How to brainstorm in the middle of the night

In the tradition of self help blogs across the internet, I am proud to present the following article that I made up.

How to brainstorm in the middle of the night

Materials needed:
Lots of caffeinated, sugary drinks.
1 dog
1 baby
1 wife

Step 1:
Gather all the required materials. If you do not have the materials you may try to borrow them from a neighbor.

Step 2:
During the day drink as much of the sugary drinks as possible. I prefer Coca-Cola with meals. It just seems to go well with food. Mountain Dew is useful in times of great stress. It really gets the heart beating.

Step 3:
Generally, try to pass out into a sugar coma around 10 or 11 pm.

Step 4:
Have your dog wake you up around midnight to go out and pee. I think that any dog will do, but I prefer a 120 pound Great Dane. They don't bark or whine as much and you won't accidentally throw them across the room when they interrupt your sleep. Generally, my Great Dane will click, click, click across the hardwood floors and stand beside the bed staring at me until I get up. He's a pretty good starer apparently because he is almost always successful. Maybe it's his breath. At times when I am particularly sound asleep, he might press down on me with his head. Repeatedly.

Step 5:
Go back to sleep. Your brain is still tired! It's not yet in the proper state for optimal brainstorming.

Step 6:
Have your baby wake you up around 2 am for something to drink. It's best to cosleep with your baby. You might sleep through their wails if they are in another room. If they sleep in the same bed they will be able to kick you appropriately until you awaken. Additionally, if you fake sleep long enough, your wife will yell at you or shake you violently enough to encourage you to stagger out of bed toward the kitchen.

Step 7:
Carefully prepare the drink for the baby. It's best if there are no clean dishes and you have to wash something. During this phase it is important that you achieve a fairly high level of wakefulness.

Step 8:
Lay back in bed and stare at the ceiling for at least 30 minutes. You are now preparing to enter the brainstorming mode.

Step 9:
Think of a topic that will allow you to mull over it continuously for the remainder of the night. If you ever get tired of a particular topic, choose another, you can always come back to the original topic later if you wish.

Now you are ready! Brainstorm away!

What kinds of problems can you solve under these conditions? Anything at all. Last night, for example, I had three excellent ideas.

Idea 1
Wouldn't it be cool if I invented a machine that would allow me to lower the temperature of water until it reaches a solid state? I could use the resulting product for many things - like cooling off highly caffeinated, sugary drinks.

Idea 2
Inventing machines may be difficult. Perhaps, instead, I could convince everyone who wanted such a product to move to extremely cold places. They could simply break the frozen water off a convenient tree limb. Trees, after all, have already been invented. I could sell trees to my target market.

Idea 3
For my blog, I should start using the following tag line:
Polytopic Satire Techtemplations - The Leftover Salmon of blogs.

Sometimes your ideas may not seem as good in the morning. That's OK! Brainstorming is not about quality.