You'd be surprised at the sheer number of dirty photos that appear on a Google Image search of "tickle fights." So I'm sticking with puppies.

I was talking the other day to a high school teacher about fights. She said that she’s broken up some fights between boys, but never between two girls. If girls get to the point where they’re hitting each other, they’re not going to stop if you try to intervene.

I’ve never gotten in a fight, and I think they’re pretty silly in general. Hormones, adrenaline, and fisticuffs don’t make for productive solutions.

I’m not sure what made me think of this, but I had a random idea that could make high schools–and the world–much better places. What if fighting were allowed in any environment at any time, but there’s only one way you could do it:

Tickle fights.

That’s right. If someone is really bothering you at school, instead of throwing a punch at them, you tickle them and they tickle you. People circle around you chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” while the two of you roll on the ground, screaming with laughter, tears rolling down your faces.

At the end of the tickle fight, you’d walk away feeling so much better. I think it’s really hard to laugh and not feel better afterwards. Whenever I’m having a bad day, I call one of my funniest friends and chat for a bit. I always feel uplifted afterwards.

Extrapolate tickle fights to tickle wars. What if the war in Iraq had been fought with tickles instead of guns? We’d be best friends with the insurgents by now! And eventually someone would tap out. There’s only so long you can last during an all-out tickle onslaught.

This idea makes me want David Fincher to film Fight Club 2: Tickle Fights. It would be amazing.

Daily Quickie: Check out my previous solution for obesity, energy, and unemployment.

• The feeling after I finish writing a short story
• Cat cuddles
• Popeye’s chicken
• A really good hug
• Replaying my own soccer highlights in my head
• Watching any commercial with the Arcade Fire song “Wake Up” as the music

Today I’m high on a new website idea I have. I won’t delve into it until I’ve developed it further. And honestly, odds are that nothing will come of it. I don’t say that in a defeatist way. It’s just the way it is. I have these ideas all the time, and most of them end up on a long list on my computer.

What gets me high is the excitement of thinking about and brainstorming a new idea. That’s the really fun part. Everything else is business.

What’s the coolest website you’ve stumbled upon lately?

Daily Quickie: Speaking of cool ideas, I saw the other day that someone designed a squirt bottle even better than the one I thought of. Check it out.

That's a translucent tray, not a censor of my crotch. In case there was any question.

I don’t go to movies at AMC theaters in St. Louis.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with the theaters. They usually have big, comfortable seats and stadium seating. The biggest issue I have is that their popcorn is terrible, and I’m a popcorn guy. So the independent chains get my money.

However, I saw a movie at an AMC theater in Kansas City this weekend that blows all other movie theaters out of the water.

AMC is based in Kansas City, so they test out new ideas there. One of the concepts they’re testing is the idea of movie suites (opposed to theaters). These suits have about 18 plush leather recliners in place of seats, traytops, and assigned seating (you choose your seats in advance, like any live theater).

Best of all, you can order food during the movie. That’s right–a waiter will come right to your seat and take your order. Surprisingly, this doesn’t distract you from the movie at all, and the food is actually pretty good. They even have sweet ice tea!.

Even more surprisingly for me, the popcorn was excellent. What’s up with that, AMC? Why does your theater concept get delicious popcorn, but not St. Louis?

Daily Quickie: People in the TV and movie biz say that the camera adds 15 pounds. So why doesn’t someone (James Cameron, are you reading this?) invent a camera that subtracts 15 pounds? That way actresses wouldn’t have to starve themselves to look normal on the big screen. Bam! Million dollar idea, for free on this blog.

PlayMaker T-Shirt: The PlayMaker T-Shirt lets you draw up plays for sports on the shirt with your finger (similar to running your finger against the grain on a carpet) and then wipe it clean with a swipe of your hand so only your teammates know their routes. Perfect for pick-up football.

Pit Bull Deodorant: This new twist on deodorant prevents dreaded pit stains from ever forming by infusing deodorizing chemicals with non-toxic laundry crystals. When your shirt soaks up sweat, it also absorbs the cleansing crystals, prepping it for a proper clean hours before you drop it in the wash.

Curve Spray Bottle: A spray bottle that sprays just as well horizontally as it does vertically (see diagram below).

Before you reply to the poll, consider this: I’m thinking about submitting one of these ideas to Quirky.com. Quirky is a site that takes a single idea, crowdsources it to refine and design the concept, and then builds, produces, and sells the product. The originator of the idea can make a fair amount of money, and everyone who contributes to the design and refining process owns a very small share as well.

