Auto sales have been absolutely clobbered–down 28% year over year–so the government, dealers, and auto makers are coming up with all sorts of inventive ways to attract business.

Mark Muller, owner of Max Motors, said the program builds on an earlier offer where customers had a choice between a $250 gas voucher or a gun voucher of the same value. An AK-47 can cost twice as much. Muller calls the initial deal an overwhelming success. He also says it generates a lot of publicity and really angers “liberals.”

Max Motors also offers more family-friendly promotions. Last Saturday, four used cars were sold for $5 each. The cars–including an 2001 Mustang and a 1998 Jeep Cherokee–went fast, and brought hundreds of customers to the lot. Max Motors sells several brands including Chevrolet, Ford and Pontiac.

businessinsider.com

Free AK-47 for every pick-up truck is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Next Time Your Restaurant Service Sucks, Try This is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Amazing “Hibi no neiro” video is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Frustrated Sign is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Use a USB vacuum cleaner
USB vacuum cleaners to do the hard part of sucking up potato chip and pretzel debris. Just plug into your USB port and use the thin keyboard tool to make your keyboard look like new again. Also includes a built in LED light. (MSRP $10)

Use CyberClean
CyberClean makes cleaning fun! Just take the yellow gel blob that looks like Play-Doh and press it over the keys to lift out dirt and bacteria. The patented sticky formula from Switzerland even kills germs on contact. It’s also good on cell phones and any other potentially infectious surface. (MSRP $11)

Use the dishwasher
Yes, it does sound extreme, but it works if you want to save time and don’t need your keyboard for a few days. Wash the keyboard using only water and remember to remove all of keys. Then let it dry out for two or three days.

How to Clean Your Keyboard is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Jay Leno’s The Sluggie is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Coolhaus sells handmade ice cream sandwiches from a pink and chrome converted postal jeep. Featuring local and organic ingredients whenever possible, Coolhaus sandwiches are 2-by-2-inch confections, about 1 inch deep, assembled to order using two cookies and a scoop of ice cream. Five architecture-inspired, “prefab” flavours are currently available from Coolhaus’s two-woman team (for example: the Frank Behry, made from sugar cookies and strawberry ice cream; the Mies Vanilla Rohe features chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream), but customization is also possible, they say. The sandwiches are also available with an edible, rice-paper wrapping that can feature a brand, name or logo in edible ink. Pricing is about USD 3 per sandwich, or USD 3.50 with the edible wrapper, according to LAist.

In addition to broadcasting information about its whereabouts via Twitter (@coolhaus), Coolhaus actually partners with Kogi in Venice on Saturdays, LAist reported; coming soon from its truck are edible spoons and popsicles shaped like famous buildings.

springwise.com

Twitter-powered truck sells ice-cream sandwiches is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The Singapore way!

A fire alarm rang at 4PM when almost all shift employees are in office (approx 5000). As usual entire office was evacuated within 3 mins & every employee gathered outside office. 10 mins passed ………. 5 more mins passed………. 5 more mins passed.

Then a Security Officer stated an announcement ‘Dear Employees – With melting heart I am making this announcement that for many of you it will be a last evacuation drill. Due to the recession we are laying off almost 50% of employees. While moving in if your ID card does not work, then you are among those laid off & all your belongings will be couriered to you tomorrow.

We have followed this approach as we didn’t want to fill email box with layoff mails and good bye mails in thousands & also to avoid any fight inside office.

Hope you have a nice career ahead. Please move in & try your luck’

businesspundit.com

Nightmare Layoff is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Mobile swimming pool is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Simply create and enter up to 5 messages (up to 120 characters in length each) using the included remote control. Then select from 3 different scroll speeds. The super-bright red LEDs ensure that your message is seen day or night. You can announce to everyone on the road that you’re a fan of your sports team, advertise your business… the possibilities are endless!

What would your message say? Leave a comment.

