Those were the best--filled with ice-cold water which gave you the coldest possible drink.
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Outstanding! There's a rehearsal studio here with a soda machine with beer in it to buy.
Man, the time we spent in that garage.... Fond memories. He also had another Coke machine in the garage -- it was the vertical "old style" bottle machine with the ramps and gates. Looked something like this:
http://www.barsandbooths.com/images/bandbv16.jpg
As I recall, that actually had Coke in it. 1975-76 or so; bottles were already pretty rare then for soda. Most soda was already sold in aluminum cans with the "new" attached pull tab that didn't contribute so much to roadside litter. Remember pull-tabs?
Here's the present counterpart to that:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/image/1644964
The IEEE calls it "overengineered."
Then Japan had a better idea... the vending machine that stalks you... Vending Machine Red!
Buy me! Eat me! Drink me! You know you wanna!
http://i52.tinypic.com/2mra0k7.jpg
Here's my favorite. Used to be at a slot car place I went to in Midtown Manhattan. Had a lot of dents in it from rich kids sending their cars ballistic off of the high bank curve...
http://s8.thisnext.com/media/largest...n/6A91CBC6.jpg
They even did a video for the stalker vending machine. It sometimes amazes me how compliant and accepting Japanese society is...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbbqWBgk8KI
Here's one where a woman buys a coke and reaches between it's... well, watch and it seems the slot to take the soda out is in a very odd place(2:02)... Talk about product placement!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BoxfCihYcI
I think a week or two in Japan would be a blast. I was at Multnomah Falls once when 2 bus loads of Japanese girls age early 20s packed the walkways at the place (they are a very petite people). They were 100% Japanese too. I didn't want to leave.
You could tell they weren't American just by looking at their faces.
Met a Japanese family at an arts fair here in Coeur d'Alene some years back. They had 2 mid teen boys. They were very amusing and outgoing. Nothing but the biggest smiles and attempts to communicate with hand gestures.