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     Find It At New Products Store
   TORONTO (AP)
   Haven't you ever wished somebody would invent a doohickey that
fastens on the bathtub and holds your book while you wash?
   How about a gadget that opens and closes toilet lids, no hands?
   Or a box that creates your own subliminal advertising  injecting
microsecond-long messages into your TV, which could help you kick a
cigarette or other drug habit.
   Well they exist, on display at Toronto's New Product Store  a home
for the mad scientist and crazy inventor.
   The business was founded a year ago by Brian Gray, his brother
Joseph, and Ed Zwolinski.
   "Brian Gray was a frustrated inventor," says Zwolinski, who
manages the place. "He had a line of hardware products  a radon gas
detector, a disco music light box, custom construction hard hats  and
was frustrated by all the doors closed to him, being told to buzz
off."
   He says the biggest problem for inventors is skepticism.
   "It's so hard to get attention. You really have to have a lot of
clout behind you. One person alone doesn't have that."
   The New Products Store can't offer much in the way of clout. But
it can offer exposure, both in shelf space in the store and via the
publicity it has generated.
   It also offers professional evaluation from its board of engineers
and lawyers, distribution leads, contacts with retailers and a
sympathetic ear.
   The typical inventor usually follows a path like this: He gets an
idea, becomes obsessed with it, creates a product and produces it. At
that point, the honeymoon is over because he then has to sell it.
   "That's where we come in," says Zwolinski. "We offer them a start
in the market. There is no way an inventor can know how good his
product is without public exposure."
   The store is not very large, but it is located in one of Toronto's
most fashionable shopping districts. The store manager can judge
customer response to products, even browser response.
   Robert Dubeck invented the device for reader-bathers, an obsession
that has consumed nine years of his life.
   "No one thought this was going to go," says Dubeck. "Everyone
wanted me to give up the dream, just keep working. I was put down by
friends and family. They basically said work for a living, don't come
up with a dream to better yourself."
   In the store, potential customers will find such items as the
Leisure Reader for the bathtub; a lapel or blouse pin for holding
eyeglasses; the Bathroom Butler that opens and closes toilet lids;
erase protection tabs for computer disks; or the box that creates
those microsecond positive affirmation messages for your TV as a
means of changing behavior.