yes, folks, welcome to your local grocery shelf: prepackaged unfrozen ice cubes. i’m not kidding. it’s filtered water, in little plastic ice cube trays, with a sealed plastic cover. so even the laziest water snob can spend crazy-money for the convenience of going to the store, buying these, opening the box and putting the trays in the freezer, waiting for them to freeze, then pulling back the plastic wrap to expose these little beauties. i mean, really, if you’re a lazy water snob, actually filling your own ice cube trays with your own filtered water can get so boring, so inconvenient, so five minutes ago. a special thanks to canada (and, really, who knows ice cubes better, except, maybe, like greenland?) for this wonderful time-saving and highly over-packaged absurdity.

oh, and according to the website, this is all about humanitarian efforts, providing pure filtered water ice as a health salvation to the world! (because, as everyone knows, our third world brothers and sisters who struggle with water-born diseases, use SO many ice cubes!).

update!: the company has also lauched two additional brands (good news for the third-world!): ICE KIDS(r), “secured spring water ice cubes, product directed for the children’s market,” and SCOTCH ROCKS (r), “secured spring water ice cubes, luxury product for alcoholic beverages.”

(ht to dave barry)