601

[prog]

OK, I just came back from putting my clothes in the dryer. That was also pretty perplexing. Placing my LAUNDR-O-CARD into a dryer's slot caused its readout to blink "8059" at me. ?! Oh no! I just made the computer from The Andromeda Strain blow up! But the concrete blast doors didn't slam down, so I started to press buttons experimentally.

Selecting a temperature made the "8059" stop blinking. Um, OK. While crouching to peer at the buttons, I saw that the readout was actually trying to say "BUSY"; while standing, I couldn't see the tops of the letters (each formed by the standard "8"-shaped arrangement of, uh, little glowy rectangles), and parsed them as numbers. Fair enough, but... why "busy"? Was it telling me that it was too preoccupied to dry my clothes? Was it having trouble connecting to the LAUNDR-O-NET via dial-up?

So I hit "start", and it set to work as a dryer should. The "BUSY" turned into "20", which I took to be a minutes-remaining indicator, or perhaps "ZO", which meant it had become cynical and French, I guess.

I can't wait to find out what happens next. Can you?!

Comments

[pookfreak.livejournal.com]

Even more perplexing is the fact that the dryer began to re-wash your clothes!

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Exactly what I thought!

[prog.livejournal.com]

I'm so hyper for some reason it took me a while to figure out what you-all were on about. (edits made. thanks. :) )

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

So are you posting this from the laundromat, or are you jogging back and forth to your house? I wouldn't necessarily be surprised if the place was within your wireless network range, since you said it was across the street.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Jogging, becuase TiBooks have notoriously weak wireless ranges. Not that I've tried yet. Hmm...