39 varities of junk is still junk

[jducoeur]

In preparation for our office move, the folks who supply our water filtration system, who would *desperately* like us to buy coffee from them as well, have given us a week or so free with their top of the line Goofy Coffee Machine.

On the one hand, it's quite the impressive gadget. Any coffee maker that not only has menus on an LCD screen, but has multiple *levels* of menus, definitely qualifies as a toy. They supplied us with a couple dozen varieties of things to put into it, including mixins like Milky Way and Dove Bar, to ensure that one associates this thing with indulgent sins. (Of course, it loses gadget points by requiring you to do work -- you navigate the menus to select what you want, and then it pops open the door and tells you which packets to put in. And really, I would probably say that putting the words "coffeemaker" and "on-screen menus" in the same sentence qualifies as Wrong.)

OTOH, it's pretty horrifying from an ecological POV, managing to require one or more big plastic-and-foil pouches per 6 oz cup. Fortunately, this isn't an issue, because it's all pretty terrible: the coffee manages to be both weak and bitter, and the tea is watery and uninteresting. So I suspect we will go back to our Plain Old Coffee from our Plain Old Coffeemaker after the move...

Comments

[talvinamarich.livejournal.com]

Send it back with a note: "Thank you, but regulations require us to have an ADA-compliant office, and a blind person can't use this."

Just to see what they come up with. ;)

[talvinamarich.livejournal.com]

See, to be worth your time, the flavors should be loaded in little hoppers. The coffeemaker should be able to connect to the office network either by wire or wirelessly.

When you point your web-browser at it, you are presented with a menu. You quickly select the options you desire (or, with name and password support, you simply select from your favorites!) and press "Brew". The coffee machine begins work, and you get an IM when your coffee is ready. You get up, walk over, and put the mug underneath the spout, then press the button.

The admin menu gives you access to the available stock levels, statistics on what flavors are most desirable and which ones you can leave off your next order, and tells you who is spending their whole day drinking coffee instead of working.

These people need to get with the 21st Century.

[metageek.livejournal.com]

Although the first generation would work only with IE, send IMs only via AIM, and send you coffee-flavored IM spam unless you went to the manufacturer's Website to opt out.