Simply connect 2 wires (power and ground) to your vehicle’s electrical system and you are ready to go! You can either wire the Flash Frame so it is on whenever the ignition is on, or only comes on when you hit your brakes.

Please check your local ordinances for restrictions. We don’t want you out there breaking the law!

perpetualkid.com

License plate flash frame is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Vale says “People letting gas is quite hilarious in my opinion. I think most people think it’s funny.”

You can find Vale’s hand-held whoopie cushions in “As Seen on TV” stores. They run $9.95. Gene Haaheim, the store manager in Redding says they’re a gas. “It’s one of our best items. People come in and stand for hours watching the TV and laughing and they bring their friends in. It’s really a very successful item.”

Now Vale is taking his Pooter to new levels. He and his family are leaving the North State for Southern California. He’ll take part in a new gag TV show on MTV. Vale says “There’s going to be Pooter segments based on the product. And I’m just going to walk around and just get reactions from people.”

The product itself will soon expand to other store chains. Vale also appears on NBC’s “Most Outrageous Moments.” He’s posted some of his videos on Youtube.

khsltv.com

Redding Man Hits It Big With His Invention “The Pooter” is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

A new knife, meant to make impulse stabbings of a co-worker or a spouse more difficult, is ready for the market.

Manufactured by Taylor’s Eye Witness (a cutlery company whose amazingly apt name is a total coincidence), the New Point has a dulled leading tip that keeps the knife edge from striking anyone. The actual blade tip is recessed, so that it snaps on clothes before it can do serious damage. Seems like a hoax, right? Maybe not. The designer, John Cornock, says he was inspired to invent the knife because of a BBC report that showed an unusually high number of fatal stabbings in Britain, which called out long kitchen knives as being the weapon of choice. One doctor, responded–with total sincerity–by saying that pointed knives should be banned. Cornock thus responded with his “more considered” solution.

fastcompany.com

An Anti-Stab Knife is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Linda started her online business, the Prairie Tumbleweed Farm, as a joke. It was 1994 and she wanted to teach herself how to design a website. Since she lived on the prairie in southwest Kansas, where rolling tumbleweeds are sometimes the only dynamic feature of an endless flat horizon, she invented a farm that sold tumbleweeds, listing prices at $15 for a small one, $20 for a medium and $25 for large.

Lucky for her, some people didn’t get the joke. People emailed the site wanting to buy them. But even then Linda doubted she would be able to spin this straw into gold. “When I got an order I was just amazed,” she says, sitting on the porch of her home in Garden City, Kansas. “And each order I got, I thought it would probably be the last order. I remember thinking they would probably get them and send them back immediately as soon as they find out what they are.”

But that didn’t happen. In fact, the orders just kept coming — an average of 15 per week. Though she’s coy about her annual income from tumbleweed wrangling, she says it is over $40,000 a year. Not bad for a bunch of dead, dried-up weeds. Who buys them? Well, says Katz, rocket scientists, for one. NASA purchased tumbleweeds when they were designing their Mars Tumbleweed rover. “And if you go to their site on the NASA site to the tumbleweed rover, and you go to their links, they say that they only buy their tumbleweeds from Prairie Tumbleweed Farm,” Katz says proudly.

Hollywood has also come calling. Katz’s tumbleweeds have appeared in films like Johnny Depp’s “Neverland.” And she has supplied tumbleweeds to the big purple dinosaur kid’s show, “Barney.”

Katz says people usually use her tumbleweeds to recreate the look and feel of the old west for theme parties. But some customers tell her they buy tumbleweeds to remind them of the home on the prairie they left long ago.

Yahoo! News

Rolling in cash is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Fish pedicures are creating something of a splash in the D.C. area, where a northern Virginia spa has been offering them for the past four months. John Ho, who runs the Yvonne Hair and Nails salon with his wife, Yvonne Le, said 5,000 people have taken the plunge so far.

