Oneof my favorite side-jokes in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxyinvolves the Marketing Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. Thesewere the people who thought it would be a great idea to bestow their robotswith Genuine People Personalities^TM (slogan: “He’s yourplastic pal who’s fun to be with!”). This innovation was, ofcourse, what gave birth to the totally hilarious character of Marvin theParanoid Android as well as various other humorous situations[1].

I’m writing this now because I had a trip to the ATM today that made mepretty sure that the Marketing Department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporationis currently on contract building the interfaces for Washington Mutual ATMs.

I’m not sure when it happened, but within the last several months all ofthe standard “Yes/No” responses to ATM prompts have slowly shiftedto “Sure!/No, Thanks”. As in:

  WOULD YOU LIKEA RECIEPT?
                    SURE! -> x
                NO, THANKS-> x

Apparently,it’s not enough to just want a receipt . I have to be excitedabout it now.

But the kicker came when I got this message today (I didn’t have mycamera on me, so the following 8-bit digital picture will have to suffice):

  I’M SORRY. I JUST RAN OUT OF PAPER.
        (IT’S BEEN A CRAZY DAY)

  WOULD YOU LIKE TO CONTINUE WITHOUT A RECEIPT?
                         SURE!-> x
                     NO, THANKS-> x

Theparenthetical kills me. It’s like you’re supposed to go Aww,that’s ok. I know how that is. Don’t worry about it, man –it’s cool.

I’m not sure if I like where this is going.

[After BlogMint]
Stay tunedfor the Big Announcement Coming Soon…