The “catch?” It’s brilliant, really. To submit an idea, you have to pay $99. Seems steep, but really it keeps out a lot of ideas that should either be Googled first (they already exist) or are just plain bad.

So. Are any of these ideas worth the $99 it’ll take for me to submit it?

Daily Quickie: If you’ve seen Inception, read this article about the various possibilities that the end suggests. I’m a proponent of #3. Also read Blank Slate Press author Fred Venturini’s fascinating take on the ending.

But sometimes I find myself sitting at my desk at work in the evening, knowing that I’m craving something, but the craving is just out of my reach. I can’t identify it. That happens all the time, really.

I end up either (a) going home and eating whatever I have or (b) wondering aimlessly through the grocery store until I stumble upon the item of my affection. The former is rarely completely satisfying, and that latter is quite inefficient and doesn’t guarantee results.

So.

I’d like to introduce the idea of cravelist.com.

Cravelist is a web app (or an phone app, if you’re fancy) that helps you determine what you’re craving. I think the site could work for more that just food, but let me explain how it would work with food here.

You go to the site and given a series of options and questions that help you realize what you’re craving. I could see this working in a number of ways, but one such way would be for you to be presented by photos several different food types on the main page; say, desserts, entrees, salads, snacks. You choose one and then are given some other options: sweet, salty, small, big, etc.

Of course, the site gets smarter the more you (and other people) use it. It starts to recognize your cravings, eliminating things that you never crave and pushing things that you often crave up to the top of the hierarchy. It also culls data from other users to expedite the process for everyone using the site.

It’s free. But I think the site could generate revenue from the results. Say you’ve determined that your craving is for chicken Parmesan. When you reach that conclusion, you can enter your current location and the site shows you where in the area you can get chicken Parmesan. Restaurants could pay to have theirs be the featured dish in that area or offer coupons on the site to entice you to choose them. And it’s not limited to restaurants–if you feel like cooking, the site could pull up a well-received recipe from epicurious.com and feature certain brands of tomato sauce or nearby grocery stores.

The crowdsourcing could really help when your result is determined–say, for example, the site helps you discover that you’re craving a burger, and it suggests Liluma as the place to go. But you already know that your favorite burger is found at Seamus McDaniel’s. So you tell that to the site, and that information may help someone who hasn’t tried burgers from Seamus.

I see a lot of elements of this site that could work–it’s fun, it’s quick, and you’re rewarded every time you go to the site. What do you think? What am I not considering? What would make it work better?

“What’s a spin class?” I asked. I had heard the term before, but I feel like it’s one of those things you hear a lot as a guy and never really know what it is, like pilates or pap smears.

“It’s like, stationary bikes, with a teacher,” she said.

“Why do you need a teacher to ride a stationary bike?”

She went on to explain that having someone push you–like that crazy lady in the Biggest Loser–as well as people around you helps you exercise better. I get that. It’s the same idea behind having a personal trainer, a job that technically shouldn’t exist, but it does because we’re American humans and we need to be pushed to do anything.

It’s also the same idea behind Treadmill Racing, the concept I created way back in the days of LiveJournal blogging (fun fact: some people actually still blog on LiveJournal!) In my Treadmill Racing concept, you get to race against other people in the same gym (or even other gyms–you could log in from home) to help simulate the experience of running in the park and trying to catch the person in front of you.

But this spin class thing made me think: What if there’s an even better way?

What if…what if you combined treadmills, stationary bikes, gyms, treadmill racing, and the most fun video game ever?

You’d get the MarioKart Gym.

At the MarioKart Gym, when there are enough players to start a race, you actually race the other people at the gym on treadmills or stationary bikes by watching yourself on a video screen in front of your machine. Your kart’s speed depends on your actual peddling/running speed. You get all the fun bonuses in the game, and you steer as if you’re on the course.

I’m telling you, people would be begging to get healthy at this gym. It’s better than the actual MarioKart because you actually feel like you have an impact on your velocity.

Come on, Nintendo. Let’s do this. Let’s make a baby together. We’ll call it the MarioKart Gym.

However, today I thought of a great name for a strip club:

Indulgents

Clever, eh? Here’s the catch: I can’t figure out if it’s a good name for a strip club where people watch nearly naked women dancing on stage or nearly naked men dancing on stage.