“This is a good treatment for everyone who likes to have nice feet,” Ho said.

He said he wanted to come up with something unique while finding a replacement for pedicures that use razors to scrape off dead skin. The razors have fallen out of favor with state regulators because of concerns about whether they’re sanitary.

Ho was skeptical at first about the fish, which are called garra rufa but typically known as doctor fish. They were first used in Turkey and have become popular in some Asian countries.

But Ho doubted they would thrive in the warm water needed for a comfortable footbath. And he didn’t know if customers would like the idea.

“I know people were a little intimidated at first,” Ho said. “But I just said, ‘Let’s give it a shot.’ “

Customers were quickly hooked.

Tracy Roberts, 33, of Rockville, Md., heard about it on a local radio show. She said it was “the best pedicure I ever had” and has spread the word to friends and co-workers.

“I’d been an athlete all my life, so I’ve always had calluses on my feet. This was the first time somebody got rid of my calluses completely,” she said.

First time customer KaNin Reese, 32, of Washington, described the tingling sensation created by the toothless fish: “It kind of feels like your foot’s asleep,” she said.

The fish don’t do the job alone. After 15 to 30 minutes in the tank, customers get a standard pedicure, made easier by the soft skin the doctor fish leave behind.

Ho believes his is the only salon in the country to offer the treatment, which costs $35 for 15 minutes and $50 for 30 minutes. The spa has more than 1,000 fish, with about 100 in each individual pedicure tank at any given time.

In addition to offering pedicures, Ho hopes to establish a network of Doctor Fish Massage franchises and is evaluating a full-body fish treatment that, among other things, could treat psoriasis and other skin ailments.

Fish pedicures is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Producers of the Internet-video serial “lonelygirl15″ — once thought to be an amateur project but later revealed to be the product of professionals — have raised $5 million from prominent technology investors to expand and introduce new online shows.

The new funding for EQAL, the Los Angeles company behind “lonelygirl” and another popular Internet drama, “KateModern,” illustrates Silicon Valley’s continuing push to move video onto the Web and find better ways to make money from it. Though the online-video industry got a big boost after Google Inc. bought video site YouTube for $1.6 billion two years ago, many companies are still struggling to come up with viable revenue models.

Todd Dagres, a partner at Spark Capital, the Boston-based firm that led EQAL’s round of financing, said the studio understands that “the Web is not TV, and you can’t advertise like you do on TV.”

Instead, EQAL, formerly known as LG15 Studios and led by Chief Executive Miles Beckett and President Greg Goodfried, plans to weave advertising into the content of their shows, Mr. Dagres said, and also to interact with its community of viewers.

Other investors putting cash into EQAL include Silicon Valley’s Ron Conway, who backed Google in its early days; Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of browser pioneer Netscape Communications; Conrad Riggs, a Hollywood producer involved with TV shows such as “Survivor” and “The Apprentice”; and Georges Harik, a former Google executive.

wsj

‘Lonelygirl’ Gets Popular With Investors is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

McDonalds Fries after 10 Weeks is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Monthly sales through the web for the Total Blender is currently running at more than 5 times our previous “record” month. This number continues to grow each month.

George Wright
www.blendtec.com

Will It Blend? Smart Online Marketing is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The company’s founder, Marlena Cervantes, views Flexpetz like an extended family: “When our dogs spend time with their extended family members, they are lavished with love and undivided attention. We feel our this concept allows our dogs more love and attention than single ownership can often provide.”

Membership is limited, and each dog generally spends time with a small group of people. Monthly membership costs USD 39.95 plus a daily fee, and members can reserve their pooch of choice online. Before being allowed to rent a dog, members go through a mandatory training session with a certified Flexpetz dog trainer. The service aims to expand to New York, San Francisco and Boston soon, followed by other cities in the United States and abroad. One to set up locally? Or how about starting a website that matches two or three owners, facilitating fractional dog ownership based on location, availability and personality?

