The 5 Most Ridiculously Unnecessary Modern Inventions

5 The Fliz

Statistically speaking, it's probably not entirely unlikely that there is someone out there who is enamored with cycling but fears pedals and really gets off on sex swings. Someone who wants to blend all three of those things together in one place. I know it's not entirely unlikely because it happened and they called it the Fliz.

At first glance, this looks like the sort of thing you should strap a child into in order to mock him. In a bygone era, they would have done this to mental deficients and claimed that it helped them exercise, but really it was just so the crooked and sinister staff at the institute could point and laugh as the little mouth breathers scooted around all ridiculous-like.

Looking at the Fliz, you'll notice a few things right away. First, you probably need to be making a noise like "Hherrrrrrrggghh!" the entire time you're using it. Second, with a slot for your head in front, you'll finally be able to do away with that pesky collarbone should you ever get in an accident. Third, every single pothole or speed bump will basically be like a punch to the head, which you'll deserve for strapping yourself into this big boy's exersaucer.

Some inventions don't need to be improved. Have you seen the electric fork? That's so fucking stupid, its very existence should be a ruse just to find the names of people dumb enough to want it so they can be rounded up and put in camps. Likewise, the bicycle is pretty solid the way it is. You're not making it better by crossbreeding it with a Baby Bjorn and stomping around on two wheels crouched over like you're carting a load in your pants, looking to everyone like some brain-addled dingus who couldn't afford a whole bicycle.

4 Fart Pads

All too often, a good time is brought to its knees by an invisible cloud of someone's colonic stankery. According to the actual U.S. government, meaning they looked into it, the average person passes between one and four pints of gas a day. Which isn't an average at all and is a very ridiculous way to state something, but it's what we have to work with. But, for those interested, four pints is almost two liters, so you're looking at a big ass bottle of Coke floating out of your backside every day. You know, if you're a high average average. That's a lot of ass bilge.

While a chosen few amongst us see farts as an opportunity to grab a lighter and put on a show, or time it just right so that you're performing the hadouken motion just as it erupts, others find them embarrassing and uncouth. It was for these people that fart-absorbing butt pads were invented.

The basic idea behind something like the Flat-D Flatulence Deodorizer is that you jam it down the back of your gitch and force your subterranean kisses through it, thus robbing them of their potency. However, if you've ever appreciated the shape of your ass or have enjoyed the dynamics of a fart in a bathtub as you feel it barreling forth like a slippery little trooper against the rushing waves, you'll start to wonder just how effective a stationary ass maxi pad really can be.

It's like you shit an actual brick.

In point of fact, they are not effective, as numerous reviews state. Maybe some of the dark wind blows through the filter and is neutralized, but like the dreary mist bringing forth horrors in that Stephen King movie, so too do your butt yawns tend to spread and encompass a vast swath of real estate. The only real way this idea could work would be if, instead of making it a pad for your underwear, it was more like a cigarette filter for your ass and you applied it directly to the hole, like some kind of deranged monocle right there at ground zero where nothing can escape, just looking out and getting fogged up every so often. But of course that's hardly practical and would likely require much more dexterous sphincter muscles than many of us have managed to develop.

And let's be honest, do you want to live in a world full of stink-free farts? Think before you answer and reflect on this little nugget -- remember that game from when you were a kid when some yahoo would suddenly lunge at you with fist raised and you'd flinch and they'd laugh and then hit you for real, only because you flinched, stating something like "Two for flinching"? And over time you developed this bizarre paranoia that any sudden movements were potentially from someone trying to trick or entrap you? And sometimes you'd get hit and other times not and you could never really trust what your brain was telling you was about to happen? That's what a fart pad does. You hear a fart and you're ready to react and then suddenly there's no stink. Well what the fuck? So you start getting paranoid every time you hear a fart because you never know if it's going to stink or not and the only way to tell is to breathe in and by then it's too goddamn late because you either smell it or you don't. There's no safe way to play the game at all, it's Russian ass roulette. Well that's not cool, people.

3 The Horizontal Shower

Don't you hate standing to bathe? God, what a hassle. First you have to stand and then, you know, continue to stand. But baths are a hassle, too, because water isn't constantly bombarding you, you're just wallowing like our friend the otter. If only someone could combine the thrill of not even needing muscle control with the convenience of running water. They did!

The horizontal shower finally provides you with all the facets of lazy bathing you never knew you needed while at the same time being remarkably close to waterboarding. You just lie on a stone slab while numerous jets of water assail you and, I dunno, I guess you wriggle around in a soapy puddle to get clean or whatever.

At $35,000, you'd expect the horizontal shower to lie you down in some warm water and make sweet, hygienic love to you, but that doesn't happen. Instead, you hop on what appears to be an autopsy table and let six shower heads soak you. How do you wash your hair? I don't know. Do you lie on your face to wash your ass, or do you kneel on that marble slab? What's the clearance on that thing before you hit your head? These questions and more!

