What makes a successful marriage?

Funny little story: when my parents were on honeymoon, my mum burned the toast at breakfast one morning. "Don't worry darling," my love struck dad said, "i like it that way." He promptly forgot all about it. Years later, I think it was 1998 or so, the whole family is around the breakfast table, and my mum brings us toast. Everybody's is done perfectly, except for my dad's. He and mum were having a rough patch at the time, and this morning he was pissed off. So he says, "how come every time you make toast, i always get the burned pieces? What about giving some of it to the bloody kids?" And my mum says, "but dear, you told me you liked it like that!" She'd been deliberately burning it for 28 years or so. Not sure which is more amazing - my dad’s failure to communicate for three decades or my mum’s dedication to burning his toast and nobody else’s for three decades.

Idea for another internet business: no URL yet, but here's the concept. It came to me while hiring a costume at a fancy dress shop and a girl came in to try on a french maid's outfit. I got to thinking about how that particular costume has some pretty zesty overtones - you don't dress as a french maid if you don't want to attract the attention of the men at the party, right?

Then I figured: there's probably a lot of single guys who'd pay money to know:
- the girl's name
- the time, day and address of the party she's going to
- what costume she's wearing

And then the sales assistant gave me the rental paperwork to fill in, and I realised, all the data has just bee captured, the fancy dress business only needs the customer's permission to publish it online.

If a girl's going to dress up as a french maid, there's probably at least one person she wants to see her in that outfit, and if she hasnt got a specific person in mind, she definitely hopes to meet someone new that night. She might be happy to know which guys coming to the party think she looks pretty good as a the french maid.

So, this website is definitely for the extroverts among us, but it's a community/dating site that:
- encourages people to plan and host fancy dress parties
- lets them invite their friends and book costumes online
- ships them their costume and picks it up after the party if they wish (or come in and try it on, pick it up as usual)
- lets people disclose a little of the information above, maybe even with a photo of themselves in/out of costume
- makes them pay a little for the service

As for me, I love dressing up as a french maid, and I'm going to this party next Friday night, and it's at.... ;-)

Idea for an internet business: www.myPDAthinksitsyourbirthday.com - a website where you can send a range of ironic greeting cards based on the annoying tendency for the recurring dates in your PDA and PC/Mac to gradually degrade over time. After several years of trying to maintain synchronisation across PDAs, phones, PCs, Macs and web-based calendars, I can no longer pinpoint key dates like friend's birthdays - the best I can do is guesstimate with an accuracy of 2-3 days when it might be. Across those 3 days I usually have 3-4 occurrences of the event to try and straighten out, on different days, even in different timezones, so long ago I stopped bothering to find the right one - the fact that I remembered your birthday - or rather, that my PDA remembered your birthday - should be enough in this emotionally-distant age.

Some draft greeting card copy:
"My PDA thinks it's your birthday, so happy birthday (Friend)" (leaving the variable "friend" unfilled to impart that special generic feeling to the message)
"My PDA keeps reminding me of your birthday - it clearly cares more about you than I do" - straight to the point!
"My PDA says it's your birthday, but I can't even remember who you are"
"My PDA says it's your birthday, but we broke up months ago, so how about I give you back your sofa?"

Whaddaya think? Would you pay for a service like this?