Unusual Business Ideas That Work

Rent-A-Pet is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

A vigorous fish, tuna tends to thrash wildly when caught, which researchers believe raises its body temperature and leads to whitening of its meat, sharply cutting its flavor and value.

“People want to eat tuna when it’s as fresh as possible, but once it struggles the freshness goes down,” said Kunihiko Konno, a professor at Hokkaido University who is leading the stress-reduction project.

Tuna tend to struggle especially hard if too many are trapped in a net at once or if they are kept in crowded conditions at fish farms, but the researchers are focusing mainly on how to reduce stress when the fish are caught, he added.

Although they have yet to reach firm conclusions, Konno said the best way to reduce stress levels was likely to be quite simple — and final.

“Kill them very quickly,” he said.

Reuters

Japan seeks stress-free tuna for finer dining is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Lambert also uses a potent mix of marketing savvy and passion, spiced with some serendipity, to run his site. The Beerbelly, by the way, is a neoprene bag that fits under a shirt and can be used to avoid paying $9 for drafts at sporting events.

eCommerce-Guide

Beer Belly is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Ever since a bootleg clip of a Saturday Night Live sketch comedy skit put YouTube on the map in December 2005, the growing consensus among Web watchers has been that short comedy clips are the “killer app” of the brave new viral video world.

SuperDeluxe.com, a comedy broadband network launched in January by Turner Broadcasting, and FunnyOrDie.com, a partnership between Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s Gary Sanchez Productions and Sequoia Capital, venture capital firm behind YouTube and Google.

Funny Business Going On Online is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The response is a booming market of products being developed and sold specifically to the unhirsute — a new front in the nearly $5 billion onslaught of male grooming products in the United States.

“I’m a former comb-over wearer,” confessed Howard Brauner, founder of the two-year-old company Bald Guyz. “I would spend half an hour in the morning making it look right, and then finally I just realized it was ridiculous. Once I decided to really go bald, my wife would get annoyed at me for using her expensive shampoos. But I had to use something to clean my head”

For that particular ablution, Brauner now uses a head wash that’s part of the line of products he developed in response to his wife’s complaints. Bald Guyz also puts out pocket-size individual head wipes, for use on the go. And there is a conditioner, to be used twice a week. “Your skin up there is either dry or irritated or oily,” he said.

New York Times News Service

Hair Care For Men Without is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Joining the military can sometimes work to break a contract if you are going to be stationed overseas. Sometimes, though, the company will suspend the service for the duration of active duty, which is not a great deal. Upon returning home, you would still be stuck with the remaining period of the contract and a much older phone. Buying a new phone would only extend the contract further.

Next to death, moving to a place where your phone company does not have service may not seem so draconian. Each company provides maps on its Web site or at its stores that show the general service area, so you can easily figure that out. But companies will ask for proof of the new address. The T-Mobile spokesman warns that it has to be a legitimate address, and post office boxes will not work.

There is an intriguing escape clause in contracts with phone companies that offer “roaming” services, though it is intended to give the carrier a way out. When a cellphone is used outside the provider’s network, calls are routed through another company’s network. The consumer pays a monthly fee for this service, which the carrier uses to pay the other phone companies to handle those calls.

Roam too much and your phone company starts losing money. Find a place where your phone goes into roaming mode and make at least half your calls from there. Every carrier said they would cancel the contract, though it might take them a month or two to notice.

Times

How to Get Out of a 2-Year Cellphone Contract is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Golden Palace purchased the notorious Virgin Mary cheese sandwich, a haunted walking stick ($65, 000,) and the “mystery envelope?” ($7,600.) More recently the company bought a Britney Spears half-eaten egg salad sandwich and a William Shatner kidney stone.

At first glance it might seem that the folks at Golden Palace have more money than sense — a lot more money. But do they really? The publicity garnered from purchasing these ridiculous items is much better than simply spending money on traditional advertising.

