Lasers are cool!

The other night, my friend Will and I played a board game called Deflexion. Basically, you each have a laser and you take turns moving various mirror pieces around the board in an effort to hit your opponent's king. And it's not subtle about the laser component. Right on the side of the box in big red letters it says "The LASER game!" Now that's marketing. Fortunately, it's not just a gimick and the game actually plays pretty well.


C'mon. You know that looks cool. Too bad it doesn't come with a smoke machine.


And while it's not quite a laser, this is almost cool enough to make me want a bicycle.


It's a programable LED spoke that can make whatever image you want appear on your wheels as you ride. It would almost be worth exercising to show off this kind of bling.

Why You Shouldn't Read Comics

In DC comics, a character was recently brought back to life. That's not the bad part. People die and come back to life all of the time in super-hero comics. It's a staple of the genre. But here's how it happened: Superboy Prime (don't ask) punched the space time continuum. Really hard. And it brought someone back to life. Seriously, that's the explanation. It doesn't make any more sense than it sounds. It's tough to recommend that people read comics when shit like that is happening.

On a more personal note, new wallets suck. I got a new wallet recently because the old one was starting to show some wear, but I really miss it. That old one was vacuformed to my butt. It fit perfectly. This new one is all pointy and stiff. It's been a tough week for my ass.

Snack Madness!

Last week the vending machine in my office transformed from a benevolent dispenser of snacks into a cruel psychological experiment. The bottom shelf (the thin one that holds gum and Lifesavers and the like) somehow slid out so that it was blocking most of the drop slot area.

The machine frequently refuses to relinquish it's snacky goodness even after money has been deposited. That's when I get called in. Seriously. People ask me to free their snacks because I'm not afraid of this little warning.

That little dude is screwed. Regardless, I don't let it scare me and get a really good back and forth rocking motion going. It's possible that this abuse is what led to the shelf coming lose and causing the aforementioned transformation.

So, with the shelf out, whenever anybody bought a snack, assuming that it actually fell down, it got caught by the shelf. The first person to do this probably does not notice the problem and is upset when the snack lands on the obstruction. Maybe the second person also doesn't notice. But one morning I came in there were 4 bags of chips sitting on the shelf. At some point, people had to realize that they, in all likelihood, weren't going to get the snacks that they were paying for. But when you're in the office after hours, there aren't a lot of places to buy food. So it becomes a study in desperation.

One person told me that they put their money in, knowing full well that it wasn't going to work, but they were so hungry that they had to give it a shot. I wonder if people were just trying to build up a big enough of a pile that one bag was forced to fall out of the machine. Another coworker bought Pop-tarts because the compact packaging gave it a much better chance of slipping through than a bag of Lays. On occasion, I would walk into the kitchen area and just see someone standing at the machine, staring at it. I could tell that they were planning their strategy, somehow trying to rationalize how they weren't just throwing their money away.

So, in the end, even if it was my abuse that caused the shelf to pop out, I don't really feel too bad. The whole thing really was quite fascinating to watch. I just wish I could get my 85 cents back.