for example, when i come home my st. bernard fetches my slippers and my sheep dog retrieves my pipe. i stir a martini and unwrap the afternoon paper.

in the mornings at work i power on the computer, turn on the tv and clean my sidearm. that is followed with a trip to the break room where i have either apple or orange juice and donettes or whatever pound cake is available in the machine.

vending machines have been around for centuries but here at the xbi theres a competetive nature towards our collective original employers that drives some (not me) to continually aquire the latest and greatest.

we have the coolest Coke machine on the block.

all the cans and bottles are visible. when you put your buck in the machine and punch in your selection, a motorized shelf zooms to the correct row, the soda is released and falls gently and sideways upon said arm and the mini conveyor belt sends the refreshment to a slot and, hi, theres your pop.

because there are so many moving parts it is a spectacle in itself, but it is also, not surprisingly, incredibly vulnerable to breakdown.

last night some joker seems to have shoved the million dollar machine releasing dozens of bottles, but the arm would not be fooled and did not raise nor activate its conveyor belt to move the drinks to the glory hole. indeed, the arm remained stubbornly at the bottom of the contraption awaiting its friend, the vendor guy.

which is to say i had to greet this early morning with a cup of bottled water, and not my nurishing juice.

tgif?

hardly.

fortunately Psoma and Nerf Herder were swell last night at Spaceland and when i returned to my bachelor pad drunk from the two gigantico beers they serve at the silverlake hotspot, i was able to fall asleep peacefully with ears ringing as soon as my ‘fro hit the pillow.