Crossposted at nowhereweb.com in glorious Kodachrome
Introduction
My hope is that with Million Dollar Ideas, that someone out there who is my polar opposite, that is, someone who possesses loads of motivation but has no actual ideas with which to act upon, will seize upon one of these brilliant schemes and see it through to fruition. Furthermore, my hope is that upon cashing in on this idea, that this individual will be grateful and honest enough to send me a giant wad of cash. I’d say 15% oughta cover it. |
Million Dollar Ideas Vol I.
| Today’s Million Dollar Idea involves an ebay account, a pane of glass, some black spray paint and one other common item that can be found in any department store for a few dollars.
Follow me now for vast riches await you. |
| The Setup I’m sure you’ve read the news accounts about people who happened to come across strange religious iconography. |
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| A couple of years ago, a man discovered an image of the Virgin Mary on a piece of grilled cheese. The man placed the artifact on on the popular internet auction site ebay, which netted the seller $28,000.
In all actuality, the image on the sandwich looked alot more like the modern day madonna than it did the actual madonna, but I’m sure that fact mattered very little to the seller who must have literally laughed all the way to the bank. |
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Shortly thereafter, someone obvioulsy inspired by the impressive haul taken in by the owner of the immaculate cheese sandwich, put up for auction a pierogi bearing the image of Christ (or Frank Zappa, whichever you prefer). The auction closed at $1775
All in all, not a bad take for a .10 cent piece of burnt potato latki, but a little simple math comparing $28,000 to $1775 quickly shows us that much of the the novelty regarding the phenomenon of religious figures appearing on edibles has worn off. |
| The Payoff At this point I can hear you thinking, “Where are you going with this Mr. Nowhere? You promised us a Million Dollar Idea and you keep babbling on about the rapidly declining value of religious foodstuffs. Besides, these items are anomoles, freak occurrences that happen by chance against impossible odds. Even if I did want to dabble in this bizarre bear market, where am I going to get a piece of toast or something bearing the image of Jesus or the virgin Mary? Regarding the latter issue you’ve raised, what most people don’t realize is that it is very easy to make your own religous apparitions just like these using a few common household items. This is where the items I mentioned earlier come in:
Next, our other problem. That being the declining worth. Any marketing guy can tell you that often all a fizzling product needs to get sales back into gear is the proverbial new twist on an old idea. Whenever Barbie sales start to tank, R&D farts out a new convertible for her to whore around in and hoopa dee doo! Mattel is back in bid-ness!! Hooker Handbook rule #1: The angle of the dangle is always proportional to the heat of the meat! |
| So, how do we spice up the angle on this particular dangle? In examining this challenge, one quickly realizes that the one thing that cannot possibly be changed is the celebrity angle. Without our star Jesus (or Mary) driving this ride, our product is quite literally garbage. This leaves only the material for us to tinker with. Knowing this we can now set about figuring out what else besides rotting trash we can use to give this product the jumpstart it so desperately needs. Some material that keys into the particular neurosis of the kind of person who would even be interested in purchasing something like this in the first place: |
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No, that doesn’t quite cut it.
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Getting closer, but still not quite right. Wait! 
I think I’ve got it!
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Bingo!!!
The Explanation
Over the next six months leading up to the midterm elections, the Republican Congress and Senate, will be heavily debating such important topics as gay marriage, prayer in school and flag burning in a desperate attempt to summons once again the over-zealously religious and the blindly patriotic to the polls.
They will be aided in this crusade by none other than the worlds best and whoriest, most sensational and unethical media pundits that this great country has to offer.
By my estimations, the flag waving religious fervor should reach maximum pitch sometime around October. This is the time to strike.
The rest of the details, such as the opening price and the reserve price I’m going to leave up to you, because shit, I can’t do everything. Besides, as the motivated one, that kind of shit is more your department. I would like to advise against using Buy It Now. Trust me, you’re not going to need it so why not just save the .50¢ Buy It Now service charge?
But I do personally guarantee that if you time this juuuust right, you will get major press coverage of your find. And as you field questions from reporters:
Tell the reporters that the flag was once the ornamental draping for your WWII veteran uncle’s coffin at his military funeral and one day the image just appeared.
Don’t worry about the press checking up on your story. They don’t do that anymore.
The Conclusion
Finally, as the auction draws to a close and just as your media exposure hits a deafening crescendo, when you don’t think you can take one more second of maintaining the spectacular lie anymore, goldenpalace.com will swoop in at the last second and purchase the funky flag for no more than $5,000,000 and no less than $1,000,000 which will in turn result in massive press coverage for the sleazy online casino at a cost much less expensive than traditional advertising.
The press will go home, you’ll get your check and goldenpalace.com gets their cheap advertising. Everybody wins. That is, everybody except the rest of the country, who will probably end up stuck with two more years of republican rule.
But hey, who cares? You’re rich now and you can use the tax cut.
Just don’t forget my 15%