Some weeks I am given the task of judging the entries to my own NAME THAT WEIRD INVENTION contest. Judging is very hard work for me because often there are too many great title suggestions. Some entries even make me laugh out loud. Already today I burst out laughing at "never get laid again goggles." You guys and gals are way too talented for your own good.

Frau: You asked if I claimed that I designed the original Umbrella Hat. I need to be careful in how I word my posts, thanks! What I meant to say was that working alone in the 1970s and 80s, long before Internet search engines were available, I came up with a comical and ludicrous design for an awkward hat that is an umbrella and it was published in a book 1983. Later on, I saw a commercial product that was a colorful hat that folded out as an umbrella. In fact only last week I noticed our post office delivery person wearing such a hat to keep the sun off her head.
My work should perhaps be called INVENTING CAN BE FUN. It is a process that I pursue for no commercial purpose, and so I am not competing with anyone, nor searching files of the U.S. Patent Office nor scouring Google Images to get ideas. Occasionally, of course, I will come up with something others have thought of, as you point out, many years in the past! Thanks!

Hey Rob, I know you didn't mean it in a positive sense, but thank you for plugging my Web page at www.patentdepending.com. Yours, at http://www.wix.com/artforge1/portfolio is interesting, and I have enjoyed looking at your work.
Steve

Rory: Thank you as always! Deckart and Baro: Uh, these are supposed to be jokes, okay? But Deckart, can't you see that each passenger has his/her own door? Baro: I tried to design a way for a bicyclist to enter the taxi while it is moving but I could not make it work, but if I spent more time on it, I suspect I might have worked toward a solution.

And Bill, if you should happen to revisit this site, take note that you came up with 8 clever names but failed to list the prize T-shirt that interests you.

I rarely laugh out loud when I am at the computer. But some of these ideas for naming these wacky concepts really crack me up, and I hear myself chuckle...

Michaelpeets: Oh, I just now noticed that you were commenting about the skull face and not the ObamaPack. The skull face resembles me in a few years from now, and you most likely somewhat later on.

What I am trying to get accustomed to is the rather extreme range in tastes among Neatoramanauts. A single blog gets the haters to come out, but also those who appreciate my stuff.
My wife says "be the same in praise and blame." LOL

Michael: The President series was fun to create but it's impractical. Fill a zippered pouch with trailmix, chap stick, flashlights or maps, and the President's features are so distorted as to be unrecognizable. I added the fellow in the middle two weeks ago, in a drawing that I did in 1983. I wanted to update the drawing. Not very clear in the reduced art is the fact that those are solar chargers and cellphones stuck to his hair, like Velcro.
The old pink-faced guy on the right below looks like he has a drinking problem!

I am quite interested in figuring out why the first commenters are more often those who see no value in my work, and want it removed from Neatorama. Early risers find fault, yet late risers arise (out of bed) to defend my work.
As a mild defense of this post, I would note that historically both men and women have adopted truly strange fashions that emphasized or exaggerated different parts of their anatomy. This post, which I would have called Decoy Mistress if I were allowed to submit my own name for it , is admittedly pretty strange!

Okay, I see that I joined together in my memory two different news events! Scarab, you are correct that there was an incident where a cop pushed a Critical Mass cyclist to the ground, and was not punished. I recall reading about it. But I read about another event with a rider wearing a helmet cam recording a cop brandishing a gun. I had turned the motorcyclist into a bicyclist: http://www.autoblog.com/2010/04/19/motorcyclist-arrested-for-recording-cop-brandishing-gun-with-hel/

Gauldar: Speaking of which, I believe there is a recent case that went viral on YouTube wherein a bicyclist with a helmet-cam videotaped a plainclothes cop who stopped him and was threatening him with a gun -- and my last information was that the bicyclist, not the cop, was in trouble!

Dear Mr. KeepUp: I am okay with not riding a motorcycle ever again. Plus, do you REALLY want a rider on the streets with incipient hearing loss, and slowing reflexes?
Regarding your remark about an aibag (sic) inflating suit, how did you know about one of the items to appear in this Friday's blog? Do you work for a Psychic Hotline?
Steve

Kim: Sybann is on target mentioning that the Honda Element has been purchased predominately by an unintended buyer segment! The ads originally showed twenty-something folks with surfboards or mountaineering gear wearing dirty sandals, with feet stretched out on washable, fold-down seats and with hamburger wrappers tossed on the floor. The photos in the slick brochures made the interior look like a young guy's messy bedroom.
The car's designers and planners assumed the car would be perfect for young buyers, but the young-at-heart love it most of all.

Michaelpeets: A solar-paneled roof can power some appliances for a car or RV. Many motorhomes have them. As far as vehicles powered by solar panels, at the present level of efficiency of silicon-based photovoltaic cells (last I read it was around 19%) only extremely light, purposed-built vehicles can be powered by the sun. Marca de Luz has crossed the Continental Divide at least 8 times and reached the Arctic Circle in his little solar car, X of 1. There are Solar races where cramped, sweaty drivers, lying almost prone underneath a turtleshell of gleaming solar panels, compete using only the power from the sun. There is the World Solar Challenge, for example, from the northern city of Darwin to the southern city of Adelaide in Australia.