I'm sure this isn't just a UAE thing, but it's the first time I've noticed that there's a machine for EVERYTHING! For example, in the women's room at the office there are 7 machines alone, plus a toilet that will flush in a variety of different ways...not kidding. Would you like proof of my case?
Women's Restroom:
- Water wand - For washing your "delicates" after your bathroom business
- Motion sensor waste can for sanitary items - I guess opening a lid would be too much trouble...better make it open everytime you move, think of moving, or look in the general direction of the sensor
- Motion sensor soap dispenser, water faucet and hand dryer -To which I'm apparently invisible, maybe they should be networked to the waste basket by the toilet?
- Hand towel dispenser machine - ...with TIMER, so you can only use the towel length for 30 seconds, then it gets sucked back in.
My Hotel:
- Master light switch console - None of the room lights turn on until you put your room keycard into it. (This is a good one, it's been a whole week and I haven't lost my card yet, that's a record for me!)
- Shoe shine machine - To keep the desert sand from soiling your Liz Claiborne's
- Keycard readers - Although common, here's the twist...you just need to have the card on you somewhere. The receivers are set to find them without getting it out of your pocket or doing the ID Badge Butt Dance...for a more visual explanation please see Doug W.
On the "Mean Streets" of Dubai:
- Camel Jockeys - I did not make this one up! Camel races feature robots at the reins. Workers fix robotic jockeys on the backs of the camels and race them around a track. Operators control the jockeys remotely, signaling them to pull their reins and prod the camels with whips. This feat of technology is a development in human rights. Racing-camel owners in many Persian Gulf countries traditionally used children as jockeys, sometimes as young as four years old. Faced with pressure from human rights groups, they banned child jockeys and looked to technology to keep the races running.
- Traffic Tickets - To answer the obvious question, NO...I haven't gotten one. But, if I did I can pay for it directly from an ATM or one of the many Police Kiosks located around the city to make it "easy and fun!" (That's a direct quote from the Gulf News this morning.) Not too sure I'd agree that paying a traffic fine is "fun" but whatever. :-)
What fun "machines" have you seen in your travels?
7 comments:
Does my mother count as a machine? When that woman travels, there is always a schedule, always a plan, and always an abundance of everything, just in case someone needs an emergency appendectomy on the side of the road or laser surgery while viewing the gators at Reptile Gardens.
A machine I tell ya!
I saw a SPAM making machine at the museum yesterday...does that count?
A SPAM machine...that totally WINS!!! Especially since pork of any kind is banned here in the UAE.
The robot camel jockeys are on my list of crap that scares me!
They have Turkey spam..would that be OK? Same machine though..
Is it just me, or does the camel jockey look like a Lego figure(well, half of one)?
Oh, WOW! The camel jockey is really priceless!
And it's interesting how the Muslim cleanliness code thing has gone high-tech!
I have to admit, I wish I had a bidet in my bathroom, and I actually DID like the modern....uh...trough (squatting) toilets in Asia. It IS more sanitary to not have to touch your butt or other parts to anything, and they are designed so that, well, it's easy to aim, even for girls.
Now, what was funny in Japan was that it wasn't so much the acts as the sounds of the acts that were unacceptable. So, no lie, it was popular for Japanese women have this little player in their purses that just broadcasts the sound of a flushing toilet over and over so that no one in the stall next to you can here you tinkle...or, whatever. TRUE!
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