? Breweries?

Yes, yes and yes. Please be responsible.

After asking several or all of these questions, this tends to happen: My interlocutor will fall silent as she considers everything she just heard. I’ll wait patiently because I know what’s coming next. And then she’ll say, “That’s a pretty great idea.”

And I’ll say, “I know.”

You’ll find today’s piece over at Training Tiger Woods. While you’re there, make sure you read Jerry’s latest piece, on working with goals. It’s excellent stuff.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “He drops a bomb like that in the middle of the workweek and expects me to keep functioning? How the hell am I supposed to concentrate now?”

I told you it was a great idea.

The great idea is this:

The mug entitles the bearer to free refills.

The mug costs like $100, or maybe $200.

That’s not the great idea, either.

If you’re just getting here, you should probably start by reading parts one, two, three, and four.

Are you ready to hear about my great idea?

My idea is this:

You can buy this mug. It’s a really nice mug. It’s made out of stainless steel. It’s double-walled for insulation, is dishwasher safe, has a convenient handle and a spill-proof lid and is just the right size for your favorite beverage. You can easily attach it to a carabiner so you can carry it on your backpack or utili-belt so you can have it handy if you arrive at a party where you need to bring your own mug, like at Burning Man or the Oscars.

(Back when I first had this idea, I described the mug as being made out of plastic, because that’s what insulated beverage mugs were made of back then. These days, drinking out of plastic beverage containers doesn’t seem like maybe as great an idea as it once did, considering things like plastic pollution, that plastic is made from petroleum, and that plastic leaches chemicals that do things like mess up your endocrine system and make people deny climate change. Even great ideas need to evolve.)

It’s handsome, the mug. A mug you’d be proud to be seen carrying. A mug that makes others say, “Look at that smart, handsome person, carrying his/her mug and enjoying a delicious beverage. That person is a model human being. Henceforth, I will strive to be more like that sophisticated, rippling-abbed soul.”

None of that stuff is the great idea, by the way. Insulated, spill-proof beverage mugs are a really great idea, but not breathing-level great, and, since they existed before I thought to think about them, I can’t really claim that they are specifically my idea.

Today I’m resurrecting my soccerblog, which is cleverly entitled Ben Writes About Soccer. Real Madrid hired Zinedine Zidane as their manager, and I had to write about it. You can read the piece here: Watch Out, Zizou, That Chick Is Crazy.

Today’s piece is on Training Tiger Woods. You’ll find it here.

This is Mango.

Everybody loves Mango.

I made a website about Mango. You can find it at everybodylovesmango.freerefills.net. You might as well bookmark that URL and put it in your RSS reader and stuff, because let’s face it, you’re going to be checking it out all the time.

Mango is an old girl now, about 14-and-a-half, but she’s still one of the greatest dogs ever, and I’m going to celebrate her in the late autumn of her years.

(Anyway, Free Refills is my website and no one can stop me.)

She’s my sweet girl and I’m going to make sure that everyone knows it. It’s going to be super-popular, Mango’s website. Why? Because everybody loves Mango.

Wait. Breathing?

Yup. This isn’t widely known, but breathing was something that had to be invented. It didn’t just happen. The first organisms complicated enough to need to breathe all died of suffocation. They would be born and they would flop around in painful misery for a few minutes and then they would die. But one day, one of them had this great idea. She was flopping around, dying, and she thought, I wonder what would happen if I did this, and she consciously flexed a proto-muscle that previously hadn’t seemed to have any purpose, and that proto-muscle turned out to be a proto-diaphragm, and flexing that muscle filled her proto-lungs, and she breathed, and she stopped flopping around dying and suddenly the world was a much more pleasant and less painful place. You can imagine how thrilled she was. And she turned to all the other creatures flopping around dying there on the shores of primordial seas and she said, “Hey, try this!” and she taught them how to breathe. And they all agreed that breathing was a fantastic idea, that it made life a lot more pleasantly compelling than flopping around dying ever was, and they all hailed her idea, and set about the process of evolving and filling up the planet with life.

She had no name–the idea of names wouldn’t be invented for many hundred millions of years–but we should all raise a glass in her honor. For breathing was a truly great idea.