by Red Green
But if you drop the roast into something really, really cold, like liquid nitrogen or the gaze of an upset wife, your rump will be frozen in six or seven seconds. You could almost say it’s frozen in time. In fact, I almost said it.
And all thanks to Archie G. He started with fish, which was the least dense meat and easiest to freeze, but was enough to get the ice ball rolling. Just not for him. That’s because the government wouldn’t let him.
I know it says it was because the government had “qualms” about competing with private companies, but I don’t think that was the reason. I think the government knew that if it commercialized the idea, it’d screw it up somehow. It’d have the usual fifteen people doing the job of two, and doing it badly, and getting huge salaries and a month’s vacation along with all statutory and religious holidays off. Whereas actual businessmen would create an industry that was hugely successful, and therefore hugely taxable. The government wins either way, but taxation is really what it does best.
And this was just the beginning. Huntsman’s frozen food created a few new industries. Grocery stores suddenly had to have huge freezer sections, which spawned an industrial freezer industry; and then people wanted freezers in their homes, which built a residential freezer industry; and then people started freezing their leftovers and storing them in freezer bags, which built a freezer bag industry—okay, not as big as the other two, but you get the idea.
And then freezers would break, which built a freezer-repairman industry that ultimately declined into a guy just telling you to buy a new freezer. And every person who worked in any of those industries paid taxes. So instead of the government investing in Huntsman’s idea and creating a viable business of its own, it did nothing and it paid off huge.
You can’t really blame the government for making “do nothing” its default position.
To see what I do with frozen food, go to the Book of Inventions page at redgreen.com and click on “Frozen.”
GOALIE MASK
Jacques Plante
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Jacques Plante, born in Quebec on January 17, 1929, was the first goalie to wear a full face mask in an NHL game. He started using it in practice, but his coach, Toe Blake, wouldn’t let him use it in a game—which was weird, because that was where he had a much higher risk of being hurt.
Maybe Mr. Blake didn’t like Jacques. Maybe when your name is Toe, you don’t like anybody. Maybe one time Jacques gave Toe the finger. We’ll never know unless we ask. But we didn’t.
Then, in a game between the Montreal Canadiens and the New York Rangers, Plante was struck in the face by a shot from Andy Bathgate. Ouch. Plante decided to take a stand. He told his coach he wouldn’t go back on the ice unless he was wearing his mask. The coach’s only other option was to go in and play goal himself, and that wasn’t gonna happen.
Plante won the standoff and went on to greatness as a goaltender, proving that the mask did not hurt his vision and allowed him to stop pucks with his head on purpose.
For a while, the rest of the hockey world ridiculed him for a lack of courage. At that time it was considered manly to stop 100-mile-an-hour shots with your face. But Plante stuck to his guns, and now goalies everywhere smile with real teeth and thank him for pioneering this safety feature.
I know I’ve mentioned this elsewhere in the book, but isn’t it a sad comment on hockey in general and goalies in particular that it took them all that time to decide to protect their heads? There’s a brain in there, right? Is that not worth protecting at least as much as your spleen?
Maybe it was some kind of macho thing to be a goalie and have the scars of five hundred slap shots on your face. That makes you a man. An ugly man, but still.
In Jacques’s case, it seemed that management did not want him wearing the mask. I think it is always best for ownership if their players are great at playing the sport, but are otherwise complete idiots. It’s much easier to fleece idiots. Makes you wonder if the introduction of the goalie mask, and helmets for the other players, correlates to the rise in power of the NHL Players’ Association.
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Whenever you bring a mask into a sport—or an event, or a court appearance—you’re tapping into thirty-five thousand years of ritualistic history.
The mask has traditionally served many functions over the centuries. One of those was the disguising of identity. The NHL is aware of that one and has edited the rules of hockey to allow the ref to order a goalie to remove his mask so he can see who he is. But the larger and more meaningful reason for masks is that they were often used to represent the spirits of those who had gone before and to call on them to show up at whatever ritual—for example, a hockey game—was happening.
I would suggest that if a goalie mask was designed by a shaman or medicine man or voodoo aficionado, it could represent the spirits of former—and most likely, better—goalies. Some combination of Terry Sawchuk, Johnny Bower and Gump Worsley wouldn’t hurt.
Another aspect of the historical mask is that it was used to indicate social status. You could present yourself as having success and power just by wearing a mask that showed images of those qualities.
Ancient Mask
A mask can also be used to improve your appearance. Everyone is intimidated by beauty, so having a mask that is better-looking than you are can only make you a more impressive goalie. It’s kind of like the earliest form of Botox. So my advice is to forget the fancy masks offered by the latest flavour-of-the-month graphic artist and instead go with one of the ancient tribal masks.
Nobody’s got the nerve to try to slip a puck through the five-hole of a twenty-five-thousand-year-old voodoo prince.
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I’m not sure whether this is a physics or a geometry issue, but it seems to me that the introduction of the goalie mask creates an opportunity for the crafty goalie. Let’s start with the dimensions of a standard NHL net.