EBay’s home for the absurd is the “Weird Stuff” category that breaks down into three sub-categories: “Slightly Unusual,” “Really Weird,” “Totally Bizarre.” A recent check showed about 12,000 auctions in the three sub-categories.

eCommerce-Guide

Making Mad Money on eBay is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Bruggen may be a tiny bit biased: A former head of global marketing for KPMG, she quit that job to start and run Strelmark, a Washington, D.C., firm that conducts corporate golf-etiquette workshops for companies like Microsoft (Bill Gates is an avid golfer), Deloitte & Touche, Wachovia, and Smith Barney Citigroup.

Still, Bruggen speaks from personal experience: “I got the job as head of global marketing at KPMG in large part because top management knew me – and they knew me from the golf course,” she says.

Read the article on CNN Money.

Must I play golf to get ahead? is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Find out what’s she suing her employer for.

I sue, you sue, we all sue – and the sillier the cause, the better is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Enter CreditCovers, the decorative skin for credit cards. With designs that are sure to please the same folks who love slapping skins on their iPods (the only explanation for the “slick, cool, super-dope” and “sticks real good” product descriptions and artwork with names like Ohmigawd! and Mizz Lady Pink), the $4.99 CreditCovers are guaranteed not to damage or otherwise interfere with the use of your card. Strange looks from cashiers? You’re on your own.

CreditCovers: Skins for credit cards is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

A chain under the “Girls Gone Wild” brand name is being planned by Francis, whose Mantra Films Inc. has built a $100 million business videotaping and selling the DVDs featuring young women exposing their breasts.

“This is going to be about fun, lifestyle, youth, sun. It’s about everything ‘Girls Gone Wild,’” Francis said. “It’s going to be sexy without being sexual.”

There will be no stripping, topless waitresses or filming in the restaurants, Francis said.

The first two restaurants are expected to open by mid-summer in Mexican beach towns Cabo San Lucas and Cancun. Francis sees franchises popping up mainly in college towns in the United States and around the world.

Reuters

‘Girls Gone Wild’ founder plans restaurants is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Real estate deals may be slowing in the real world, but in the three-dimensional online one of Second Life the market remains hot. Now Coldwell Banker, one of the nation’s largest real estate brokerage firms, is entering Second Life, aiming to help bring order to the chaotic world of virtual real estate.

Coldwell Banker will open a virtual sales office and start selling virtual land at 9 a.m. on Friday. The company released the information exclusively to Fortune.

It’s more evidence that the Second Life naysayers are on the defensive. Despite skepticism, software and system troubles, and extraordinary hype, the three-dimensional virtual world juggernaut continues.

Coldwell Banker has bought extensive tracts of property on the central “mainland” of Second Life. (Most companies own “islands” scattered all over.) It subdivided this digital land into 520 individual houses and living units, half of which it will sell and half it will rent.

Read more here.

Coldwell Banker’s Second Life is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The world’s most successful investor – and second richest man – is perhaps also its least lavish CEO.

Warren Buffett refuses to use company cars or airplanes for any business that’s remotely personal, and each year writes a big check to pay the company back for postage or phone calls used for personal pursuits, according to Berkshire Hathaway’s (Charts) annual proxy statement, released last Wednesday.

Sure, there are CEOs who have no qualms about having shareholders foot the bill for frequent use of company planes and other lavish expenses, but Buffett won’t be counted among their ranks.

Last year he reimbursed Berkshire $50,000 for personal expenses, so that shareholders wouldn’t be stuck with the bill for his postage stamps and phone calls home, according to the statement.

In fact, Buffett describes his payment as “equal to or greater than the costs” of his expenses.

Charlie Munger, the company’s Vice Chairman, paid Berkshire $5,500 for his share of expenses.

