Well, the timing’s not great. We can all agree, I’m sure, that the week we cut five staffers isn’t ideal for rolling out the coffeemaker from the future. Here’s our old one—-a sturdy Bunn that made coffee studiously avoided by pretty much everyone in editorial but Cherkis, who swears by the stuff. I admire its utilitarian charm, but I’m pretty sure there’s a formaldehyde tank in there somewhere.

This morning a new machine appeared in the upstairs kitchen. It looks like a Cylon warrior.

Yes, it’s a Keurig! As in, the sound your newsroom makes when it’s been ripped apart. KEURRRRRIGG!!!!! But then again, Cylon warriors and onomatopoeia don’t offer all the beverage selections this baby does.

You put one of these capsules in the Keurig’s hopper, select how many ounces you’d like brewed, and then WHAM! You have a cup of whatever. So far I’ve tried the green tea (tasted kinda fishy) and a Newman’s Own Decaf (which was just fine). If I added Skype videophoning to my life, I’d almost be living the futuristic existence I dreamed of as a child, when I assumed we’d be vacationing on Mars and shooting off to the moon for lunch.

Staff opinion, on the editorial floor anyway, leans toward the negative, especially since, as noted above, we just got our guts ripped out. Our general manager, David Knauss, says the machine is going to be less expensive than the old one. William Philpot IV, our estimable operations assistant, tells me the old machine is staying for now and the new machine is here on a three-day trial. The old coffee, he says, came in bags that started tasting funny after a few days.

Jim Gumm, our information technology director and a frequent user of the Bunn, says there was in fact a 15-minute window of good coffee on the old machine, and that theoretically, the new single-serving machine should be better. But what about the coffee, Jim? He says he’d had one cup. “It was OK,” he says. “It seemed tolerable.”

Which is all any of us are hoping for right around now.