Coffee

Our coffee machine died this morning. It wouldn't turn on for a bit and then suddenly did a big hissy fit with the on/off indicator light flicking off and on madly while a big clicking noise issued forth.

Then it stopped.

Shortly thereafter it started to spout what looked like steam from places that it shouldn't come from. I thought it was steam but after its wee fit I wasn't sure so I watched it closely. Thankfully it wasn't smoke. Just steam. I then touched the machine and it was unbearably hot. At this point I decided that it had turned dangerously feral and unplugged it and left it to cool (while keeping an eye on it just in case).

Neither Camille or myself can live without a good/reasonable/bitter and twisted coffee in the morning and for some years we have used espresso machines to provide it. It was decided that I should go and buy a new coffee machine. I found one at Harvey Norman - a Krup XP7240 which is normally priced at $1399 but which was reduced to $990. I compared brochures, read notes, sales crap etc. I consulted with Camille and we decided thus: We have a GE Card with spare on it and interest free for 18 months so we bought the fucker!

How good is the machine? Well. I took it home and set it up. It's a nice easy coffee machine for people who don't want to have to work at getting coffee. I worked through the setup process - language, date, time, all the other bits and then tried to make a coffee and it went to work: It made lots of noise and ground some beans, made quite a few loud slurping noises. It then started doing pumping noises complete with some steam and hissing. All good so far. Then, like any new pet, it proceeded to piss plain water all over the bench, shat out a lump of dry unused coffee grounds into a built in disposal container and threw up a "Technical Problem. Call your service agent. Error number 07" on its display.

This is not what we expected. It's going straight back for replacement.