'Droid to the World
Robots are the future, especially if they can pour me a beer.
Dear Jeanne Dietsch:
As you are the CEO of MobileRobots Inc. up there in New Hampshire, I hope I'm not being too forward in saying that I love your mechanisms. For over a decade, I have been disheartened by all those lies that the Disney people fed me in my youth about Tomorrowland. I'm 54, and I still can't go down to the gun store and buy a ray gun, not even in South Carolina. Laser beams are being used to help people avoid wearing eyeglasses. We're supposed to be blowing up enemy planets with them by now. I know we have the Internet and all, but instant sports scores and almost limitless options regarding naked strangers are hardly recompense for my lack of a flying car. But robots? Now, robots are a real step in the right direction.
Your company makes one robot - Agent 007 - to watch the property. But the real stars are Jeeves and BrewskiBot, who will serve us drinks. BrewskiBot includes a refrigerator and serves beer. Presumably, it will one day talk like my friend Bingo, who pours drafts in Milwaukee and sticks quarters to his forehead. In my life, I have had many people pour me beers. There was Bingo, and there was Tommy Leonard at the late Eliot Lounge in Back Bay. There were three Eds and a Doug. There was a one-armed guy in Minnesota and a kid in Qatar who knew two things about America - Michael Jordan and Guns N' Roses. So, if I could afford the $32,000 price tag, BrewskiBot would be the latest in a proud line. Maybe a later model could learn to stick coins to itself. If it could argue with me about the Red Sox, it would be perfect.
Charles P. Pierce
pierce@globe.com
