American 7-Eleven: P'EatZZa Sandwich. Japanese 7-Eleven: Scented Oxygen

The American 7-Eleven research and development braintrust doesn't just spend its time developing larger and slightly-differently-shaped beverage cups and new Slurpee flavors.

They also develop unappealing and badly-named hybrid food products like the P'EatZZa Sandwich. It's perfect for those times when you're plagued by decision paralysis because you feel equally in the mood for both pizza and a sandwich. Eating "pizza flatbread and deli sandwich fillings" will leave both cravings equally unsatisfied, and perhaps there's some massochistic pleasure to be found in that.

Plus, by quickly deciding on such a lousy new product instead of spending a lot of time developing something that sounds more appealing, 7-Eleven saved a lot of money, which they spent promoting the P'EatZZa Sandwich on the increasingly unlikeable and unpopular television program "The Apprentice", featuring the perpetually unlikeable Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, in Japan, 7-Eleven stores are thinking a bit more outside the box. In some Tokyo 7-Eleven stores later this month, O2 Supli 95% pure canned oxygen will be available, in both grapefruit and peppermint scents. O2 Suppli, which will be on sale throughout Japan in June, comes in spray cans with a plastic mask to breathe in that pricey oxygen for 2 or 3 seconds each "dose" lasts. Each can contains 35 "doses" and will cost 600 yen (about 2.89 pounds, $5.48 in the U.S., $6.07 in Canada, or $7.13 in Australia).

Minoru Matsumoto, a spokesperson for 7-Eleven's parent company, Seven & I Holdings Co Ltd., said, "The peppermint should be really good for mornings when you're tired, or when you're driving, or when you really have to concentrate." You don't have to really concentrate when driving? He recommends the grapefruit scent for "before you do sports or while you're working really late." What if you really have to concentrate while you're working really late?

It's not all that innovative an idea. Oxygen bars have been around for quite a long time. Given the severity of the pollution problem in Japan (and its certainly a global issue), it can't be a purely amusing idea either. It's a bit silly, anyway, but nonetheless it might be a better product than the P'EatZZa Sandwich.

Feeder - Oxygen (from Echo Park)

Air - How Does It Make You Feel? (Adrian Sherwood Version) (from Everybody Hertz - 10,000 HZ Legend Remixes)

Sweet - Love Is Like Oxygen (from Super Hits of the '70s: Have a Nice Day, Vol. 25)