CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
Three reasons why we avoid vending machines: the possibility of glowing entities, the cost, and the fact that we don't get the really nifty machines they have in Japan. From College of the Holy Cross' 1988 yearbook.
Thrift for empty-handed hunters -- a rabbit or a partridge for five Francs (about a dollar's worth today, though experts in extinct currency inflation may correct us). From Le Charivari, 1891.
Here's a precursor to the Atkins diet. This ice cream vending machine has been marked "Permanently out of order." From Hunter College's Wistarion yearbook, 1963.