ceiling-clamps

Varying from having your ceiling covered with these mounts every 6" to just one that is on a moving track, retractable clamps that you can pull down (or press a button and have drop to reachable heights) and use to hold your stuff.

Eating a plate of food and come up with a great idea you want to type into your workstation? Clamp the plate in one, and take the keyboard out of another for a moment.

Want to set aside your drink while you go get something in another room? Don't waste floorspace with a coffee table and silly AOL-cd coasters. Pull down a clamp and hold that cup in place, right at the level you'd reach to grab it when you next get thirsty.

This would have great implications for cooking with lots of ingredients, work involving multiple texts, construction projects, home repair, etc., etc.

For the particularly wealthy, they could be embedded in the cieling to avoid that functional, nonfashionable look.

I, however, would have any unused hook holding up my personal hanging gardens of plants above my head, to give that rainforest feel.