Picture yourself driving down the highway through East St. Louis. You see a huge neon sign suspended over a nearby building that reads, “Indulgents.” What type of strip club do you think it is? Would bachelor parties go there or bachelorette parties?

Today, for some odd reason, I was thinking about dares. I’m the guy in Truth or Dare who will always accept truth over dare…I’ll tell you anything. Really. But dare me to do something mildly silly and I’ll back down.

But dares are still fun. Not nasty, crass dares, but clever, funny dares (the same rules apply to April Fool’s Day pranks).

The problem is, dares can be expensive. Maybe you dare your friend to go make a fool out of himself, and his response is, “I’ll do it if you give me $50.” Of course you’re not going to give him $50 for a silly little dare.

That’s where crowdsourcing comes in. I’m talking about the Kickstarter model that I idolize. This is how it would work:

1. You think of a crazy dare for a friend. You want Sally Q. to start a pillow fight out of nowhere at girl’s night. So you go to DareStarter.com, type in Sally’s e-mail address, along with the dare.

2. Sally gets the e-mail. She can reject the dare outright, or she can accept the dare for a monetary amount of her choice.

3. An e-mail is sent to you with Sally’s acceptance. It’s then your job to forward the link to all your friends who know Sally who might be willing to chip in a few bucks to see Sally do the dare. When they go to DareStarter.com, they see something like this:

The site puts all pledges in reserve (credit cards are not charged at the point of pledge) so that if the goal isn’t met, nobody gets charged.

As you can see, there’s also an incentive to pledge–you get a photo or whatever other creative rewards you think of.

4. Last, when the goal is realized, the dare is accomplished, and the photo is taken, the person who completed the dare has the option of posting a photo or video of the dare to DareStarter.com. If they do, they get a reward–maybe a few dollars to pledge in the future themselves. That person also gets the $50 they asked for, of course, perhaps minus a small percentage to cover fees for the website.

What do you think? What would you dare your friends to do?

The three biggest problems I’m talking about:

1. Obesity
2. Energy
3. Unemployment

The solution will require some government spending, but it could be done with private capital as well. Basically, you install stationary bikes all over the place. One on every corner, say. Each bike is connected to the electrical grid. You scan into the bike with a passport or credit card, just like you would at an airport check-in.

I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. You give people–any person–an incentive to exercise. You pay them for their time on the bike, which is producing electricity to help their locality. If you decrease beneath the speed for the break-even point for longer than 5 minutes, you get kicked off the bike. Anyone can do it at any time for as long as they wish.

You need $10 to pay the bills? Don’t make excuses-get on a bike. You need to lose 5 pounds for that new swimsuit? Get on a bike. You could even have healthcare incentives for those who spend a certain time each month on the bikes.

Okay, cynics, tell me why this wouldn’t work. (I can think of a few reasons: Too expensive to install the bikes, the bikes are too easily stolen, and child labor.)

Also see my entry on How to Turn Your Sweat into Electricity

Haven’t heard of MagiQuest? Neither had I until I read an article about it in Wired this month. The basic concept: give a bunch of kids “magic” wands embedded with infrared sensors and send them on a “magical” quest (hence the name–get it? Get it?!) to find special items and clues in a specially prepared building. It’s a glorified scavenger hunt.

It’s a pretty cool idea. In fact, it’s pretty cool that kids would sign up to do an activity that didn’t involve the fighting or competition of laser tag, paintball, or video games.

Of course, I want a version of MagiQuest that involves battles.

Seriously–if you have a way to create magic wands, shouldn’t you give people a way to duel HarryPotter-style? I want to cast command an inferi! I want to cast an unforgivable curse! I want to split my soul into seven different parts so I can be immortal!

Okay, not really. But I would want to cast spells. Why not have a MagiQuest: Bloodsport where you can do stuff like that?

You can keep the scavenger hunt elements–in fact, it would make the stakes a lot higher for them. Find the dragon’s scale and you can now cast a burst of fire (or, in Harry Potter-speak, burstus of fireus).

Heck, if this technology is out there, have a version for super heroes too. Who wants to play X-Men on the computer when you can actually have Iceman’s powers in real life? You pay $15, get a gauntlet for whichever superhero you choose to be, and you’re thrown into the Danger Room.

So basically, I’m applauding MagiQuest for not being violent, and I’m saying that I’ll sign up once there’s a violent version.

(Also, if you want to giggle–maybe even laugh–this morning, check out Josh’s blog entry today.)