What's In The Hall?: 3-8-07

Hello everyone, and welcome to this week's....

WHAT'S IN THE HALL?

I know this week's WITH? is a little late, but man oh man, it's a good one and you'll be glad you waited. Or, I waited.

So this week there were several choices of what was in the hall - lottery tickets, an open bag of Dipsy Doodles, two teenagers making out for 45 minutes - and then this wonderfully strange piece of furniture:



















You could add this great specimen to your dark, dank basement and use it as a torture rack to get secrets out of all those Russian spies that live in your hood (they're so stubborn!!).

However, on the eve of posting this entry, I stumbled upon something else in the hall too good to pass up:
















A truly space age microwave. Not only does this microwave sport stainless steel (which is the ultimate in space age-iness), but it also boasts an infrared scanner to scan UPC bar codes on food packaging for automatic programmed reheating!

After a little research I found out this microwave was part of the BEYOND suite of digital living products. Basically, kitchen appliances integrated with "smart" computer technology so they're all connected together - and when you sleep they will take over your house with technical wizardry and evil culinary genius.

This week's WITH? wowed me so much I brought it out of the hall and into the apartment. I ran it through some simple diagnostic tests (aka, heated up some leftover Pad Thai) and it passed with flying colors. I found out this microwave comes preloaded with 500 UPC's programmed into it to recognize food packages when you scan them. I tried out the scanner wand but to no avail. However, I was scanning a pint of Hagen Daz ice cream, so I don't hold that against the folks at BEYOND. Because really, they'd be the fools if they programmed ice cream into their scanning rolodex.















Wielding the laser wand in the kitchen

I was pretty fascinated by the whole BEYOND line - mostly because I can't figure out why I'd want my coffee maker to wirelessly sync up to my microwave (especially because they're usually close enough together to use a short wire for any "data transfer" I'd need). I was also impressed by the BEYOND Breadmaker, pretty much because a breadmaker is one of those appliances that's owned by only 1 out of every 20 people I know. So I can only imagine how many less people have a breadmaker with an infrared scanning wand. I started to get the feeling that the BEYOND line of products was like a jetpack - or better yet - like a LaserDisc player in the late 80's/early 90's: they seem pretty freakin' cool, but not many people you know have one, and you can pretty much get along OK without it.















Laseriffic re-heating - Comin' at ya!

So after a few hours, I returned the BEYOND microwave to the hall (this was also after my roommate Stu said it smelled musty). I figure WHAT'S IN THE HALL, stays in the hall.

Come back for next week's WHAT'S IN THE HALL? !

And for a special WITH? update:
As of this morning, the refrigerator from the first episode....



















Still in the hall!