It’s gotta be four feet tall and six feet wide. That means the size of the opening is twenty-four square feet. I know the idea is that a really good goalie has the strength, hand-eye coordination and reflexes to stop almost any puck that’s shot at that twenty-four-square-foot hole. But doesn’t it make sense to make that hole smaller if you can? Don’t hurt yourself—the answer is yes. So let’s start with the size of the goalie himself. If he’s two and a half feet wide and at least four feet tall, there’s ten square feet of the twenty-four covered right there. But what if he was eight feet tall? Would that help?
The net is only four feet tall, so the extra height doesn’t matter until he bends over. And even then, if he bends straight forward, he’s still only taking up ten square feet of the opening. If I was an NHL coach, I would draft really, really tall goalies and then have them bend over sideways.
That would reduce the opening by another 3.75 square feet. Granted, the goalie’s face would now be in the target zone, but the human head is capable of swivelling, so that’s a wash. And speaking of the human head, the goalie mask is, by definition, allowed to be bigger than the goalie’s head, so in addition to the goalie being tall, you also want him to have a massive melon. You get a goalie with a head one and a half feet tall and one foot wide and then stick a mask on that thing and get him to drop his head down towards the ice, and you’ve reduced the twenty-four square feet of vulnerability down to six square feet.
Get him a big glove and a goalie stick, and the shooter is left with about three square inches of net available, which is just slightly smaller than the puck. Looking at the picture above, I might add the suggestion of getting the goalie to switch the direction he’s leaning every period, or possibly removing his spine completely, in order to avoid serious back problems.
And there’s another scientific advantage that’s available if you take the time and effort to figure it out. The puck moves over the ice and is guided by hockey sticks. That involves movement and friction. Any physicist will tell you that whenever you get those two elements happening together, you get a buildup of stat
ic electricity, and because of the surplus of electrons, that electricity always has a negative charge.
Now imagine that the goalie’s uniform is made from a conductive fine metal mesh that is powered by a nine-volt battery in his goalie mask running a step-up transformer inside his jock. It may mean he’ll never have children, but that’s a small price to pay to win the Stanley Cup.
The plan works by creating a negatively charged field around the goalie, which rejects the similarly charged puck. He doesn’t even have to make a save. He can just stand there and the puck will bounce off the invisible electronic shield.
I suppose the other team might come up with some clever way of making the puck positively charged, but I would consider that cheating.
To see how I used a goalie mask to assist with personal grooming, go to the Book of Inventions page at redgreen.com and click on “Mask.”
GOWNLESS STRAP
René Beaulieu, Lodge Member and Fashion Guy Credit 30
In the early ’50s, Lodge member and avant-garde dress designer René Beaulieu shocked the world by creating a gownless evening strap. It never really caught on but was worn occasionally at nudist weddings.
Eventually, nudist weddings were discontinued for several reasons. There was nowhere to keep the ring, there were too many bouquet-tossing injuries and often the best man clearly wasn’t.
René went on to invent toeless boots, pantless pockets and gloveless fingers before people decided he was just weird. René later admitted his actual name was Ron and went back to working at the library.
GREEN GARBAGE BAG
Henry Wasylyk
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Harry Wasylyk, born on September 25, 1925, was a Canadian inventor from Winnipeg, Manitoba. He, along with partner Larry Hansen of Lindsay, Ontario, invented the green garbage bag in 1950. Try to imagine the excitement in the Wasylyk household that night.
Their first customer was the Winnipeg General Hospital. It wasn’t until after Wasylyk and Hansen sold the invention to Larry’s employer, the Union Carbide Company, that the green bags were marketed and sold for home use under the name Glad garbage bags.
They say the only things that are inevitable are death and taxes, but Henry knew garbage was pretty darn close.
I have no idea how much Hank and Larry got paid for the green garbage bag patent, but my guess is not nearly enough. I mean, talk about a product that exceeded expectations. I bet there’s nowhere in the world that you could go and not see at least one green garbage bag by the side of the road. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some in outer space.
The boys probably just saw this as a cheap, sanitary, disposable garbage container, but it has turned into so much more. Green garbage bags are used as laundry hampers, suitcases, raincoats, groundsheets, roof patches, car windows, you name it. And what other product could simultaneously be a multipurpose, cost-effective, useful tool as well as the worst Halloween costume of all time?
If I was marooned on a desert island, I’d want to have a box of green garbage bags and a few rolls of duct tape. And a boat.
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You budding inventors out there can learn a good lesson here. Way better to come up with a simple invention that everyone in the world has a need for rather than some complicated specific-use item that almost nobody cares about. Much smarter for Henry to invent a universal garbage bag than a better cesta for left-handed jai alai players. The simpler and more general you keep your invention, the less chance of it being a flash in the pan or a victim of a bad economy or a natural disaster.
As long as people are alive they will eat, sleep and create waste. There’s a lot of competition in the eating and sleeping categories, but waste treatment is ripe for the picking. Sometimes you have to start at the bottom.
To see how we dealt with garbage at the Lodge, go to the Book of Inventions page at redgreen.com and click on “Garbage.”
