A Real Vending Machine of Awesome?
Sep. 13th, 2017 11:44 amIn my dreams a few hours ago...
Somebody sent me a very technologically advanced trifle. Either Coca-Cola, or the company that builds their vending machines, created it. Somehow they found out that I liked robots, and I liked party balloons, and I was interested in the Industrial Internet of Things...so I received a robotic device to stick to the ceiling of my room. Every so often, it would activate, play one of Coca-Cola's many jingles, inflate a balloon with air, tie it off and let it loose.
Why Coca-Cola? I don't know.
FP

Money That Isn't, Quite
May. 27th, 2014 06:11 pmI won a $50 gift card for Amazon.com in a sweepstakes over the weekend, and I'm looking forward to spending it.
Because of the event, I decided to look at a bunch of quasi-gift cards I received from car dealerships for GoShoppingMall.com and selectyourgifts.com (which are one and the same company!) that I've had for years. They're still "good" because I hadn't "spent" them.
The business model of American Sales Industries is kind of hard to grasp. You can't exactly buy direct from them like a normal retailer...you have to have been issued a prize card, usually from a car dealership sales event or some other such promotion. The dollar amount shown on the card doesn't mean an actual cash value: it's quasi-credit for inflated prices on the catalog of items, whose actual retail value matches the "shipping and handling" fees, which the consumer has to pay out of pocket (the prize amount then only sets a limit on what you can buy, but doesn't go towards buying anything!). So to actually get "$500" of use out of a prize card, you'd have to spend probably $50 to $100 of real money yourself.
So what's in the catalog? Basically the same kind of stuff you find in the tourist-trap stores like Golden Eagle and Lily's...but not as many of them. Steak knives. Travel mugs. Little tool sets you can keep in your car. Chintzy jewelery and cheap watches. Tote bags and gunny sacks. Obsolete electronics and software.
In theory, my "$1550" in collected quasi-credit would get me 38 of their RC model cars. But I'd have to spend about $645 in real money for the shipping and handling. That's why I haven't used the cards yet.
What Curiosity Gets Me
Dec. 28th, 2013 07:08 pm
I was wondering why a couple graphics from my old World Peacekeepers post had broken, and I found this. It looks like there will be a real WORLD PEACEKEEPERS TV cartoon series for 2014.
No further details are available yet.
Acid Rain: The Toy Series
Feb. 18th, 2012 12:53 amThe vehicles will be scale-compatible with the smaller G. I. Joe and World Peacekeepers/Power Team Elite figures (1:18).