There's something about vending machines that I find very satisfying to my primal buying urges. I think it goes back to my weekly trips with my mom to the grocery store when I was a kid. The first thing I would always do is run over to the bank of candy and toy machines and enviously eye the little examples of stuff pasted to the little cardboard placard which, no matter how many dimes or quarters you dropped into the machine, would never be inside those insanely hard to open plastic balls that fell out.

Despite always being disappointed with what I ended up with, it never stopped me from going back each week with a pocket full of change.

Enter the Sony Access machine. This behemoth looks like a industrial-freezer-sized sandwich machine, but it's stocked to the brim with all kinds of expensive gadgety crap that you never really need but always end up buying.

I was so enamored with the idea when I heard about it that I drove out to the Flatirons Crossing Mall near Boulder today to check out one of the three Sony Access machines operating in the country.

What an amazing design. The thing features a flat screen television for constant streaming of cool Sony commercials, a touch screen for placing orders and examining product details, a credit card swipe for paying, a really snazzy robot retrieval system and a double glass door perfect for steaming up with your breath while you're checking out what the day's specials are.

The interface is well put together. You can catch a glimpse of the items for sale just by looking at the shelves, but there's no big clunky lettered and numbered buttons to push to place an order. Instead you get to peruse the contents of the machine with the touch screen. The items for sale are listed in several categories and once you pick something that interests you, you can read the product details, the price and even check out some pretty detailed specs.

The machine I checked out had a bunch of storage media for sale, batteries (go figure), digital cameras, MP3 players, headphones, Playstation Portable core packs and a selection of PSP movies and games.

The selection was really odd, it included GTA, Need for Speed, some Stuart Little game and a couple of movies. With such limited shelf space, I guess they really have to try and hit every possible interest.

After looking at the products available I decided to pony up $50 for a pair of noise-canceling headphones. The specs looked pretty cool and I've been meaning to replace my old cans with something a little smaller.

This is where I ran into my first problem. You can't pick up the box and really look at it. Sure you can see it right there on the other side of the glass and you can read all about it on the touch screen, but I like to get my paws on stuff before I buy it. Not so big a deal if you're buying a game or movie, but kind of annoying with consumer electronics.

After pressing the "add to" cart button on the touch screen and just tapped purchase and it asked me to swipe my credit card. A few seconds later a shelf on the right side of the machine zoomed across to the column that was home to my future headphones. A little box floated up to frame my item and a tiny conveyer belt turned on, slowing pushing my headphones into the box. The headphone packaging seemed to fit perfectly and for a second I was staring at my headphones right on the other side of the glass, then the shelf zipped back to the right and my headphones gently slid into a chute which opened up to display my new purchase.

I picked up the headphones and almost instantly I was hit with a HUGE wave of buyers remorse. What the hell! I don't need headphones and these aren't even cans, something I didn't notice until they were in my hands.

I look at the touch screen and tap on return policy.

They offer full refunds, I just need to go home, call them, get an RMA number and FUCKING MAIL IT ACROSS THE COUNTRY before they credit my card.

Ahhhhhhh yeah, that's not gonna happen.

Annoyed, I start to walk from the kiosk and realize I don't have a little Sony bag to plop my purchase in.

What the... this is good. Here I am, scruffy piratical guy standing in the middle of an upscale suburban mall with a pair of expensive headphones in my hands with no bag in sight... and I have to go to the bathroom.

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I'm just not comfortable walking around a ritzy mall with a pair of still-packaged headphones and no bag. And then going into the bathroom.... I might as well just stuff them down my pants now and sprint from the mall. No good.

While I love the idea of being able to just zip a credit card through a slot and have something shiny and electronic handed to me, by a robot no less, I think there are some kinks that need to be worked out.

The return policy might be great for Sony, but it totally screws weak-willed idiots like me that are easily seperated from their cash at the sight of something with cords.

They also need to deal with the bag issue and definitely are going to have to be really careful about where they place these things. I don't see someone dropping $300 on a camera when they go to pick up a jug of milk. Probably the best use for the Sony Access machine is to sell accessories, music, movies and video games. Brian Crecente