Idon't ask much from life. I don't expect the stretch limos, flotillas of groupies, or a wallet full of thousand dollar bills to light my Cohiba panatelas. I have no interest in becoming Lord Black of the Millpond, a guest on the Tonight Show or of winning that Lottery for Life - a red velvet bunk in the Canadian Senate.

No, I only have one unrequited desire: to have, in my lifetime, One Great Idea.

Is that so much to ask? Archimedes got his revelation in a bathtub. Newton got his under an apple tree. Einstein brainstormed "E equals MC squared" at his blackboard, and we can guess where Thomas Crapper was sitting when he got his inspiration to invent the flush toilet.

One great idea. That's all I ask for. I'm not trying to be a Thomas Edison, filing a thousand patents for everything from phonographs to light bulbs. I just want one.

I thought I had it back in Grade Seven. I remember almost nodding off at my desk while the teacher droned on about The Rebellion of 1837. "Upper Canada was a tiny colony," he was saying, "not like the country of 15 million (hey, it was a long time ago) that we live in today."

And I fell to doodling at my desk. Fifteen million... let's see...that would be 15....followed by six zeros. Imagine if I could persuade every Canadian to mail me... one penny.

That would put 15 million pennies in my piggy bank. Or put another way, I'd have $150,000! Which was a fortune, back when I was a kid.

And that was as close as I ever got to a Great Idea. The Achilles heel that fatally hobbled my breakthrough concept was the fact that I couldn't think of a compelling argument to convince my fellow citizens to start mailing their pennies to me. My bombshell brainwave died a-borning.

And it's not like it's hard to get a patent even for a lame idea. Paul Hanson of St. Paul, Minnesota just obtained a U.S. patent for his all-new method of treating heart-related chest pain.

Hanson's solution: just drink limeade - but from concentrate. That's it - Hanson's Great Idea in a nutshell. He says it worked for him and the U.S. Patent Office was sufficiently impressed. Impressed enough to grant Hanson patent # 6,457,474.

I think Michael Nelson's idea had a more obvious aura of greatness about it. Nelson recently opened a law office in suburban Orlando, Florida, leased himself a company car (Mercedes), printed up some toney-looking letterhead stationery listing all his law partners and began soliciting business from the families of convicted drug traffickers. Did very well, too until a radio station investigated and found out that Nelson's law partners didn't exist and Nelson was not a lawyer. As a matter of fact Nelson was himself a felon, serving time for bank-fraud. He could only 'practice' during the day as he had to return to a half-way house each night. As near as investigators could figure Nelson made "several hundred thousand dollars" before he was nabbed. Not surprisingly, Nelson's half-way house privileges have been revoked.

Still, Great Ideas don't have to be crooked and they don't have to involve lawyers (but I repeat myself). Take Dennis Hope of Gardnerville, Nevada. For the past 23 years, Mister Hope has operated a real estate company, selling lots to interested customers.

But not in Nevada. Not even in North America. Not even on this planet. Mister Hope sells land...on the moon. Business has been so good that he's expanding. He'll now sell you choice lots on Mars and Venus as well. Going price: $20 an acre.

How good is business? Very. Hope reckons he makes about $270,000 US a year. And it's legal. It's based on something Mister Hope learned in school as a kid. Back when I was doodling through my history lesson, Dennis Hope was paying attention. He heard his teacher say that, while the international Space Treaty of 1967 prohibits nations from owning celestial bodies, it doesn't say anything about individual ownership. Hope says "I even wrote to the United Nations explaining my plan and asking if they had a problem with it. Nobody ever wrote back."

But that was 23 years and $6.5 million ago. Great Idea, Mister Hope.