
Words and Thoughts: John Elway : Josh Allen :: Blockbuster : Netflix
Hello again, alleged readers. I’m so glad you’re here! You’re reading this fax just in time to help me with my latest project at work. My boss has given me an extremely important task. The other day he called me in to his office, presumably to congratulate me for staying late to complete some upgrades to the office computers: if you push hard enough, you can wedge HDMI cables into a USB slot. Everyone knows HDMIs are more fun than USBs, but no one wants to take the time to rip out the USB cables and ram HDMIs in there. Ol’ Stav though has nothing but time; and what a productive use of time it was!
I find a running start helps get the HDMI lodged in the USB slot, by the way.
Well, anyway, when I went to visit my boss, the congratulations that were clearly in order did not come to fruition. My boss was instead distracted by an even bigger initiative. HR was also there, but to protect HR’s anonymity (a professional courtesy), we’ll call him “The Stupid HR Goblin Man”. So my boss and ol’ HR Goblin there have asked me to provide them with “a good reason they shouldn’t pursue legal action against me for stealing my boss’s left rear tire off his truck”.
The answer was simple and obvious: I needed it to go snow-tubing. Case closed, Your Honor. I told my boss and HR Gobbs McGee that I could pull the right rear and left front off in 20 minutes if they wanted to join. It would be 15 minutes, but alas, my non-opposable thumbs.
They did not. I have two extra tubes available now.
However, I did tell them that so as to un-bunch their shorts, I’d give them a five-million-dollar idea for the company next week.
Whenever some would-be entrepreneur attempts to disrupt the status quo, they always try to invent something new. And that is why most entrepreneurs fail. Negative outcomes are so baked into the entrepreneurial ecosystem that it’s right there in the name; there’s a reason it’s Entrepreneur, and not Entrepeyeus. Well, dear alleged reader, Stav says “yeus” to the status quo!
We will disrupt nothing! We will make no fundamental changes! We will take what is already in front of us, and use it.
But we will use it… different!
Here’s what I have so far: What is something that literally everyone has, and something that many thought, “there is no way to make this incredibly versatile thing any more useful than it already is”? You’re probably thinking, “lava lamp”. And it’s a great guess, but no. The answer is actually “VHS Tape Rewinder”!
Prior to its invention, the only way to rewind a video tape was to crack the cassette open, take the tape off the one roll, and try to put it back on the other roll, and then try to put the rolls and tape back in the cassette without damaging anything, an almost impossible task. The single-use nature of VHS tapes is what kept Blockbuster Video in business as consumers would have to keep coming back over and over and over again. But with the invention of the VHS Tape Rewinder, people could rewatch tapes almost indefinitely! As such, it would be the invention of the Tape Rewinder that would ultimately doom Blockbuster to bankruptcy.
Most people think it was because of Enron, but it wasn’t, although the John Antioco era at Blockbuster is definitely worth a Wikipedia rabbit-hole read some evening.
So while yes originally, the Tape Rewinder was the single most disruptive invention humans have ever invented, it’s high time for the Tape Rewinder to have it’s day, again!
Through extensive testing, I have found that the Tape Rewinder is good for at least two other things:
- When the tape is done rewinding and the rewinder pops open, it startles me a little sometimes. So firstly, it is good if you need to startle people a little sometimes.
- You can throw it like a football. I really do believe that American Football will be the next big thing in America, so why not get in on the ground floor? Look at how ridiculous Josh Allen looks throwing a rubber prolate spheroid around. Imagine, instead, Allen rifling a Tape Rewinder at mach-obliteration 70 yards down field. The cord and plug would stabilize the rewinder in-flight for a perfect John-Elway-Nerf-Vortex-esque spiral every time. And then when the receiver football man spikes the rewinder after the inevitable touchdown, the rewinder will pop open, and everyone will be startled a little sometimes. Think of the thrill!
Now, ol’ Stav needs your help. Before I hand this over to my boss, and Gobbles the HR Wonder Boy, I need to come up with what we’re going to rename the sport of football itself. Right now, it’s football, but the ball isn’t usually made of feet. So the seemingly obvious name of “VHStaperewinderball” wouldn’t work either. Please fax any ideas you have to me, and I will send them to Roger Goodell.
“Soccer” is also taken.