For the last 25 years, both Buffett and Munger have received an annual salary of $100,000 a year – a paltry sum compared to the amount of money they generate for Berkshire investors – and there are no raises in the pipeline. Perhaps it matters less when your net worth is in the billions, as is true of both men.

Neither Buffett nor Munger use corporate-owned planes for personal trips, opting instead to pay standard rates for the use of NetJets, a company that offers rentals of private jets. It doesn’t hurt that Berkshire Hathaway owns NetJets. The men use Berkshire-owned aircraft for business purposes only.

Buffett’s close attention to his impact on the company’s bottom line is an uncommon sight in corporate compensation disclosures.

CNN Money

Buffett: No free rides on Berkshire’s dollar is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Once the center of power, the desk of former Enron Corp. founder and chief executive officer Ken Lay is up for sale on eBay Inc.

The Houston-based charity Saving Animals Across Borders is also auctioning the desk that Jeffrey Skilling and Richard Kinder used when they were presidents of the now-defunct energy company.

Lay and Skilling, who also served as CEO, were convicted in May 2006 for their role in the accounting fraud that led to the collapse of Enron in 2001. The bankruptcy erased billions in investors’ money and wiped out the pensions of thousands of Enron employees.

The custom-made desks with “an elegant Makore Pommelle veneer” have a minimum bid of $25,000 each, which so far has not been met. The auction began Friday and runs for 10 days.
Skilling is now serving a 24-year prison term in Minnesota, while Lay’s conviction was vacated following his death from a heart attack in July 2006.

Numerous Enron-branded items are currently for sale on online auction service eBay (down $0.18 to $31.56, Charts), ranging from coffee mugs to stock certificates. The company’s twirling “crooked E” logo from its headquarters in downtown Houston sold for $33,000 at auction in 2002.

The desks were donated by a member of a company that bought one of Enron’s two towers in 2003, a spokeswoman for the charity said.

Reuters

Enron executives’ custom-made desks on eBay is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Applied to individuals who travel worldwide in search of fashion bargains, jetrosexuals are known for having their passport ready to go at a moment’s notice, and an eye for stylish, cheap faux couture clothing. Most commonly found travelling from the US to Asia in search of a bargain, jetrosexuals are known to carry little more with them than an iPod and the latest issue of Vogue.

Apparently, the new trend is being fueled by two things: Ridiculous airline discounts that chop $1000 fares to Asia to less than $50 from gateway cities, and the booming Asian textile industry.

And it’s not just the jetrosexuals who are evolving — the money spent on textiles and fashion in Vietnam has brought about dramatic change in the economic and cultural landscape of Hoi An. Although still conjested and plagued with poverty, this city is now known as a tailoring hub. It all started years ago when European and American designers began outsourcing the production of their fabrics to Asia.

I was curious to find out what (besides a plane-ride across the Pacific) separates jetrosexuals from people who take the subway down to Chinatown to buy fake Louis Vuittons. Apparently, quite a lot. Jetrosexuals don’t just take a copy of Vogue with them for reading on the plane — they take it to show tailors how to copy the garments. So, in a matter of hours, a jetrosexual can arrive in Hoi An, point to a Marc Jacobs jacket in a glossy fashion mag, and get back on the plane to L.A. wearing what appears to be a $1000 couture coat. In other words, it’s made-to-order knock-off couture.

Surprisingly, (unlike a fake Vuitton) this violates no copywright laws in the U.S. Unless a Marc Jacobs label is stuck in the back of the garment, there is nothing stopping a tailor from copying a designer garment.

fastcompany.com

Rise of the Jetrosexuals is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

So before you go, you can at least arrange for a memorable send off.

One company in England has taken that directive quite literally to heart, creating a bizarre new business that sits on the tentative border between creativity and extreme bad taste.

Vic Fearn and Company is a 160-year-old entity that makes coffins. That doesn’t sound terribly exciting, but recent customers may make you think twice about that impression.

They’ve been coming in asking for exotic caskets to be buried in to reflect their passions in life.

