Of Quarters and Vending Machines

A few weeks back (I wanted to mention it closer to when it happened but I was lazy with scanning of things) I went to get my usual Diet Dr. Pepper from the Pepsi machine in the break room/kitchenette at work. The thing costs $1.25 (down from several months and another vender back when it was $1.35). So I do my usual ritual of making sure the corners of the dollar are as unfolded as much as possible put it into the dollar feeder and then plunk my quarter into the coin slot. Well it did go plunk right into the coin return bin. The machine didn't take my quarter, so I put it in again. Plunk same thing it didn't like this quarter for some reason. I look at the quarter and don't see anything wrong with it just an ordinary quarter, so I fished out another quarter from my pocket and plunked that one in and the machine liked it fine and dandy and I finally got rewarded with my Diet Doctor Pepper. So the quarter?

This is it!

A nice 48 year old quarter from 1964 from before I was born. So why did the machine not like this quarter? Well it turns out that 1964 was the last year that the US Mint made quarters using approx. 90% Silver 10% Copper. Starting the next year 1965 they changed to 75% Copper and 25% Nickel. Modern vending machines are mostly calibrated to only accept the newer combination of metals. I didn't know that until searching on why my quarter wasn't accepted. I thought they just used weight/size to determine which coin, but apparently they have a tiny mineralagist in the machine with an electronic microscope testing the mineral integrity of each coin as it speeds down the slot.

I guess this is a good way to find older coins, or at least to test the age of the vending machine.

Super Bowl 46

CONGRATULATIONS New York Giants!

SUPER BOWL XLVI (46) was an exciting game to watch, especially the final 5 minutes or so. The game was kept close through out. The game could have gone either way and both teams missed some scoring opportunities and dropped passes that would have been huge plays that would have led to a score.

As for the commercials. I think one of the best was the second Coca-Cola Polar Bears, where the one goes out of the cave to get a coke and has to run past and play football against the other bears on the frozen pond. The Matthew Broderick Honda commercial was OK for a nostalgic trip down Hollywood's Memory Lane but wasn't THAT exciting and didn't need the extra attention it got pre-game during the week. The sexy Fiat commercial was also pretty good, where the geeky guy with a cup of coffee sees a hot babe that turns out he's looking at the car and fantasizing about the babe. There were a few others that were pretty good, but those I think were the highlights.

UPDATE: I can't believe I forgot to mention these two cool commercials:  The Elton John Pepsi commercial with him as King (or was it Queen?) where a girl sings R-E-S-P-E-C-T and asks for Pepsi for all and sends Elton into his Dungeon (as he had a previous character) and sitting in the cell is Flavor Flav. And one of the coolest M&Ms commercials with the candy characters they have ever had. A Brown shelled female M&M says that she hates when idiots think she is out of her shell, then the Red M&M guy sees her and says "Oh it's one of THESE Parties" and he rips off his shell.