Buffet Food Warmers

While we're on the subject of tired-ass products in desperate need of improvement, can we talk about buffet food warmers? If you've ever been to any party that takes place in someone's back yard, you've seen those little warmers that sit underneath disposable aluminum trays filled with baked ziti and chicken marsala. The heat cans, called Sterno, have been around for over 100 years, and haven't had any kind of upgrade in that time.

Wiki Commons
More like "bland heat," am I right?

Sterno's staying power mostly comes from how simple it is to use. But let me ask you this: Can you watch Netflix on a can of Sterno? The answer, for those of you still pondering, is no. Believe me, I've tried, and the Sterno's selection of award-winning documentaries is really, really lacking.

Imagine this scenario: You're waiting in line at a buffet, bored as hell and hungry to boot. What if, instead of staring at a boring little flame on your way down the line, you're distracted by a flame that's surrounded by some of the best streaming content available on the web? That's a scenario that only works if Samsung sells their phones as an alternative to Sterno cans. With this method, you would simply place a Galaxy Note 7 under your tray of green beans, fire up Netflix, and start streaming episodes of Friends while the burning phone heats up your dinner.

Pixabay/Erik Germ
Could this be any more practical?

Fine. How About Ice Fishing?

Okay, maybe there are better ways to heat a meal than by setting it on top of a 4G Molotov cocktail. But I have a surefire idea that has probably no downsides to it. To properly make my point, though, I'll need you to watch this bullshit first.

At about a minute into the video, the presenter starts chipping away at the ice to make a hole so he can go fishing. That is inefficiency of the highest caliber. But what other option is there? If you're crazy enough, you can be like these Norwegians and blow a hole in the ice with dynamite, but that comes with a whole list of issues. First off, the law says you can't go out and just buy dynamite. Second, the explosion that comes along with a typical stick of dynamite is massive overkill for what we're trying to accomplish. However, since just about anyone is allowed to own a smartphone, the proposal here is a simple one.

Erik Germ

Use Them As Bombs

Let's face it: Our world is in trouble. We've got coup attempts in Turkey, North Korea throwing threats around every couple of weeks, and the recent unrest in the U.S. Unrest which seems to indicate that another World War is right around the corner. At this rate, the dangers appear to be rising faster than we can create the weapons needed to protect ourselves from them. With that in mind, why don't we use Samsung's massive recall to our advantage by repurposing these dangerous explosives as intentional weapons?

The applications are endless when you're dealing with volatile handheld devices like the Note 7. For example, video game modder HitmanNiko edited the grenades in Grand Theft Auto V, reskinning them as Note 7's with hilarious, thought-provoking results.

ModdedGames
Oh wait, this isn't from the game. This is actual footage of the Note 7 in action.

While it's funny to behold, I got to thinking "Why the hell not?" It already doesn't take much to set the Note 7 off into a blazing inferno. So throwing these things at our enemies on the battlefield would work about as well as any grenade. And your typical grenade can't store over 50,000 songs. It's only with the Note 7 grenades that you can blast Kenny Loggins' Danger Zone at full volume while blowing your adversaries to smithereens. If that's not a selling point for you, how about this: Remember the Ninja Turtles Pizza Thrower toy?

Throw Them At Each Other For Sport

I've been mourning the death of the laser tag fad for many years now -- as we all have, really. Over the past few decades, the pew-pew industry has been crippled, and fewer and fewer laser tag arenas have managed to stay open. Aside from paintball, you can't really get that kind of enjoyment anymore unless it's in a video game. It's high time for a new kind of organized competitive elimination combat, says this casual observer. Picture, if you will, the Samsung Note Explosion Elimination Challenge!

Erik Germ
Admittedly, the name needs work.