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Now the Rest of the Story, Nondisclosures Aside

David Whiteis, with the RingMachine that he hopes will wow the market.
David Whiteis, with the RingMachine that he hopes will wow the market. (Courtesy Of David Whiteis)
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The video gift box is neat, but what David is really excited about are his bubble rings.

Bubble rings, naturally, are created by David's RingMachine, which U.S. Patent Nos. 6,488,270 and 6,736,375 describe as an "apparatus for creating vortex rings in a fluid medium."

Bubble rings are perfect circles of air that rise from the bottom of a pool, pond, fish tank or wherever you stick David's patented assemblage of nozzles, tubes and membranes.

Bubble rings serve no purpose. They don't do anything. But they are really cool to watch. (You can see them on his Web site, http://www.bubblerings.com .)

I asked David if he'd like a big infusion of cash so he could mass-market his RingMachine.

"Yes. Or just license it, just get it on the market. . . . I owe my patent lawyer so much money, I'm trying to not have new ideas these days."

One-Track Mind

There are some films I'll watch whenever they wash up on TV. "Jaws" is one. "Alien" is another. I've seen bits and pieces of them dozens of times, yet I still find it hard to take my eyes away.

That has not been the case with the two brief movies running on Metro's Red Line. I watched them a few times, but now I typically have my face in a book or magazine and am at Union Station before I realize I missed them.

I hate to say it, because Metro needs the money, but given how literate we are in the D.C. area, I wonder if tourists are the only ones who'll see the tunnel ads -- not that there's anything wrong with that.

Which brings me to a task I set a while back: for readers to name the ads. What I intended were actual titles: "Bring Me the Head of Anthony Bourdain " or "Is This a Car Commercial or a Sting Video?" What I got were neologisms -- not that there's anything wrong with that.

Alexandria's Leslie Swift-Rosenzweig offered "Distracktion." Eric Wenger of Bethesda said that ghostly advertising images projected onto Metro walls should be called "MetroSpectral." He added: "Of course, if someone ever does a historical look back on this form of advertising, it would be a MetroSpective."

Finally, Bryan from Washington summed things up nicely with this suggestion: "Tunnelvision ads."

My e-mail: kellyj@washpost.com


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