Four years ago, my friend AV and I began discussing a number of entrepreneurial ideas, which began as a way to kill slow times at work and later included “I JUST WOKE UP AND THOUGHT OF A BETTER NAME” texts.

These ideas were unlikely to ever happen (one was a luxury hotel), but that didn’t stop us from letting our creative minds run with them.

The best one was a food truck-like service that would deliver over-the-counter medicine, soup and other things that would make you feel better when sick.  The target audience was primarily single people who would otherwise not have someone around to make a trip to CVS for them when sickness struck.

One early name possibility was “What U Need” (or perhaps “What U Need?”):

But eventually we settled on one that more distinctly called out that this was the kind of service that was on the move and ready to come to you at any moment: Heal Mobile.

That second part?  That’s why we never did it.  Well, the most glaring reason, at least.  You need money, and we had none, so our business ideas were reliant on a side strategy of winning the lottery.  The most we’ve ever won in limited attempts is $2, so no luck on that front yet.

As with any good idea though, it was only a matter of time before someone else did it.  And this month, AV sent me this from Uber, who became that someone:

They call it Uber Essentials, and it’s everything we planned plus a few extras.  For instance, we didn’t envision offering Christmas lights or Hanukkah candles during the holidays.

How did we take the news that our not-really-happening venture had been usurped by a competitor who had a much better infrastructure in place to carry it out?  Not well.

 On to the next one.

We’re almost two weeks into competition and I haven’t written about the Olympics.  A quick search of the archives says I also haven’t mentioned Natalie Portman in a post in nearly seven months.

Let’s tackle both of those today, shall we?

Natalie, the former future mother of my children, got officially married over the weekend, closing a long-running chapter here at the blog.  We had some laughs, I wrote a dismissive note when she got engaged, but mostly I think we can all walk away feeling good.

You may recall Natalie gained a prominent role when my brother and his wife were about to have their first child, and my mom, ever encouraging, gave me a year to match.  [SPOILER: This did not happen.]  She also fit in well with my plan to be the perfect husband to an Oscar nominee.

But now that she’s officially off the market, I guess it’s time for a new plan.  That’s where London 2012 comes in.

Oscar winners are cool, but maybe the Hollywood life isn’t for me after all.  Seems like a place where hoodies and jeans would be frowned upon.  You know who is definitely cool with that?  Olympic athletes, who also happen to sometimes get gold hardware to acknowledge their achievements.

One of my former coworkers has been posting daily updates on his new favorite Olympian, but I’ve been consistent since the early days of this year’s games.  Ideally there would be only one, but as I explained in commenting on one of his posts, the odds of meeting one are so slim, it only makes sense to have a backup.  Right?

First on my list — swimmer Lauren Perdue.  She won a gold medal as part of the 800 meter relay team.  She’s been tweeting about the Olympic experience.  She plays a key role in the U.S. swim team’s “Call Me Maybe” video (first appearing at 0:37-0:44):

As a University of Maryland graduate, I’m even willing to overlook her University of Virginia ties, especially since that’s my home state.

In case Lauren and I don’t hit it off, there’s another Olympian on my team — soccer player Alex Morgan.  That would Alex Morgan, the one who scored the amaaazing goal against Canada to put the U.S. in the gold medal game.  She’s doing Twitter stuff too.  She went to Cal, which I have no issues with, and has a sponsorship deal with Nike, which provides (fine, at a cost to me) most of my running gear.  Seems like a good start to me.

And if things go well, she may have her own gold medal in a few days.  Not that anything less would be a deal-breaker.  I can be cool with silver, too.

[UPDATE: Alex Morgan & company won the gold!]

It’s one of those hypothetical questions everyone has thought about, but tonight roommate MR and I had a detailed discussion of what we would do with three wishes.

The quick consensus: one involving virtually infinite money and one involving a super power.

Neither of us wanted eleventy billion dollars sitting in the bank, but enough on a regular basis so that we would never have to worry about money.  My wish would be to randomly fall into sums of money as I needed/wanted, but have the confidence that such events would always happen.  MR wants $1 billion deposited in his bank account every January 1.

I argued that his would be wayyyy more fun if the yearly deposit happened on a random day.  Imagine the thrill of checking your account balance each morning.

As for super powers, he went with the ability to breathe in both outer space and underwater, while I would wish for the ability to read minds.

The third wish took a lot more thought, since with the other two in our pocket we would already be able to do so many things.  But after a while we came up with something we couldn’t buy or obtain with our powers — a time machine.

Not just any time machine, mind you.  Ours is not prone to the stereotypical sci-fi convention where stepping on a bug during the dinosaur ages forever alters every moment that follows.  It’s completely safe, meaning that we can show an iPad to Ben Franklin and blow his mind without the Cubs suddenly winning the World Series.

