Pharma giant Eli Lilly & Co. has come up with a program they call "InnoCentive," which is a clever combination of incentive and innovation. You can see these are smart people, coming up with a name like that.

The program works like this: A research lab tries to do something, say, making glow-in-the-dark nasal spray. Lab gets stuck. Lab posts problem on the Internet via InnoCentive. Now here's where it gets interesting. At this point, they don't care who you are, they don't care where you are. Solve the problem, get the cash. You could be a high school dropout doing life in a supermax but it doesn't matter: find a way to make that decongestant light up and you've got a check.

This is why America is such a badass country. We come up with the bright ideas. Everybody else mopes around smoking Gauloises, acting like it was no big deal: "I tell you, Claude, those Americaines—they are idiots. Pass me that luminescent nasal spray, will you? Merci."

There is, however, a downside to our hypercapitalist wonderland, which we call "over-innovation." See, we get all creative and everything, but then we just can't stop. We start coming up with solutions for which there are no problems. For example:

Bounce: crap you toss in the dryer.

Extreme water: H₂0 with a shot of lemon juice. $1.89, please.

Tacky rollers: masking tape wound upside down on a stick. Brilliant.

Talking digital tire gauges: comes in handy when you're checking tire pressure in the dark.

George Foreman Grill: you could just tilt the frypan with your wrist. Naw.

Fanny packs: more stupid than they look, which is a lot.

FDS: yeast infection in a can!

Glade Plug-ins: 110 watts of potpourri.

Potpourri: dead leaves in dish.

Automobile air purifiers: Me? I roll down the window for a sec.

Flavored coffee: espresso ruined with imitation Bailey's.

Business-card holders: did something happen to the "pocket"?

Ionic air purifiers: for the ion-deprived.

Motorized DVD towers: solves that... what's the problem again?

Itty-Bitty Book Light: so what happened to "night-stand lamp"?

Portable Karaoke systems: bringing the good times along.

World time clocks: when you must know the time in Karachi.

Digital vehicle compasses: I see we're heading SSE on I-95.

Travel clocks: if they don't have clocks where you're going, you don't need a clock.

Beverage can insulators: because you drink too slow.

Motorized tie racks: soothes your inner clown.

9:03:40 AM