For being such a straight forward fella, Bill Gates sure has a goofy house. Some of the tech totally makes sense, lights come on when you raise your right leg, music turns up loud in the bathroom when you're taking a crap, curtains close if you squint and show your teeth, the refrigerator locks up when it hears wheezing, these are all completely practical ideas.
What didn't seem completely necessary was the waterfall stairway, I mean, walking up the stairs against the current was hard enough, but coming back down with all the salmon slapping me in the face was pretty much impossible, especially cuz my reaction was to clench my teeth and squint which of course closed the curtains and made it hard to see forcing me to lift my leg to take another step to get the lights to come on. By the time I got down to the kitchen I was breathing so heavily that the fridge wouldn't let me at the gatorade. Granted, Bill did tell me it was under construction so I can't give my full review, but I don't really see the "Pescalator" making it's way into your local mall.
Another idea I thought was not quite on point was the Gummy Varnish he was testing on the floors. As far as I could tell it was nothing more than a way to trap humming birds, which is fine and dandy until you have 400 humming birds stuck to the floor. That's roughly 20 billion decibels of hum and if those little wings touch your bare ankles it's rash city. Hummingbirds are filthy animals, what people don't realize is that, while humming birds eat primarily nectar, they live in nests made out of tuna fish cans and mite infested mouse fur. Also about the gummy floors, if you drop your earring or jeweled tooth pick don't even bother trying to dig it out because the hummingbirds will peck your hand like piranhas.
The tour of his house really wasn't the highlight of the visit anyway, the best part was just sitting around with Bill talking about the future. Bill is a very casual man and not at all afraid of wild tangents. Ten minutes with Mr. Gates and he seemed like the really cool uncle I never had. Judging by his excellent relationship with his ten year old kid, he is also a man with whom I'd feel completely happy about leaving my kids if I had them. I don't think his joy of playing "What If" has changed one speck since he was 10. Me neither.
After a few hours brainstorming and making up scenarios with Bill there was a little lull in the conversation. I never liked lulls much.
"I wish your company would come up with a computer that was really adapted to all the art programs I use, I'd really enjoy bailing on Steve Jobs, he seems like such a pretentious self important and paranoid art snob." I said.
"Aw be nice to Steve, he's far too good looking to have a good self esteem. It has kept him from seeing the big picture and being secure enough about his own ideas to allow anyone else to help. If he was born with no eyebrows he'd be in my place and I'd be in his market share wise, with which I'd be totally happy, but I'm afraid a guy like Steve in my position would have every ounce of variety stripped out of the market place." Bill said as he looked at some imaginary source of inspiration up in the corner of the room and one of the robotic emu hopped over and refilled the potato chip bowl.
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