The laptop is a portable computer that folds up for carrying around and unfolds for use—kind of like a tent for nerds. But even for normal people who go on dates and don’t have pocket protectors, this has become a pretty useful tool.
When they’re in operation mode, laptops have a computer monitor built into their upper half, a keyboard built into their lower half, and, as many of you have discovered, a heat exhaust fan pointed directly at your shorts. Laptops can be run off a 110-volt AC plug, but since a portable computer needs to be portable, the main appeal of a laptop is the built-in battery that lets you use it in the car or on a plane or in a holding cell.
The battery life of a laptop varies, but a good rule of thumb is to first figure out how long it will take you to finish your current work project, and then subtract three minutes. That’s when the battery will die. That is why the body of a laptop computer is built to withstand sudden impact with tile floors.
In the beginning, laptops were thought to be only going after a small number of people who might need a portable computer, like travelling salesmen or the military. Computer makers drastically underestimated the general public’s desire to play spider solitaire or Minesweeper any time they damn well pleased.
Today, the laptop computer has been replaced by the tablet. That’s because after twenty years of playing video games, people have put on so much weight they no longer have laps.
RATING: I know you’re shocked, but the laptop ain’t it either. Candidate #6 is on deck.
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HARD CUP JOCKSTRAP
Jack Cartledge
In 1927, Jack Cartledge (what’s in a name?) of the Guelph Elastic Hosiery Company patented his idea for an upgraded jockstrap. His brainchild included a hard cup for extra protection. The reasons for this upgrade were not recorded, but anyone who’s ever had a bicycle chain break while they were riding uphill was extremely grateful.
On the other hand, anybody who’s watched the amount of scratching that goes on in the dugout during a major-league baseball game might not be so enthusiastic.
This is one of those inventions that seems pretty logical and straightforward—but don’t be fooled. This baby is a combination of designs that have been percolating for hundreds of years.
First of all, even in 1927, the idea of protecting body parts with hard shields was not a new concept. The armour worn by medieval knights was basically a jock for the whole body. But over the years, as society became more civilized and warfare became less personal, the need for armour on a day-to-day basis pretty much disappeared. It only remained necessary for the police or the military or anyone playing contact sports.
Now, it says in his bio that Mr. Cartledge, who came up with the hard cup breakthrough, played rugby, one of the roughest sports known to man. These guys don’t wear shoulder pads or knee pads or anything. My guess is that from 1927 on, the only protection they wore was the hard cup jockstrap.
Why would they only need to protect that area? What kind of an opponent would choose the genitalia as their prime target? They would have to either be heathens or very short—or, worst of all, very short heathens. I think there’s a whole other reason, but before I get to that, let’s look at more evidence.
I’m referring, of course, to the game of hockey. Hockey players adopted the hard cup jockstrap as soon as it came out in the late 1920s. But it wasn’t until 1979, fifty years later, that helmets became mandatory. So for fifty years the same guys who wore a hard cup jockstrap every game would never even think of wearing a helmet. What does that say about their priorities?
That’s the reason I was referring to earlier. Historically, men put different values on different body parts, and the genital area is always high in the pecking order. And it’s not just because it’s a more reliable source of entertainment than many of the others.
The muscles and bones and organs of the body are the “here and now” of human existence; the genitals are the future. If your father or grandfather played sports, you may owe your very existence to Jack Cartledge.
But there’s a downside to all of this. As useful
and helpful as the hard cup jockstrap became, it placed a burden on Jack’s own descendants. Of course, I’m taking about the burden of embarrassment. Imagine meeting someone in Guelph and going to their home, which turns out to be a mansion. Then the painful conversation begins.
“What a beautiful home.”
“Thanks. It belonged to my grandfather.”
“Really? He must have been very successful.”
“Yes…yes, he was.”
“What did he do?”
“Ah…He was involved with sports.”
“He was a professional athlete?”
“Nope…Wow, look at those clouds.”
“So did your grandfather own a team or a league or something?”
“No, he was just really an insider in the sports industry.”
“So he was an athletic supporter.”
“You could say that.”
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I also think there’s more value to the hard cup than first meets the eye. It’s compact, strong, aerodynamic and even artistic. I’m surprised that design was never embraced by the automotive industry.
Someone once told me that a man looks at his car as an extension of, or even replacement for, his own manhood. That is not the kind of thing you like to hear when you drive a Possum Van, but I was thinking: What might a car look like if was designed as a protector of, rather than replacement for, said manhood?
The 1932 Porsche Joxster*
Imagine the look on your teammates’ faces when you pull up to the arena driving a brand new Porsche Joxster sports coupe (pronounced “cup”). Smooth and sleek, with a hard finish that will protect your loved ones from whatever life throws at you. Seats two in the front and one in the back. An all-natural instrument cluster, and wait’ll you see the horn! Powered by a two-cylinder, four-stroke engine and stick shift, the Jockster is a big hit with the ladies. (Elasticized cotton garage available as an option.) Drop by your local dealership and take one for a test drive. The Porsche Joxster: Feel the Itch.