techno-talk

A New TV

/ skidaz / Leave a comment

Due to the recent haboob and electrical storms, my TV went to live with Jesus. Even though I rarely watch the idiot box and I do have several others scattered in other rooms, I decided to replace this dead one in my family room. Now, I don’t know anything about televisions, nor technology. I don’t care how they work, I don’t want to know anything about pixels, or any other crap I don’t understand. On and off, volume up and down, and channel change is enough for me. I don’t care about OLED, QLED, nor XYZ, etc. Size, price, online ordering with free delivery were my only criteria.

When I ordered one, I chose not to pay the hefty fee for setup and programming. Hell, any teenager would gladly do that for a Ben Franklin. And along came a brilliant young guy, who graciously unpacked the box and set up the boob tube in less than 20 minutes!

“Here’s the remote. I’m not sure it works because I couldn’t figure out how to put in the AAA batteries.”

“Sue, the remote has a solar cell. Just keep it in the light.”

“But what if it’s dark?”

“Plug it in the charger.”

“What if I want to watch Thursday Murder Club? How do I type it in?” Oops, I saw him roll his eyes; he knew he was dealing to an old technically-challenged immigrant.

“Sue, it’s easy. See this icon? It looks like a microphone. Press it down, and speak clearly. You can say ‘Bixby or Alexa, Thursday Murder Club, and it will appear. Here. You try.”

“Well, I’ll be damned! There it is.”

And once again, this old broad learned a new trick. Happy Labor Day.

Dr. Suze Is an Immigrant

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In the past two weeks, I’ve experienced what it is like to be the proverbial stranger in a foreign land.  My heart aches for the numerous children that sailed into Ellis Island over a hundred years ago and encountered a new language, culture, and social mores.  My heart aches for the numerous children who fled from poverty and Mexican drug cartels.  My heart aches for the current refugee children fleeing their homelands in search of safety and security.  Most of these children came to American public schools where they not only encountered a new language, but often the feeling of intellectual inadequacy.

I feel their pain.  First, it took me a while to learn teenage slang.  My daughters were continually using words like rad, meh, and tight, which in my mind were meaningless in context.  Then I was forced to learn text talk.  I vividly remember receiving a text from one of them–FOFL.  What does that mean?  And now there’s texting for seniors!  Just yesterday, I texted one of my high school friends and asked, “How are you?”

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His reply, “LOL.”  Hmm.  Why was he laughing out loud?  He wasn’t.  He was Living On Lipitor!  I inquired, “Where are you?”

His reply, “BFF.” Another strange answer, which meant Best Friend’s Funeral in senior speak. 

By now, I was crazy and responded, “WTF?”  I literally meant what the f@#k!

His reply, “Sue, really?  You wet the furniture?”

So as I struggle to learn a new computer and a new printer, I’ve been forced to learn another new language.  Bear with me.  Someday I may understand what an iCloud is.

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Dr. Suze Says Is Dead

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It’s true.  My blog died several weeks ago with the advent of a new computer, and the switch from a pc to Mac has almost killed me off!  I’ve spent copious hours reading online manuals and watching tutorials; I swear learned nothing!  Even though I thought I could read, listen, and understand English, technological talk renders me illiterate.

It chaps my heinie that simplistic directions of “how-tos” have been so confounded for folk my age.  Can you even imagine how difficult it would be to execute a Betty Crocker recipe written in techno-talk?

  1. Open your search engine.  Enter the exact name of the recipe.
  2. Click on the button.
  3. When the recipe appears, scroll downward using the arrow key.
  4. Note the ingredients needed.  If you need help, press the help icon.
  5. To alter the portion setting, press the space bar by the number of servings needed.  If you need 12 servings, press 12 times.
  6. If you enter serving amount incorrectly, press F7 to go back.

Ad infinitum!

I was doubly foolish.  I bought a new printer.  THE printer created by some genius who delighted in making my life absolutely frustrating and miserable for two weeks.  When I finally got it to print, I tried to scan.  Of course, there were no directions, except online.  I found them and clicked on print, so I could follow them.  A message appeared: Do you want to print all 196 pages?  WTF?  Is this the great American novel?

But my nightmare didn’t stop.  The sound bar on my “smart tv” fell silent.  The more buttons I pushed, the more online advice I read, just made matters worse.  Fortunately, I was somewhat lucid enough to buy another, less sophisticated sound bar that works…as of this moment.

With that being said, please be patient.  Dr. Suze Espouses is a work in progress.  It takes a long time to teach this old dog.