Sliced bread: the pinnacle of technology

Uh, Matt:

If my invention is the greatest thing since sliced bread, how long would that be? If you get my drift.

-- Curious George, San Diego

Not sure I do, George, but why should that stop me. If you've got something up your sleeve that's the best thing since sliced bread, you only have to beat everything invented since 1928. Actually, the commercial bread slicer was invented in 1912, but no bakery wanted the product, since the bread would dry out too fast. It took another 16 years for the inventor to come up with the automatic bread slicer-wrapper combo. The happiest person was perhaps the guy who had invented the toaster 30 years earlier. But my question to you, George, is why sliced bread as become the high-water mark in the world of big thinking.