THE CASE OF THE HAUNTED LOO…

Reprinted from Renfrew-Collingwood News,
October/November 2003 Edition. Updated May 2005.

A s I sit, mindlessly and confused, in front of my computer pondering the topic for my upcoming column in my office, the phone rings… my answering machine picks up, “GB, you there, it’s Max, you got come over… totally awesome, I am not jus’ talking ‘bout the party, dude, you [will] totally trip when you see it”…

Since, I was not going to get anything done tonight and curious to what this was all about, I gathered my stuff and headed over to Maxamillion Ubergeeks’ Westside digs. There is absolutely nothing that this bloodhound investigative reporter could observe that made this party any different. Typical “house warming” party, girls, guys, drinks, and everything in between, but there was something different. The subtle conversations all around seem to revolve around the “room”.After a few exotic cocktails and dead end conversations regarding the “room”, I proceeded to one of the many washrooms in the house, to relieve myself. Max, our generous host, kindly directed me to one at the end of the hall. As I approached the washroom, a couple of girls scurried fairly hastily out of the room, murmuring among themselves that “maybe its’ alive” and they “should’ve used the one upstairs”. Not worrying too much about what they have said or having the slightest clue, I proceeded to enter the room to do my business…

As I entered the room, nothing seemed out of the ordinary: the toilet, sink, and bathtub are all there – nothing missing or anything. As I approached the toilet, something fascinating happened, the lid began to rise and as I stood in front of it, the seat lifted, automatically…For a few seconds there I thought it was getting ready to eat me for dinner. Afterwards, the toilet flushes, disinfects and deodorizes, and lowers the seat and lid readying itself for its next unsuspecting victim.

Fascinated and curious, I pondered about what the other experience would be like. So, being the good investigative reporter that I am, I decided to make the supreme sacrifice to all my readers by dropping “my pants” in the name of good journalism… So, there I sat, on the self-warming and gentle messaging seat wondering what is going to happen to me next. I noticed a wireless remote control device that controlled the automated bidet functions of the toilet. By pushing the buttons, not only does the toilet clean your front and back end it even offers variable controlled blow-dries. The toilet even automatically deodorizes after each use. Whoa…this is truly a throne fit for a geek.

Afterwards, me and Max sat around and chatted about his magic throne and what else it could do… and yes it does a lot more just clean your beloved behind. The toilet conserves energy by recording usage frequencies and reprograms itself weekly. The toilet goes into power-saving mode at times of low usage (i.e. when you are at work or not at home), very similar to your laptop computer. The loo uses a proprietary “flushing technology” called “cyclone flush engine” which produces a series of computer calibrated sequence of flushes. This allows the loo to produce a powerful flush while conserving water at the same time. The loo, also, produces no wait times for the tank to refill or any associated refill noise.

For those of you who hate cleaning the stains in the toilet bowl, the designers of NEOREST have also thought up an ingenious solution to this by putting some kind of high-tech glazing on the surface of toilet bowl that prevents stains. So everytime one flushes, the toilet self-cleans.

The high-tech toilet is called the NEOREST 600 – made by one of the largest toilet makers in the world – Toto. So, if you are interested in the high tech loo, you can check it out at the Toto NEOREST website. The high-tech loo should be for about $5,000 – $6,000 USD, available by the time you read this.

As I retired to bed that early morning, I felt tired, and satisfied that another mystery has been solved… Until next time,

~ Geekboy.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, feel free to drop me an e-mail at: gb.technobytes@gmail.com.