"The fall of a vending machine, the rise of a star"

Have you ever tried to buy something from the vending machine, only to scream in frustration when it gets stuck on the way down?

On Oct. 17, 2004, one man decided he wasn't going to take it anymore.

That man is UB senior Aaron Kruth.

In Knox Hall around 10 p.m., Kruth was in the middle of rehearsal with his a cappella vocal group, the Mixed Nuts, when his snack got caught in the machine. The events that followed landed him on cable television networks Bravo and VH1.

He decided to take matters into his own hands, resulting in what would soon garner local fame and notoriety for Kruth. The following events were documented on camera that can be seen on www.collegehumor.com.

"Junk food, Goldfish to be specific," was Kruth's stated motive for the assault on the vending machine. After seeing his favorite snack get caught in the machine, Kruth and his friends decided that the only way to get the Goldfish out was to hit the glass with an object that had a "wide surface area," namely Kruth's stomach.

Kruth then proceeded to back up and charge the machine, belly flopping against the glass. He repeated this maneuver half a dozen times with no luck. On the seventh time, his friends were laughing so hard that they decided to record the event with a nearby camcorder. The rest is history.

"I had no intention of breaking the glass," said Kruth, who managed to shatter the strong plexiglass with the might of his seventh gut check. After Kruth realized what had happened, and everyone stopped laughing, he took his Goldfish and returned to rehearsal, fearing he would get in trouble for what he had done.

Kruth laid low for a while, and in the meantime his video began to slowly circulate around the school. Kruth put it on his own Web site, because his friends demanded a way to see it. They had asked him to post it on a larger, more public site, but he did not want to get caught.

"I showed it to some of my friends, who showed it to some of their friends," he said.

The next thing Kruth knew, University Police approached him. After that, there was no reason to keep his video a secret anymore.

"I figured I'm already caught, so I might as well let everyone see it," Kruth said.

Kruth then posted his clip on www.collegehumor.com last December, over a year after the incident actually happened.

He was never charged with a criminal act, but Kruth did plead guilty to an infraction of UB's code of conduct: destroying private property and for disturbing the peace. He was charged with 30 hours of community service, and a fee of $319.22, which included the cost of the glass, the shipping, and the labor.

"It was very hard because I had four weeks to come up with $320. That's more than I make in a month," Kruth said. His buddies, conscious of the bind Kruth was in, came up with an idea to raise the money.

Kruth began to collect donations from fellow students. He brought a bucket with him to classes and placed it in the front of the lecture hall.

"I said that if the clip had made you laugh, then please donate a quarter," he said. "Somehow, I managed to raise over $100."

However, Kruth still needed a way to come up with the rest of the money. That was when the Bravo television network contacted him via e-mail, after seeing his video on collegehumor.com. He sold his clip to them for "a couple hundred dollars," and they used it on their program "Outrageous and Contagious Viral Videos."

The clip was then featured on VH1's "Web Junk" on March 31.

"I didn't necessarily want it to be on VH1," said Kruth. "I did the Bravo thing just to get the money to pay the fine."

Kruth is currently in talks with VH1 about the unauthorized publication of his footage.

Now that he has become something of a local celebrity, Kruth wants the student body to understand where he was coming from.

"I want everyone to know that I never intended on destroying or stealing anything," he said. "If people think that what I did was immature and stupid, then they're absolutely right. However, at the same time, you can't deny that it is hilarious to watch."

The clip is available at www.collegehumor.com/movies/1641861.