I’m getting my ass kicked by technology today. We get our internet through our cable provider, and in turn, our email addresses. Our current cable peeps don’t service Maplewood, so long story long, we need new email addresses.
Breezy. I can create new email addresses all the live long day, I just suck at getting them to sync with the electronic devices I use. I suppose I could subsist entirely on webmail, but I wouldn’t like it. I’m a chronic filer. It’s a bit of an issue really. I still have the online shipping receipts from the purchase of my first generation iPod. The iPod is long dead, but the receipt lives on.
Granted, the file-o-philia makes sense from a professional standpoint. My co-workers always know who to ask about a email string from six months ago regarding a cocktail napkin design. Now that it’s spilled over into my personal email, it’s just overkill. I mean, I have yet to get an email from my cousin in Iowa asking for the url of the video with the singing squirrels that Aunt Sharon sent around. My folders could definitely use some purging.
Anyway, I just don’t understand why they can’t make technology more intuitive. It’s not just the smart phones and the computers – everything is confusing or overkill or both. For example, why are the numbers on a keyboard or calculator oriented differently than those on a phone? Who’s idea was that? And if you have one of those touch screen smart phones and open up the calculator, does the keypad switch?
What about your average microwave? (Phone style keypad, by the by.) I mean, in theory that thing has all kinds of automatic settings – defrost by weight and type of meat, reheat based on fluid content and number of servings, etc. You practically need a doctorate to fully utilize the wealth of functions at your fingertips. I’ve had my current microwave for four years. I’ve used exactly one button ever – add one minute. I don’t even type in cook times anymore. (The annoying reversed keypad is no small motivator.) I’d rather just hit the add one minute button repeatedly until I’ve exceeded the appropriate time, then watch like a hawk, counting backwards, until I open the door with thirty seconds left on the clock.
At least my microwave doesn’t come with software. That’s more than I can say for this enigma that is my cell phone. Hell, I’d probably have better luck getting my microwave to sync with my new email accounts. If only there was an add a minute button on my phone.
Remotes suck, too. (Phone style keypad, again.) Well, one remote might not be so bad – it’s the twenty-seven needed to operate the normal setup these days. Cable boxes, and plasmas, and sound systems – oh my! Plus Rocco has some bizarro switcher setup here that I can’t get the hang of for the life of me. Many a day I have to play music off my sad little computer speakers because the only sound I can get out of the stereo is from the Wii. There’s a fair amount of screeching, remote flinging, and angry phone calling on those days. Somehow I don’t see us using that setup in the ‘wood.
I’m debating flinging this phone about, too. Sadly I don’t think it can withstand too many more high impact falls. I have this amazing talent of dropping the phone at the exact perfect angle to ignite an explosion – knocking the phone into at least five different pieces. (Note: this almost always happens on a dirty bathroom floor for some reason. Yum.) To date, I’ve been able to reassemble the phone each time (minus a few screws and minor chunks of the casing). I suspect the minute we finally get the email all set up and the desktop is hibernating safely inside a crate in a far-off warehouse I’ll trip and fall and land on the phone. Then all the king’s horses and all the king’s men…