If you need to lie down when bathing because opting to have gravity assist you in getting clean is too much of a burden, you may just want to invest in the services of a nurse who can come and sponge you clean in your own bed, or maybe just do away with bathing altogether, as it seems like you're not likely to be big on going outside much anyway.

2 Foursquare

Hey look, I'm the mayor of Douchetopia!

First, no you're not. Second, no one cares. The entire concept of Foursquare is one that literally no one understands. Not me, not you, not the guy who invented it. You sign in and it just lets you know where you are. I don't want to bust anyone's nut here, but I always know where I am. For instance, if I look down, I notice I'm right fuckin' here. Do you know where you are? Right there. So Foursquare is the middle man between me looking down and my brain registering where I am standing and I don't need that shit and neither do you.

If I need you to know where I am, I will probably let you know via phone call, email, text message, smoke signal or registered letter. I don't need to let the Internet know I'm at Maria's Rub n Tug, working on my happy ending badge. What the hell does that even mean? Have we decayed as a society to the point where we feel virtual badges for simply being somewhere are necessary? This is dumber than the gold star your first grade teacher gave you every time you didn't wipe your nose on your math worksheets.

Aaaaand I done put two sticks in my bun / So they recognize me when I come!

Twenty million people use Foursquare, and I guarantee most of them signed up because someone they know was using it and they foolishly assumed there had to be a reason for using it beyond the fact that it just says where you are all the time, like some semi-retarded town crier deluding you into thinking the rest of the world gives a shit if you're on the second floor of the mall near the Cinnabon. If that sounds cynical, I invite you to consider if you care to know that anyone else in the entire world is on the second floor of the mall near the Cinnabon. So help me God if you try to be contrary and answer that you do, because I know you don't and so do you.

Foursquare is e-fapping for narcissists who want to feel important. Imagine if you -- is there a slang term for how you use Foursquare, like tweeting or Facebooking? I'll call it Foursqueefing -- imagine if you Foursqueef that you're at Arby's and then like five sons of bitches you don't want to see show up because it posted it directly to your Facebook and Twitter also. Isn't that a risk you're running all the time? You either have to be OK with the creepy fact that anyone, at any time, can show up specifically to see you, or you're assuming/hoping no one would be that crazy, in which case you're just broadcasting your whereabouts for no goddamn reason at all. Screw Foursquare.

1 The Entire Troy Hurtubise Invention Catalog

You've read about Troy Hurtubise and his bear-proof suit before. It's hard to say whether he's insane or just remarkably dimwitted, but it's pretty certain he has no idea what he's talking about. He started out trying to make a suit that could withstand a bear attack, the sort of thing that one never needs until they're being attacked by a bear, making it kind of impractical because you can't live your life that way. He then switched gears and said it was for bear research, because nothing lends itself to understanding an animal in its natural habitat better than being observed at close distances by a man in a Kevin Jamesian RoboCop suit.

As his idea evolved into a brand new insane thing, it left bears behind and became a military tour de force. Troy was creating a suit of armor that soldiers could use in wartime that would be able to withstand extreme temperatures, gunfire, explosions, fires and good sense.

Now on the surface, despite him admitting to being inspired by both RoboCop and Halo, it sounds like this thing could be extremely practical. It makes you indestructible, right? Ah, but wait -- there's a fatal flaw in your reasoning, and that is forgetting to acknowledge that Troy Hurtubise is nuttier than a pit beneath a squirrel outhouse.

You'd trust this man with military secrets, right?

In addition to the armor, Troy also invented something he called Angel Light that allowed him to look right through solid objects, including physics textbooks, without any interference. It could see right through a wall, but only through the skin of his hand. This then graduated to the God Light, a half-ton flashlight in his garage that was about twice as powerful as the sun. Or at least the light from it during the day. What did it do? Made seeds grow faster, cured Parkinson's and cancer and completely changed physics, according to a Ph.D. candidate from Japan named William Rieken.

Who is William Rieken? According to the Internet, he was working on some kind of snazzy UFO-like airplane. But try to Google him. His page at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology isn't able to be accessed. Most references to him direct you back to the article about Hurtubise whose author died four years ago. One article about his involvement in a space elevator competition links to his team's website, which sells penis pills. He's hard as hell to track down. After a call to Japan, where no one would acknowledge having heard of him, and four bounced emails to different addresses at defunct websites, I'm forced to conclude that if Rieken ever did exist, he's off the grid now, and if he ever did meet Hurtubise, I will bet you a steak dinner he never, ever said the things he's quoted as saying, because they're teabagging-a-donkey-on-a-Ferris-wheel crazy.

Basically Hurtubise, a man infamous for making preposterous claims in a documentary about making a bear suit, such as his father building an Indian village and surviving being attacked by a grizzly, not to mention his awesome martial arts skills, now claims to continually defy physics in his garage. He created physics-defying fireproof insulation out of Diet Coke, he created a beam that sees through solid objects and then converted it into a cancer-curing machine, and then he has super reliable military armor. Everything this guy touches is epic bullshit.

Check out more from Ian in 7 Things From Pop Culture That Apparently Piss Jesus Off and History's 7 Most Astounding Sexual Resumes.