My sister threw a couples' wedding shower for us over the weekend, and it was actually pretty great: good folks, lots of quality repartee, adult beverages, and so forth. Just as great was the fact that we were showered with presents.
The presents weren't a big surprise to Laura, since she created our gift registries for the wedding. Being terrible at that kind of thing, I've largely stayed out of the gift registries and thus I had no idea at all what was wrapped up in front of me. It was tremendously exciting. We'd open a box of fancy glasses and she'd say, "Excellent, I remember these glasses," and I'd say, "Holy crap, more glasses! We could use these!"
We got a lot of good stuff, but I was particularly curious about two gifts: a Roomba (robotic vacuum cleaner) and an ice cream maker. A Roomba is pretty much the closest thing I can get to Rosie the Robot Maid from the Jetsons. I've only used it once thus far, and did it disappoint? It did not. I purposely left a mess in the living room floor before I turned the Roomba on, and it was both more effective AND more entertaining than watching the dog lick it up.
As for the ice cream maker, well, let's just say that the fastest path to regime change in North Korea would be to parachute a few of these babies into Pyongyang. Again, there's only been one usage thus far but I foresee a day in the next two weeks or so where I get all nutrition from super-potent homemade ice cream.
I know it's a bit of a stretch to call an ice cream maker a robot, but I'm doing it anyway. The Roomba and the ice cream maker have brought me into the future, and I like it. It's about time that robots started contributing positively to my life, rather than chasing me around and firing lasers.
Posted by Cody at September 9, 2008 8:18 PM