Official Luthiers Forum!

Yeah, I was there for a month back in 2004 and managed to avoid them the whole time, they just scared the errrrr.... out of me?

One last thing because we've gotten way off track here, I briefly toyed with an idea for a product back around ten years ago or so, made to help with gastrointestinal distresses which some people say are a byproduct of the geometry of western style toilets. It was basically a little step stool that you put out in front of the toilet to raise your feet up off the ground and force you into more of a squatting position for doing that stuff, without having to get that low to the ground.

I was going to call it, "The Stool", offer it in several designs and colors to match any decor, and the motto was going to be, "give the squat a shot". It ended at the idea stage for me as I thought it would be impossible to market to all but the most dedicated granola's and because I thought there could be safety issues. I did talk to a few people about it casually though, and about a year ago I came across an ad for the exact product having been made right here in Portland, Oregon. It didn't seem like it was an active business by the time I found it, and the product name was different and less evocative, but it did kind of haunt me for awhile about whether someone had come up with that idea independently or they had actually tried to make a go with my idea. Doesn't really matter either way as I think my initial instinct about the difficulty with marketing was right, but it is pretty curious...