What's In The Hall 6-27-07: Inventor's Edition

Dilemma: You need to watch your baby and your View, but naptime and BarbaraTime is at the same time. What do you do?

Solution: The Tele-Crib.

Plop that kid on there and, oh snap, it's View time!

















PS - I would never do that to this baby.

What's In The Hall 4-2-07

It's been a while and there's been a hiatus. But now I'm back to tell you....

WHAT'S IN THE HALL? !!!

So what's in the hall when you come from work at 4am in the morning?















Dinner. Or what's left of it.















Including some nice potassium rich dessert. Mmmmmm. (Also glad these people didn't come out of their door as I was snapping pictures on my knees out in the hallway)















Those are some "delicious Chinese foods". Or "Chinese delicious foods". Whatever.

And that's...

WHAT'S IN THE HALL!!

*Check out KBall's WITH?: Grammercy Edition! It's spreadin' like jam! Or the black plague! Or the black jam plague (which is worse than both)!

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!

What's In The Hall?: 2-22-07

WHAT'S IN THE HALL?

Well this week, a 19-inch television. If you put this week's What's In The Hall? with last week's entry, you could sit and watch some good ol' boob tube entertainment while enjoying a cold one from your new(ish) fridge! We can only hope next week we find a couch in the hall. Cross your fingers! And in subsequent weeks, maybe we'll find a wife, dog, child, hobby, newer hobby that fits when you're in your mid-40's, a boat to go with that new hobby, gas for that boat, and a Skipper.

I'm gonna have to move to a new building with bigger halls.

Tune for next week's What's In The Hall?!

What's In The Hall? 2-13-07

Hello all. I've been away for a while and not on the bloggin' parade for awhile. But now, good friends of the internet, I'm back with a new segment entitled What's In The Hall? (cue wacky Paul Shaffer them music, with Paul screaming What-What-What-What's In The Haaaaal!), where I show you random things that are in the hall of my building.

This week, a great surprise:




















A working refrigerator!! (There was even a styrofoam sign on the front that said so - you can even see it broken in pieces on top - before the fridge was moved down the hall to defrost and leak everywhere)

And that's today's, What's In The Hall? !