The CashMaster (or CoinCruncher or whatever the machine is called at the grocery store that takes your change and spits out a receipt that you may redeem at customer service) was finally working again today, after a long vacation. I dumped in all the coins we've collected over the past few months and got cash back (less a 9% counting fee). The $158 was a surprise - I wouldn't have guessed that we had accumulated that much. We have a coin sorter at home, but I've gotten tired of wrapping the coins and making a trip to the bank to cash them in, so I gladly pay the 9% fee. Even the kids won't work that cheap, demanding 25% of the total. Another job lost to automation.

Books: Idiots in the Machine, by Edward Savio. This is one of those books that:
1. Is not available at the library
2. Not by an author I've ever read before
3. Sounded so precisely as if it would fit in with many other slightly off-center books that I've enjoyed that I just had to have it.
I should have paid attention to numbers 1 and 2. It's not poorly written; it's just one of those stories with no sympathetic characters. The protagonist is a foil-cap-wearing nutcase who believes that there is a race of superior beings dwelling at the center of the earth. I was looking for something like Matt Ruff's books, or Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (wherein the main character is named Hiro Protagonist). So far, that's not exactly what I've found, but I shall trudge on.

Dreams: I had flown to Florida with two other people, although I can't remember who they were or why we were going there. To get the cheapest flight we had to stop in Boca Raton and then get on another plane to our destination, which was somewhere further south. We got off the plane and found a motel to stay in (this must have been some lay-over). I realized that it would only take us about 90 minutes to drive to that location and suggested that we just ditch the flight and drive. There was an argument about this because it would apparently negate the discount fare if we didn't show up for the second part of the flight, and we'd be charged the full amount. The strongest impression from this dream was how incredibly long the journey seemed and how sleazy the motel was, echoing memories of a place I stayed once near Coral Gables that had a screen door on the room. The latch on the screen door was the only lock the room had. At least everything I had with me was too big for the roaches to manage to get through the door.