Actual Japanese Business

I remember I had a "dumb" idea a few years ago about opening up a storefront type business where frustrated people that needed stress relief could come in, pay a few dollars for some glass jars, some goggles, and an empty room with a brick wall, and just start smashing the jars against the wall until they felt a little better. I figured the glass jars could be picked up free as recyclables at low or no cost, and the building for the operation would be basic and cheap. Give it a catchy name like "Glass Smashers Club" or something.

Anyway, I thought this would never fly. Thought there might be liability problems with possible glass injuries. Then I saw a story about a crazy Japanese business that was exactly the same as my idea.

So it worked for someone. I imagine that nowadays, people need stress relief more than ever with terrorism fears, people losing their jobs, going bankrupt, losing their life savings in the stock market. You might not be able to find enough glass!

I would think this would be VERY easy to get free publicity for. Crazy stories and businesses always get press. Sell monthly memberships like a gym!

So maybe someone out there has a space that is idle that they could use for this experiment. Who knows, you could become the king of stress relief. Franchise!

Is there a super consciousness or what? I've had
weird ideas and somebody else must have gotten
them, too....

What would something non-glass they could hurl?
I thought about plastic bags of paint...they
could probably sell their "creation" for $5,999
and get even more stress relief!!

Here's another one. I have a hobby of taking black and white photographs here in Chicago. I am particularly interested in taking pictures of Chicago alleys.

A while ago, I had an idea of putting out a book of Chicago alley pictures. I thought that sounded a little far out. A few weeks ago I searched for the word "alley" at Amazon.

Believe it or not, there is a book of photographs of Chicago alleys (not just alleys) coming out in November, according to their info. Wild.

Now, I'm not saying that I could have secured a contract for such a book, but I found it amazing that someone else had the same exact idea, and did!

Is there anyone else out there who thought up a crazy idea, only to later see someone else doing it?

> Is there a super consciousness or what? I've
> had
> weird ideas and somebody else must have
> gotten
> them, too....

> What would something non-glass they could
> hurl?
> I thought about plastic bags of paint...they
> could probably sell their
> "creation" for $5,999
> and get even more stress relief!!

I used to work at a post office. My friends and I would always joke about installing a big punching bag to "let out some steam."

We wanted to have one on each corner of the building, so no matter where you were, you could just rush over and punch away. (Did you know that postal facilities have the most anger-per-square-foot than any other building in any other industry? Some insiders blame it on the wandering two-legged coffee holders).

We didn't want to get escorted out of the building (again), so we just kept that idea to ourselves. Anyway, maybe there'd be some money in installing these type of stress-relievers for companies.