1001 Ways To Tune Up The World, Number Seventy-Two

72. Staggered work start times for different streets in cities.

It's amazing how many ideas will come to you when you almost spill your coffee onto your pants because someone ahead of you took forever to get through an intersection, causing you to forget that you were in third gear, not first gear, so that when the guy with the "OTTER LN" personalized plate that makes no sense whatsoever finally does go through the intersection and you start to pull out your car chokes out and dies and you miss the gap and have to restart your car.

Also, my iPod fell on the floor.

Anyway, I left for work a little earlier than usual today for reasons that relate largely to Mr F and Mr Bunches getting up earlier than usual, which jump-started my whole day. And that leaving earlier ended up hurting me, because instead of being just behind all the rush hour traffic, I was in the rush hour traffic, and it took longer (and was more infuriating) to get to work.

So anyway, that's how I came up with an idea that's sort of a companion to Way #4 (Abolish Mondays And Tuesdays), that idea being that certain areas of cities should have certain work-start times.

For example, I work on Capitol Square in Madison -- where almost everyone in Madison works, more or less. There are four sides to that square; I'm on the east side. So we could all agree that everyone on the East side of the square won't go into work until, say, 8:15 a.m., while people on the West side would go in at 7:45, and North and South would work around there. That prevents the situation where everyone is trying to get to the same place at the same time.

In other cities it could work other ways. I know it'll require a lot of cooperation, but, really, if neighborhoods can get together and decide to force each other to have landscaping, can't city blocks get together and pick a starting time.

(And get on that No More Mondays & Tuesdays thing, while you're at it.)

Prior entries:

71. Personal Upright Transport Devices

70. Don't Vote.

69. Launch garbage into space.

68. Stop bleeping out words.

67. Just say thanks.

66. Change the side of the road people drive on about every 10 years.

65. Get rid of those mid-forearm buttons on men's shirts.

64. Make spray bottles work when tilted.

63. Pay teachers a lot more.

62. Longer school years.

61. Longer school days.

60. Paparazzi-fy The News.

59. Make refrigerators wider and shallower.

58. Let everyone use "forever pricing" on everything.

57. Start all buildings on the first floor.

56. Process EVERYTHING.

55. Make children's toys solar- or kinetic-powered.

54. Abandon the north.

53. Give in and have computers start remembering things for us.

52. Make cups and glasses wider on the bottom. (All cups and glasses.)

51. Sometimes easier is harder (and dumber.)

50. Don't lather, rinse, repeat (I'm going somewhere with this...)

49. Ban cigarettes.

48. Use metered lanes to close a lane when doing traffic repairs, thereby avoiding long backups when jerks opt to ignore the lane closing signs.

47. Switch to a parliamentary form of government with proportional representation. (If you already do that, then stick with it.)

46. Quit Cell Phone Charger Thinking.

45. Create an Internet Superhighway, giving high-speed Internet access to everyone, everywhere.

44. Stop teaching any math past algebra and geometry to almost everybody, and instead just provide a general theory of math to high schoolers.

43. Launch people to Mars. Or even further.

42. Think nice things, and then say them.

41. Get the cheapest toothpaste possible, then use the money you save to do some good in the world.

40. Allow gay marriage.

39. Stop describing things as "hell" or "hard work" when they're not at all.

38. Accept the idea that eventually we're going to have to pay for stuff on the Internet.

37. Spell your kids' names the right way.

36. Look up more often.

35. Put people before pets.

34. Share the profits with employees, directly and frequently.

33. Dress up, at least a little, in public.

32. Apply the "Line Pass" philosophy to everything (including some government services).

30/31. Impose a luxury tax that increases exponentially the more people spend/Never watch another Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie movie again.

29. What's so great about mom-and-pop stores and farms?

28. No more long answering machine or voice mail greetings.

27. Stop federal support of student loans.

26. Require everything we build, from here on out, to get at least some of its power from the sun or the wind.

25. Do an "Oklahoma Land Rush" in the cities.

24. Personalized Candy Bar Making Machines.

23. Learn new languages just for fun.

22. Opposite yourself.

21. Just like dandelions.

20. Why not have Radio-DVRs?

19. Start treating health care like what it is: a universal, inherent right of all people.

18. Baseball should have a shorter season and shorter games.

17. Open the borders. Everywhere.

16. Just start DVDs without all the preliminaries, please.

15. Just allow colleges to pay athletes, already.

14. Don't get married before you're 30.

13. Ban driving any kind of automobile, motorcycle or other personal vehicle within 1-2 miles of downtown in any city with a population of more than 100,000.

12. Abolish gym class; instead, teach kids to play musical instruments.

11. Change copyright laws to allow anyone to use anyone else's creative work provided that the copier pay 60% of the profit to the originator and that the copier not cast the original work in a negative light.

10. Have more sidewalk cafes and outdoor seating.

9. When you have to give someone a gift, ask them what they want, and then get that thing for them.

8. Never interrupt or finish someone's jokes.

7. Periodically, give up something you like for at least a month.

6. Switch to "E-money."

5. Have each person assigned one phone number, and then add an extension for the various phones and faxes that person might be reached at.

4. Abolish Mondays and Tuesdays.

3. Don't listen to interviews with athletes or comedians.

2. Have "personal cashiers" at the grocery store.

1. Don't earn more than $200,000 per year.





Is this working? You bet --

1001 Ways also helped change the world here!

And

1001 Ways also helped change the world here!

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Claudius wanted to be the first man to reach the stars... but it was murder to get there. Read Eclipse, the haunting sci-fi book from Briane Pagel. Available at Lulu.com and on your Kindle.


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Worth a Thousand Words, 8:

Fountain.

Somewhere, a "real housewife" will read this and think to herself "they should give some of that to ME." (This Is Why I [DON'T] Hate People)

Just like you can change your whole outlook in life by each day thinking of three good things that happened to you the day before -- remember that? -- you can also remember that for every "Real Housewife" who throws her four-year-old a horrendously expensive party featuring a fry station and a $60,000 necklace, there are people who are good, too.

So I'm spending the day not hyperventilating about excessive lifestyles and instead focusing on the couple shown at the right: Violet Large and her husband Allen.

Mr and Mrs Large won $11.3 million in the lottery this past summer, and they won it while Violet was undergoing treatment for cancer, too -- and shortly after they won it, began giving it away to their family and a 2-page list of recipients ranging from the local fire department to organizations fighting diseases.

"We haven't spent one cent on ourselves because we've been too busy getting everything looked after and with my health, I have to wait to get my health back to get the energy to do anything," Violet told the National Post. "We're not travelers anyway. We live in the country and we're proud of it. Money can't buy you health or happiness."

(source.) The couple did keep only about 2% of the money "for a rainy day," and I don't begrudge them that at all.