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Since I'm recieving a rather large tax return, I decided to splurge on a high-tech toy. Without a doubt, the Roomba is the coolest gadget available right now. It also has the distinct advantage of appearing to be useful (vaccuum). After forking over the $200 I brought it home and admired it. I had 12 hours to admire it because the first charge takes that long. I'd like to say I was excited enough to wake up exactly 12 hours later (4:00am) but instead waited till I was late for work to start playing with it. First, I made the room "Roomba Friendly" by blocking off loose wires, carpet tassles, and anything else that might jam up in the brushes. Then, I set it in the middle of the room, turned it on, and hit the SMALL button. I'm sure the manual says the approximate size each represents, but I guessed SMALL and let it rip. It starts out doing circles till it hits something, then crawls along that wall to the end. After that I think it uses such a complex algorithim that no human can understand it (random). Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to let it finish, but in 10 minutes it had covered at least 90% of the carpet. I picked it up by the handle (to which it let out an unsatisfied tune) and turned it off. The dirt bin had all kinds of debris (mostly cat hair) and the carpet looked much better, so it definately does it's job as a vaccuum. I was entertained enough to be half an hour late for work, so it also meets the entertainment quota. All in all, $200 well spent.