murakozi | Oct. 12th, 2004

Oct. 12th, 2004

I've discovered one of the drawbacks to the old-design radio I've got in the office is that with the fairly crude 'manual' tuning, I tend to not change the station when I'm not in the mood for whatever's playing on it. The radio itself isn't that old, but it's a design that's been around since like the 60's. One 6" speaker and a wood case. It sounds pretty nice, for non-stereo. I've just got a weakness for those old designs.

You know it's going to be a long day when you wake up way early, give up on getting back to sleep and end up in the office a half hour earlier than usual.

I just got caught in a bit of common but weird behavior. With a couple hours yet to go til lunch, I gave in to temptation and got a snack from the vending machine. After putting in assorted coinage and punching the buttons (G 4! It's a Hit! You sank my battleship!..uh..got some snack food!) I watched as the screw thingy turned and the bag I'd selected started to hook against the corner of the bag next to it. In response to this, I started to lean to one side and make an encouraging 'eeeeeeehhhh!' sound. Obviously this helped, because, after a moment, my bag of epicurean coinop snack flomped down. I was spared the need to make angry sounds and shake the machine.

Of course, just as I start making the noises, someone walks into the break room. That started a little discussion about why humans seem to have some need to talk to inanimate objects that are malfunctioning. The prime example being when one pleads with a toilet to NOT overflow as the water rises higher and higher.

From today's experience, it appears vending machines listen to us a lot more than toilets do.