Roomba

This year's gadget

Thanks for all the Merry Chistmasses you left for us in comments and e-mail.  Ours was great because we were all together, and when you fought with Teddy at San Juan Hill you don't take that for granted.  Since the weather was accommodating we were able to observe our traditional 5K family run on Christmas morning. It's not a race, but at the end I always break into a sprint so I can "win" (and I did win), but this year RO got cute and tried to out sprint me, so I tripped him.  Haven't had to do that for several years.  Anyway he had some abrasions that had to be tended too before gift opening.  We went to midnight mass, and that was actually a great time.  They had a full brass section to accompany the choir, and our million dollar pipe organ.  The music was so real, it sounded like the best Dolby Sound you've ever heard. Christmas is of course a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus, or if you're Jewish, the birth of Joe and Mary's son who could have been a doctor, but didn't get into medical school.  It's also, at least in our house, a time to buy Mother Superior a gift she didn't ask for, doesn't want, and probably won't work, but might.  This year it was the Roomba. Replay video | Share video | Watch more videos The reviews I read on it were mixed.  Half said it didn't work; the others (probably writ by the product's inventor) said it was wonderful.   Per usual, I did not read the reviews until after I bought it.  I did see it on HSN (Home Shopping Network); they said it was great, and it did appear that way. The idea is that the Roomba vacuum cleaner will use robotic logic to traverse every nook and cranny of a room,  leaving it clean as a whistle. After an hour or two,  it will return to its docking station  and recharge itself.  If you have the optional programmer, it will leave again at a selected time, and do it all over again.  I can dispel one criticism right now - it does work.  Reagan the Wonder Dog does not shed, but if we still had Boomer the German Shepherd, all that hair on the white rug wouldn't be there to sour certain people, initials MS, on that breed. The video  amplifies the sound  Roomba makes.   In actual practice it sounds more like those RC cars  your  kids get for Christmas  .. it's there, but not nerve grating.  By contrast, the Hoover Wind Tunnel vacuum we use sounds like a 747 on takeoff (I'm not kidding - I wear my shooting  ear muffs when that thing is running  - - not a joke).  Since we knew company was coming,  you know (if you're married) that the floors and rugs were spic and span, yet (above) you can see the produce from the first run after I read the directions.  Of course it was after all the festivities, but still.  That green stuff is the rug pad that Greeper's dog Boss likes to chew on, so it has some capacity for large items, even though it's only about 5" high.  It didn't tangle on the carpet fringe, nor get stuck anywhere else.  At times it looks like it's met its match, going all silent, but then, like  Marines charging through the Muslim lines, it  gets through. So, it works, but that does not win the Schlong seal of approval.  It has to keep working until I feel it's returned the investment, which is maybe two years.  I'll keep you informed.  Vrooom, vroom.