By Todd Martens
From Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles—I’m about to take a bite from a slice of Key lime pie at the Toothsome Chocolate Emporium when a host named Jacques stops by. He looks at my plate and tells me it’s a good thing the desserts weren’t made to his specifications. If it had been up to him, my pie would be filled with mini metal keys.
That’s because Jacques is a robot. Or, rather, an actor playing a robot in a costume made of random clamps, clasps and metal hands, with leather overalls in various shades of cocoa and a bowler cap. His voice, filtered through an unseen distortion device, sounds a little tinny. If the innards of a vintage timepiece had been blown up, fashioned into human form and given a workman’s coating, it’d probably look something like Jacques. Ask to take his picture, and he’ll likely apologize for blinking, though he has no pupils or eyelids. His eyes are constructed out of metal cups….