I’m pretty sure I could be king of the cavemen if I traveled back with some root beer floats:

Delicious photo by AV

Of course these plans assume we don’t have other concerns, like trying to woo a girl with a pet tiger.

Mila, I’m sorry to report you have some competition.

Last year I wrote about how 2011 was all about marrying an Oscar-winning actress (which I immediately expanded to include nominees as well) after Kate Middleton totally stole my idea about snagging royalty.  I was a little mad at the time, but Kate really did me a favor and sent me in the right direction.

Fortunately, the 2011 plan didn’t pan out either.  I say fortunately because what I really should have been focused on was actresses appearing in movies that were nominated, and while Mila would qualify there for her work in “Black Swan” she suddenly pales in comparison to another young woman from that category.

Her name is Rooney Mara, who had a small role in “The Social Network” and now stars in “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.”  Why her?  In addition to the obvious appeal, her name adds a lot.

That’s Rooney as in the Rooney family that founded the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Mara as in the Mara family that founded the New York Giants.  She isn’t the product of some crazy father who somehow got to pick her name, but rather the daughter of a mom from the Rooney family and a dad from the Mara family.

You may wonder, as David Letterman did in an interview last week, if she likes football and if so, which team she roots for.  As a Giants fan, her answer only makes me more of a Rooney Mara fan:

In addition to all of those good traits, she also went to NYU and heads up a charity helping kids in Kenya.

That’s not to say I won’t answer Mila’s calls, but someone else just may be a higher priority.

“I think I can find your dream girl.”

That was the message I got last week from my friend Kim, who has now apparently taken leadership of my dream girl search committee. I had no idea there was such an entity, but she says she’s particularly skilled in picking out someone’s type.

I’m happy to report that in just four days she has found the perfect woman for me: January Jones.

Now, I know what you may be thinking, and yes things with other celebrities who don’t know I exist haven’t gone so well. But those were just shots in the dark (sorry Natalie). This is science, or at least an objective decision made by an outsider using her extensive knowledge of me.

And if for some reason January doesn’t return my calls, don’t worry. Kim offers a warranty on her dream girl picks and says she’ll find another one.

If you want some of my future wealth, you should ask now.

I don’t want to be one of those people who wins the lottery and all of a sudden has a bunch of new friends and “cousins” looking for a piece of the pie. Your request will be denied.

I mention this now because I am about to take part in my first and last attempt at amassing mass fortune with absolutely no effort.

A few months ago, AV and I were talking about various entrepreneurial ventures for which we had ideas but no funding. I may have suggested helpful things like robbing banks or starting a pyramid scheme, but she had a better idea: “We’re playing Mega Millions.”

Of course, if you’re going to play the lottery, you need a plan. We have a few simple rules for our attempt. First, we’re making one try — no continually chasing long odds for us (though we later amended that to each one of us buying tickets once, so two total attempts). Second, we decided to play only when the jackpot got above $75 million. Friday’s drawing is for a mere $312 million.

And then there are the numbers.

We decided since we are only playing one time, we could go ahead and come up with two sets of numbers. They include things like our ages, her lucky number, a lucky number she picked for me, part of my parents’ garage code and the season number from the Simpsons DVD set I was watching at the time.

Our magic formula is secret

So here’s the deal. On the extremely improbably chance we win on Friday (or Tuesday), you better get in your funding request now.

One in 175 million odds don’t come around every day.

Following the news yesterday that Natalie Portman is engaged, I offer the following note:

Dear Natalie,

I see that you have taken some major steps in your life — seemingly all at once — leaving the wishes of others cast aside as you collect well-wishes for your future. And that’s cool. It’s your life.

I’ll leave it to you to explain to my mom why I will be disappointing her by not living up to her expectations. And that’s cool, too. Mom can turn to my siblings — two of them already married — for her dreams of near-age cousins for my newborn niece.

But I’m not sure you totally thought this through. You’re marrying a French choreographer/ballet dancer whom you met through your work on the film “Black Swan.” From the buzz the movie is getting, it may well be the defining work of your career — one that will forever be minimalized in the mind of your spouse.

Sure, by all accounts you worked really hard to pull off the role of an accomplished dancer. But to someone who actually is one, your shortcomings have to be glaring. If you win an Oscar, your husband will walk by the statue every day thinking, “Heh, nice try,” like an engineer seeing the ribbon his kid won at the science fair.

It’s like if I were hanging out with Rachel McAdams, whose most recent release had her playing the role of morning television producer. Whatever our relationship, it would be impossible for me to not be constantly picking apart how her “producer” self failed to live up to the real life version I have experienced. And in her case, it’s not like this is the movie everyone will associate her with for the rest of her career.

Before you feel too bad about the path you’re taking, don’t worry about the rest of us. We’ll be just fine.

After all, I hear ScarJo is single.

Sincerely,

cjh