A Few Bright Ideas

I am not much of a television watcher. Truthfully, until a friend gave me a converter box, the only channel I could watch was Channel 23. During the day, I let all the judge shows play while I surfed the Internet. At night, I learned to love House of Payne and reruns of The Bernie Mac Show.

This past Sunday, I saw a show that anyone who has ever dreamed of going into business or feels that they have the next great idea should see. The show was Shark Tank. It airs on Sunday on Channel 7 at 8 p.m.

The premise of the show is very simple. People with ideas go before five self-made millionaires and present their business ideas. They are asking those millionaires to invest money for a percentage of the business.

Now, those millionaires are not kind and benevolent money lenders. They are sharks out to invest in a business, but not necessarily for the percentage of ownership that the people who come before them are offering. One of the reasons I like the show was to hear the blunt comments that they made regarding people's business idea.

For example, one guy had an idea to implant a Bluetooth device in a person's head. Yeah, I said implant, meaning surgery. The millionaires looked at him like he was from Planet Out-Of-His-Mind as they asked if he was serious.

Did he really want people to have a permanent device surgically put into their heads? Would people seriously really want to put an electrical plug into their head to recharge the battery? What about when the device needed upgrading, would another surgery have to be done?

The man presenting the idea responded with a straight face that, yes, another surgery would be required. Needless to say, that guy didn't get an offer from anyone to lend him money for his idea.

If you have ever had an idea for a product or invention, this is the show to watch. From knowing that one should do a patent search when they come up with an idea for an invention to watching the entrepreneurs learn that people aren't willing to invest in your idea for a huge percentage of ownership, this is the most fascinating television I've seen in ages. So check it out.

Speaking of inventions, here's an idea. I want the future dog licenses to be micro-chipped with a radio frequency device that can be scanned from 50 feet away. Why? Because in my current exercise craze of biking for miles, I am seeing a huge number of individuals walking very large dogs who don't have on any dog tags. It's impossible to tell whether the animals are registered and or been vaccinated against diseases.

The people walking those dogs know that no one in the city is actively doing anything about it. Where are the dog catchers? If someone could point a device at the dog and the tag isn't there to be read, the animal should be immediately impounded and the individual fined $500.

And speaking of fining, let's get a new ordinance for street cleaning. Our aldermen can use the Olympic 2016 quest as their impetus to put forth a new ordinance requiring all businesses on major streets to be responsible for cleaning the sidewalks in front of their businesses by 10 a.m. every single day.

Besides cleaning for litter, they should also be responsible for snow removal in the winter by the same time. I am seeing so much garbage as I bike down our major business streets. Far too much of it is in front of storefront churches that only seem to feel the obligation to sanitize once a week on Sunday morning. It is time to hold those who want to occupy business locations to the same level as anyone else on a business strip.

And cleaning in front of those locations can be an employment opportunity, since it's cheaper to pay someone several dollars a day when the alternative is a fine for several hundred dollars.