To start the week. An oldie but a goody!!!
A good laugh for people in the over 60 group !!!
When I bought my Blackberry, I thought about the 30-year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos, pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, my 13 grand kids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.
My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.
The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it’s red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife and everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. I had to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.
I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dashboard, but the lady inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, “Re-calc-u-lating.” You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then if I made a right turn instead. Well, it was not a good relationship…When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.
To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven’t figured out how I lose three phones all at once and have to run around digging under chair cushions, checking bathrooms, and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.
The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden “Paper or Plastic?” every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them with me.
Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, “Paper or plastic?” I just say, “Doesn’t matter to me. I am bi-sacksual.” Then it’s their turn to stare at me with a blank look. I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, No, but I do fart a lot.”
P.S. I know some of you are not over 60. I sent it to you to allow you to forward it to those who are… I figured your sense of humor could handle it…If not… find a sense of humor…. We all need to have one of these !!!.
We senior citizens don’t need any more gadgets. The TV remote and the garage door remote are about all we can handle.
Nice! As well as relatable.
About the navigation voice, in the UK they have a product called TomTom and in 2010 they hired BRIAN BLESSED (“Gordon’s ALIIIVE!”) to voice their navigatin app. It was *awesome.*
Unfortunately I can’t find any sound samples (“Now you’ve MISSED the TURN!!”) and only this video seems to remain: https://youtu.be/-JpKuYbJQK4
Brian Blessed is always the perfect actor for when his character has to blow a gasket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLLBGMSaVFA
Heh. One of our GPS units had downloadable voice skins. We went with Darth Vader. I think we stopped using it because we were laughing too hard to hear the instructions.
I have used Tom Tom here in the US for years. Always wonder how the voice folks managed to not sneak in a few such as “You missed the turn, a**hole” messages in the scripts. If they ever publish such I’ll PAY to download!
Tom- True too!!!
Cranston- Hilarious! My friend ‘reprogrammed’ my Garmin to an Aussie female voice, never did figure out how to get rid of it, so I gave it to my daughter! LOL
Tuvela- Snort… I can believe that!
cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them with me.
Trunk is getting full. It was already jammed with the stuff going to ARC that has been there since Christmas.
Workmate and his siblings bought their father a GPS to replace the compass that has sat on the dash of every car they could remember.
It took the father several readings of the manual and a call to the 800 number but …
Yes, he got the GPS to 1) shut up 2) display compass heading rather than map.
Dad ALWAYS wins
Bob- I never had one like that.
WSF- Good point!
Stretch- LOL, love it!