Muskrat's Genius List

In the old days, geniuses were people like Beethoven and Einstein: crazy hair and very popular.
These days, the geniuses are harder to spot, but they're still out there. Here are a few you might have missed:

1. The Guy Who Named His Brand of Duct Tape "Duck Tape." You've seen it in hardware stores, and maybe had a chuckle, but what you probably don't realize is that there are lots of morons out there who don't get the joke. There are plenty of people who have heard the words "duct tape" all their lives and they think they're hearing "duck tape." Therefore, when they actually SEE gray tape with the words "Duck Tape" on it, they think they've found the only choice and they buy it. They don't look in the rest of the aisle to see that there are actually much cheaper brands of generic "duct tape." They don't even realize that "Duck Tape" is a brand at all! Whoever came up with that one is a bona fide genius.

2. The Guy Who Figured Out that Commercials Don't Really Have to be About Anything. If only advertisers had known about this years ago, they wouldn't have wasted their time telling their audience actual facts about their products, such as "This will get your clothes cleaner," or "This tastes good." Finally, someone figured out that all you have to do is show anything, and I mean anything, for 30 seconds that will keep a drooling couch potato from changing the channel, and then flash the name of the product at the end. Innovators on this particular genius have also learned that they can just make abstract, eerie, nonsensical montages and then throw up a web address at the end that has nothing to do with what the viewer just saw. And then that asshole viewer gets up and goes to check out the website. Pure genius!

3. George W. Bush. Now I know some of you may see this as a stretch, but I just talked to Z, my co-worker, and she said that she saw a video of an old debate of W when he was running for governor. During that debate, he was poised, intelligent, well-spoken, and articulate. So what happened to him? Could it be, my fellow Americans, that Bush is just pretending to be dumb to win over all of the monosyllabic dipshits in the South and Midwest? That he's actually very smart, and all the bumbling on camera is just an act? If so, he's one of the great minds of our century, because his plan is working.

4. Jimmy Fallon. Since the 1970s, scores of actors have been trying to achieve fame and riches by being funny on Saturday Night Live. They've come up with funny characters, voices, costumes, and songs; it must have taken countless hours of practice to perfect their comic techniques. But it took a great mind like Jimmy Fallon's to figure out that all you have to do to be famous on SNL is to fuck up every skit by laughing like you're a member of the audience who just happened to walk on stage during the production. Wow; his genius is staggering.

5. That Guy Who Sold His Soul on eBay. He actually made $1,325 from the deal. What a genius! In fact, I'd like to recognize anyone who has been able to sell anything on eBay that has no real monetary value. There are people paying hundreds of dollars for virtual items on eBay every day, including cars and houses, to put into their Sims games. I myself actually sold five Gmail invites for ten dollars, back when the invites were really hard to get. It takes a genius to realize that if you don't have anything to sell, you just pretend you do, and that works just as well.