So I've got this cool washing machine.

It's a Whirlpool Duet front-loader. It has more controls than an Apollo command module. I've wanted one for awhile, and after we went through two used washers just since moving into this house (one, we had bought used 5 years ago and it finally died. The other, we bought used at an auction, and it died before the first load was through.), we just went out and bought one, right before Christmas.

We shopped around, played the stores off each other, and got it deeply discounted at Lowe's, with no interest, no payments for a year. They delivered, installed it, and even carted off the other two washers. All well and good. Yes, I'm paying for this service, but not very much, and it's my first new washing machine that I've ever had, in the history of ever. You're damned right, I bought the extended warranty.

So back to what this thing can do-- it centrifuges your clothes dry at 1050 rpm. If you have someone take sick in the house, it has an on-board water heater that will kick your house hot water up to 165 degrees farenheit. It will tell you, at any given moment in the cycle, exactly how many minutes it has left to finish. It will throw in an extra rinse, if that's your game. It will give you different chimes to tell you the cycle it's on, or not. It will let you adjust the volume for same. It uses half the normal amount of detergent, and less than half the normal amount of water. It makes your drying time take about half as long. And, with it up on the wooden home-made pedistal (I'm not paying $120 for their store-bought one.), I can move clothes from the washer to the dryer all in the same motion, with everything on the same plane of interface.

The very observant reader and picture-viewer will be able to detect just how proud of this thing I was, when I first got it.* It seemingly could do anything.

What it will NOT do, is run without power. When the ~40 year-old electrical outlet, which has held a plug in its teeth for probably all but one of those years, decides that it has no spring tension left in it, it drops the electrical cord right out of itself. This can somewhat interfere with one's getting-ready routine, when one can't even open the sealed door to the washing machine that has stopped mid-cycle. I tried three times before jumping the cord to another outlet.

Bah. Time to replace all of the house electrical outlets. Snarl.

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*Note the date of the pictures. 3 weeks ago. The plug hadn't given up the ghost yet, but I was some freakish fellow, taking pictures of his washing machine. What? Was I going to put them in my wallet??!?