It started with an odd request from a woman who was a big fan of the Royal Air Force’s acrobatic team the Red Arrows. She wanted to be interred forever in a model of one of their fighters.
“So we constructed this plane with folding wings like they have on aircraft carriers,” recalls company director David Crampton. “The cockpit of a plane is more or less coffin-shaped so that made life easier.”

Once word spread about the custom casket, more people decided to plan for their own demise and do it Frank Sinatra-style – my way.

What other requests have they been asked to fill?

One man wanted to be laid to rest in a canal long boat. “That caused friction with his wife so we had to build one for her as well,” Crampton reveals.

Then there’s the hospice nurse who’s having a pink ballet shoe made for her final exit.

A town crier will be buried in a coffin shaped like a bell. “He wants to go out with a bong,” Crampton jokes, a punchline in an industry not known for its humour.

Another client is having a scaled down model of a 1913 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost built. It comes with wheels so pall bearers can simply push it along.

Then there’s the one in the shape of a giant electric guitar – with strings attached.

Another resembles a large sports bag (top left), a demand from a cricket fan. (It includes its own wickets.)

There’s a box-kite shaped coffin that puts the dearly departed in the middle.

A skateboard container, complete with a skeleton-like rider on its surface, appeals to the crowd who may be too young to die.

The “egg” is self explanatory, although it might be hard to carry.

One that Canadians will no doubt appreciate is a giant beer can with a corkscrew on one end.

A sledge coffin comes with fake feet sticking out of the end of it.

And in the height of questionable appropriateness, there’s even a coffin shaped like an industrial garbage container.

You’ll pay a lot extra for these final resting places, of course, but they’ve become something of a sensation in Europe. So much so that many have been put on display in touring shows at art galleries.

And they’ve brought light to an industry normally filled with solemn gloom.

“Making an unusual crazy coffin is great for the staff,” agrees Crampton. “It gives them a chance to test their skills and joinery expertise. It can create some fun in the shop.”

Which just proves nothing is sacred any more – even in the coffin making business.

“We are less lugubrious nowadays,” the director admits. “It is a changing profession and I like to believe we are fashion-driven.”

To see some of the ‘crazy coffins’ for yourself, click here and here.

citynews.com

“Crazy Coffins” A New Booming Business In England is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

“Silver Dollar Jim” was quintessential Texas. Although he got a law degree, he made his money in cattle and oil, and liked to be photographed in a ten-gallon hat. He got his nickname because he would only tip silver dollars (sometimes fistfuls at a time). Deciding that blue was the best color, he promptly had all his cars (there were dozens, mostly Cadillacs) painted that color. A police buff, he liked to wear a diamond-studded Texas Ranger badge and go with the cops on high-speed chases, sometimes tossing silver dollars along the way.

Other wealthy eccentrics

Crazy behaviors of the insanely wealthy is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Wall Mart | In an attempt to put a smiley face on its tarnished image, Wal-Mart hires heavy-hitting public relations firm Edelman, which sets about using tactics derived from political races to reverse public perceptions of the giant retailer.

Dubbing its campaign “Candidate Wal-Mart,” the firm trumpets all manner of new Wal-Mart initiatives: improved employee health-care benefits, higher starting pay levels, new stores in downtrodden neighborhoods, reasonably priced organic foods, and a flat $4 fee for hundreds of generic prescription drugs.

As a result, candidate Wal-Mart quickly becomes, well, the most popular politician since Spiro Agnew. By year’s end Wal-Mart suffers its first quarterly profit drop in a decade, sees same-store sales decline in November’s run-up to the crucial holiday shopping season, and suffers a series of public relations gaffes so stunning that it lands six spots in this year’s edition of the 101 Dumbest Moments.

See the complete list of all 101 Dumbest Moments in Business for 2006.

101 Dumbest Moments in Business is a post from: Top Business Opportunities