Roomba Review
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
For a long time I really missed my dog. She is still alive but she is not at my house. When I drop pieces of food or things that look like food on the floor I can not yell for the little furry vacuum to come and fix it. It's a joke to think that I am going to actually bend over and pick these things up or plug the real vacuum cleaner until at least two weeks from any given moment.
I was at a loss and thrown into a carpet cleaning depression for a long time. That was until one day, WOOT! appeared over the horizon with the discounted anti-depressant cure that I needed - a robot dog.
It took a while for the Roomba and I to get along. The normal everyday setup of my house was not conducive to a the robot's daily activities. He made a list of demands and refused to work until they were met. I paid the ransom by taping down some speaker wires, moving a table a robot's width away from the wall, making sure blankets were not on the ground, and blocking off areas that the robot found to be inescapable robot-purgatories where only robot-prayers can relieve you of cleaning a 3'x4' square over and over until you die of battery exhaustion.With all this work I had to do to make my robot happy, it did not seem like the robot was the time saving device that it was touted to be. I felt like the robot had actually bought me and I was part of some kind of psychological experiment to see how much work humans will do for a robot. That's when I found the camera!
Now, the folks at iRobot will never know that I was watching PTI this afternoon.
Most of the issues were solved, but the robot still thinks that the air vents in the floor are giant caverns where robots go to die. When he drives near these seemingly bottomless pits he has a panic attack. The robot screams in a way that only a robot can, and immediately skitters backwards. In the moment of panic, the robot loses all self-awareness and finds himself stuck half way up the wall. It then sits there crying at regular intervals until I come home from work to free him.
That's when we had the talk. I agreed to free the robot if he ever got stuck again in exchange for non-stop cleaning action while I am away.
The robot now understands his subservient role to man. Since I removed the camera he now has no one to run to since that was his connection with iRobot psychological network headquarters. Sometimes when the robot acts up I will stand over him and eat crackers with my mouth open to remind him what he is there for. If he doesn't clean them up posthaste, I pick him up by the handle and dangle him threateningly over one of the floor vents.
I don't physically beat him because it is a fragile piece of equipment. However, one time I caught him flirting with the tall and slender Ionic Breeze. I knew what had happened. The ionizer was laying on its side fizzing heavily and the carpet all over was torn up and matted. The Roomba was hiding under my bed with a very drained battery. He knew he did wrong so I rubbed his nose in the carpet and said, "NO" really loud. I hid the Ionic Breeze in the closet and told the Roomba that I sold her to an online scrap vendor on eBay where she will spend the rest of her life filtering cigarette smoke and nerd sweat.
The Roomba is one of the greatest things I have ever put money on since I opened an illegal gambling account. No longer do I need to cup my hand and pour crumbs from the kitchen counter into it and carefully carry it over to the trash. Anything that can be swept to the ground with a sweep of the arm is taken care of as such knowing that it will disappear minutes after turning on the robot. I feel my carpet and flooring investment is in good hands with this little guy. This is the next best thing to having a woman clean your house.
The Roomba earns the top honor of 4 Shrugs
posted by Ghengis @ 11:05 PM,
2 Conflict(s):
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At March 28, 2007 at 11:39 PM,
has news of...
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Nice robe.
I didn't realize you were married. -
At March 28, 2007 at 11:52 PM,
Ghengis has news of...
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I don't know the robe person. I just thought it was nice to link to the old man's site if I'm going to steal his pictures.
