Made By Monkeys

With minutes to spare, I was attempting recently to check in at a Eurostar kiosk at Waterloo Station in London. A prompt appeared on screen to hit the "enter" button. After many precious seconds of fruitless searching, and after having to enlist the help of a Eurostar employee (who so didn't want to get off his comfortable chair), all to no avail, I concluded it had to be some French person's idea of some kind of sick joke.

That experience reminded me of an extremely funny challenge that the Photoshop Phriday Forum hosted awhile back called "Increased Difficulty." Readers were invited to make everyday items more difficult to use, like the ATM terminal shown above:

"Sensing that life is too easy and lacking in proper challenge, the Something Awful Forum Goons set out to make everyday things and activities more of a hassle, either to keep you on your toes or encourage you to commit suicide to avoid the constant toil. If you enjoy frustration and eternal woe manifested in the form of challenging snack foods and household items, then you're in for the treat of your life. Also you're insane."

Many of the entries are fiendishly ingenious, from the pennies-only coin slot to the upside-down vending machine, it makes the lack of a mere enter button seem like the stuff of amateurs. Hope you enjoy them!